The first conversation we had as a group was whether our discussions could be videotaped for a web podcast. Although there was much discussion, the general sense was that if the camera were on, some folks would not be able to share what they really thought, but rather would speak in an official capacity. I looked across the room and caught the eye of Phyllis Tickle — founding editor of the religion department of Publishers Weekly and an authority on Emergence Christianity — and realized I was not the only person surprised and discouraged by this conclusion.

Thus began my experience with mainline Protestant denominational leaders and members of the emergence church movement during a gathering at Claremont School of Theology. Called “Rekindling Theological Imagination: Transforming Thought for Progressive Action.” The conference was designed as an opportunity to reflect on how our denomination’s theology informs our work in social justice and how our social justice ministries shape our theology. What happened was more enlightening than I could have imagined.

I was invited to attend the conference by Tripp Fuller, a PhD student at Claremont, a progressive Baptist, and a prolific blogger at www.homebrewedchristianity.com. I was excited to be a part of a conversation I thought would be about the state of the mainline Protestant church and what we might do to transform the church and its theology. Unfortunately, much of the conference was over before we really got honest with one another.

A United Methodist bishop finally spoke the powerful truth that had been hanging in the air: “The church in the United States is not just dying; we’ve had cancer for a long time and we’ve been seeking every kind of possible treatment due to our vast resources. Now we are in the bargaining stage of grief.”

What struck me most in this gathering is how much the Alliance of Baptists is in an “in between” space. In many ways the Alliance is like a denomination: We have affiliated churches, we do missions, we endorse chaplains and pastoral counselors, we offer retirement and health benefits, and we are members of the National Council of Churches.

On the other hand, the Alliance is a movement. We don’t have buildings, large staff, expansive infrastructure, or seminaries to tend. We have the freedom to ask where the Spirit is moving and to go there as faithfully as we know how. As an Alliance founder Mahan Siler said to me, “At our best, the Alliance has been risking faithfulness around the movement of God in our time.”

This is not to say, of course, that other denominations can’t or don’t listen for the call of God. They do listen and they are faithful. The challenge is how to adjust a large organizational structure — built when there were no computers and no Internet — to the rapid social, cultural, and technological changes in which we all find ourselves. Every denomination present at the conference — from UCC to PCUSA to AME to ELCA — faces declining membership and revenue.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of folks (many of them young) are hungering for an authentic faith experience that is marked by openness, inclusiveness, integrity, compassion, and a call to something bigger than themselves. I can’t even count how many Alliance folks I have talked with during the last two years who can’t find a church home where they live and want to start an Alliance congregation that is creative, free, and inclusive. Additionally, each month of 2009 has seen a new congregation affiliate with the Alliance of Baptists, both historic congregations and new churches.

Why is this excitement and growth happening in the Alliance while most of Protestantism in North America is struggling? I think it is because folks are beginning to see the Alliance as embodying the best of what church, faith, and spiritual formation can and should be. I think it is because the Alliance has a deep heritage of being a prophetic witness and fighting for justice, while welcoming all who may come. I think it is because the Alliance has the freedom to re-imagine and re-create what it means to do and be a denomination/association/movement today.

When the time came for me to speak on one of the panels during this conference, I told a bit about the Alliance’s story — most folks in the room had never even heard of us. Then I shared my metaphor of how the Alliance as a movement is seeking not to be a supermarket as denominations have been for more than 50 years, but rather a farmers’ market: an organic, emerging, democratic, contextual, and life-giving way of connecting churches and individuals. I also shared my experience of speaking my truth about the church during these past couple of years as a denominational leader and how challenging and liberating that has been for me and, I think, for the Alliance. I expressed this as a sign of hope for the church and for those seeking an authentic and open expression of Christian faith and practice. And that’s how Phyllis Tickle and I became friends.

And that’s how Phyllis learned about this movement/association/denomination called the Alliance of Baptists and became a fan on Facebook! Won’t you join her?