Paul Laughlin is on a journey...
[03.06]

Hi, welcome to our virtual coffee shop. Pull up a chair, take the load of your feet. Let's chat.

So who are you, where you from, what do you do in life?
Paul Laughlin UK. I manage a team of analysts providing marketing analysis (e.g. reduce junk mail) for a UK insurance company.

Can I get you a drink? Cappucino, earl grey, dandelion and burdock, pale ale?
A real ale would be nice, but with all the concern over drinking in our society I’ll just indulge my vice for too much caffeine and have a frothy cappuccino.

Would you like a doughnut or pastry to go with that?
There’s always time for cake! Ask anyone who knows me…

So, if you had to describe the church/project/experiment/thingy you are currently involved with in one sentence, what would that sentence be?
My own theological journey within a church that sees things differently but is great on family, grace, kids, music and fun (oh and cakes as well)…

Are you an instigator? / new recruit? / have absolutely no recollection of how you got involved?
New recruit I guess, but I have been spending over 10 years now changing from being a Calvinist to an Arminian and then onto an Open Theist/Progressive Evangelical (so I was on a journey anyway).

What do you value most about being part of it?
Truth matters to me (strange thing for someone into this post-modern experiment to say I guess??), but I also need the warmth of a loving family as I stumble along my journey to it…

What excites you most about it?
It enables all the different concerns/convictions or ‘heresies’ that I have held to feel part of a bigger story. Now they make more sense and I feel less like a troublemaker.

Has anyone ever turned up out of the blue not knowing what to expect?
What did they say?
When people turn up at our church (which is not yet emerging – just me) they are pleasantly surprised by the warmth, musical talent, cakes, fun and family feel. But the preaching scares them off sometimes – our pastor can tend to get into evangelical rants sometimes; even though he is really very pastoral and very gracious with individuals.

Three words that describe your attitude to 'being church' in the big wide world: SERVE
JUSTICE
PROPHETIC-SIGN

Three words that DON'T:
‘PRAISE & WORSHIP TIME’
DOGMA/PREDESTINATION
DISCIPLINE (as you see I can’t even keep to rules of 3 words)

You have this weird dream - you meet Jesus face to face.
Where does it happen, what does he say to you?
Work “So much loneliness, pain and fear around here, behind the veneer of success, come with me and let me show you how to help”

What's the big secret you're itching to share with everyone?
This movement has synergy with other truth journeys within the bigger ‘progressive evangelical’ tent. If people have not already, I recommend reading Clark Pinnock and the other Open Theists. I’m sure you’d also be inspired by people like Dallas Willard (and the Renovare gang), Greg Boyd, Bishop Tom Wright, John Eldridge (and the Wild at Heart gang). Wesley and the early Wesleyan writers, plus earlier fathers like Ireanaus. Roger Forster (and the Ichthus gang).

What would your 'emerging church survival kit' contain?
Powerful stories and a way of incorporating these into church gatherings.

Anything else you'd like to share with us before you have to rush off?
Consider adopting. It is a calling from God that has blessed us, even after having 4 birth children. But remember this we are called for what we can put in not what we can get out.

Thanks. Good to see you. Have a good day!