Mark D Williamson's Profile Page

Hometown:

Rolling Meadows / Palatine, IL

About Me:

I serve as Associate Pastor of St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wheaton, IL, and live in the same town, a west suburb of Chicago. Some of the adjectives I use to describe what kind of Christian I am include: evangelical, catholic, Lutheran, orthodox, postliberal, emerging...oh, and "unfinished" (thanks for that one Brian McClaren).

Personal Website:

http://bookoffaith.ning.com/profile/MarkDWilliamson

Prefered Network (link to your facebook, myspace, blogger profile):

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1032643343&ref=profile

Who am I? (Many ways to answer this -- be as creative as you want, or not.)

"Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine." (Bonhoeffer)

How did I get into "emerging ministry"?

I have been drawn to the emerging church conversation because I am something of a misfit between my "mainline" denomination (the ELCA) and the world of (neo-)evangelicalism, feeling completely at home in neither but wanting to take the best from both. So I am praying that the emergence is a convergence, and that through the movement we will bear a stronger witness to the Body of Christ and the one Spirit who unites us.

Say a little bit about the community you share life with...

St. Paul Church describes itself often as "an open, affirming, and inclusive church." Some of our strengths include our welcome of those who have experienced exclusion or marginalization from other branches of the Christian family; our valuing of liturgy, music, and the arts; and our engagement in social ministries in the community. Recently we committed ourselves as a congregation to the Book of Faith Initiative, a biblical fluency movement in the ELCA, and there is presently much enthusiasm for this fresh immersion in the scriptures. Every once and a while someone will say that we are "a church in Wheaton but not of Wheaton," which sounds terrific and is sometimes true.

What are the most pressing questions (both theological and practical) you and your community have?

St. Paul sometimes suffers from progressivism--a disorder that leads us to believe we are more highly evolved or enlightened than other parts of the church. In truth, we often still sound like modernists, setting ourselves over against those Christians branded literalists, but not as able to say who we are or what we believe. Through our Enlightenment allegiances, God's world seems to have lost some of its enchantment and we hunger to regain our sense of wonder. A starting place, I believe, is to recover an appreciation for the gospel as story, and be weaned off our bad habit of reducing the truth to hard facts.