Midwest Emergent Gathering - need help!

I'm working with some fellow Emergent cohort leaders to put on a conference in the Chicago area this summer focused on "Creating Missional Communities". We are personally inviting emerging churches around the Midwest to get on board and help us pull off this event by committing to attend. Here is the letter that I've sent out to 76 emerging church pastors from 9 states. If any of you here would like to join in too, that would be great!

Dear missional/emerging church leader,

This is Mike Clawson. I’m the pastor of a new emerging church in the suburbs of Chicago, and I also coordinate the Chicago area Emergent cohort, up/rooted. I’ve become aware of your church as one here in the Midwest that is part of the missional/emerging church movement (to whatever degree – naturally definitions and labels are difficult). I’m getting in touch because I wanted to ask for your help with a very cool event that several Midwestern cohorts are putting together this coming summer.

Back in November I was hanging out in Seattle with the leaders of the Indianapolis and West-Michigan cohorts at the Revolution Conference, and we started complaining about how all the good conferences are on the coasts. We decided that there needed to be an Emergent gathering right here in the Midwest, so we started talking to authors, speakers, pastors and others leaders about coming to a conference in the Chicago area. Already we’ve had interest expressed by people like Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, Spencer Burke, Nanette Sawyer, Dave Fitch, Denise VanEck, Joe Myers and many others.

The long and short of it is that we will be hosting a Midwest Emergent Gathering this summer, July 20-21, in Rolling Meadows, IL (a northwest suburb of Chicago). It’ll be a chance to get together with emerging church types from all over the Midwest. The theme will be “Creating Missional Communities”. We’ll get speakers and workshop leaders to talk about their particular missional communities – whether cohorts, church plants, mega-churches, house churches, intentional communities, traditional mainline or evangelical churches, etc. – and allow time for us to discuss and learn together, and hopefully be inspired with new ideas and fresh passion to take back to our own faith communities.

As the leader of an emerging faith community here in the Midwest, I wanted to ask you personally to get on board with us in making this event happen. While there are a handful of us from the Chicago and Indianapolis cohorts who are doing most of the planning and leg-work, we do need your help in getting the word out and supporting it financially by committing early to attending and paying your registration cost up-front so that we have money to work with. Basically we’re asking you to own the vision for this conference along with us and partner with us to make it a reality.

Specifically, I’d like to ask for your help in three ways:

1. Promote it within your church community and especially with your leaders. Email the info to your folks, post it at your blog or website, print it in your bulletin, talk about it at your gatherings. We would love to see each church send at least 4-6 people (or more) to this conference.
2. Find 2-3 people from your church who will commit early to attending the conference and who will pay their $50 conference fee by the end of March.
3. Keep in touch with the conference planning team as the event approaches, let us know how many people to expect from your church, and send us any suggestions you have for the conference (speakers, workshop presenters, activities, etc.) related to the theme. We won’t be able to use every idea, but the more possibilities we have to work with, the better.
   

If you are interested in helping in these ways, please let me know as soon as possible, and I’ll be in touch with more details.

Thanks & Blessings,

-Mike Clawson
up/rooted co-coordinator
&
Pastor of Via Christus Community Church
Yorkville, IL