EDGEWALKERS

Last year, my colleague Beth Estock pointed me to a Richard Rohr piece about Edge-walkers.  This prompted me to go searching the use of the term, and to discover a 2006 book entitled Edgewalkers by Judi Neal.  The reason for our fascination with the term: we both have become convinced that there is a new breed of leaders, who are especially helpful in this era, who walk with one foot in the established institutions but with another foot into the world beyond.  These characters become bridge builders, prophets, instruments of renewal and more.

A few weeks ago, Beth and I recorded a conversation on the Church is Changing podcast (which we co-host) about Edge-walking,  I commend to you the podcast: https://soundcloud.com/field-preachers/church-is-changing-episode-43-edgewalkers.

I am an Edge-walker.  It started when I was a kid in Southern California, growing up in two parallel worlds: the world of a vibrant church with a powerful sense of the immanence of God on one hand, and the world of a secular society in which few of my friends went to any church at all – and yet were amazing human beings with a moral compass and a more expansive view of community than we had at church.  Once, when I was about 13, I wondered out loud how would I ever connect these two worlds.  I was in a steamy bathroom, when I took my hand to clear the mirror, so that I could look myself in the eye, and I said to myself, “Paul Nixon, you are going to have to figure this out.”  This became a major piece of my call to ministry, and it has become my life work.

Recently, as I have coached and consulted with scores of leaders from year unto year, I began to realize that more of my ministry colleagues of late are also Edgewalkers.  These characters were always around – but somehow, recently they seem more numerous or at least more noticeable.

It is a critical moment in history, and in church history.  The 500-year shift into a new epoch that folks such as Phyllis Tribble warned us about, is now well underway.  And our Christian institutions created for the waning epoch are moving into serious decline.  It is a moment when God’s New Thing(s) are beginning to spring forth – in synergy and symphony with spiritual friends who live, by choice, outside the walls of church or religious institution.

On this marvelous journey through the 2020s, I am blessed to be touched by some amazing Edgewalkers.  Male and female they come; although anecdotally, I think there are more women than men living in this mode at this time.

One amazing Edgewalker that I would like to lift up is a pastor, my pastor: the Reverend Jane Voigts of The United Methodist Church of Palm Springs, California.  Pastor Jane  lives with rootedness in two worlds, the world of classical Christianity and the world of secular Southern California, with some personal history in the entertainment industry.  As a result of this, she moves with ease between worlds in our community: Jane has a social life that far eclipses the inside world of our congregation.  She is at home in so many other spaces in our community, ranging from social circles who share a bitter taste with organized religion on one hand to ur local black community – in fact she led our majority white church down pathways which resulted in our receiving the 2024 Social Justice Award from the local Black History Committee.

It is no accident that our church house has been filling up of late with an increasingly eclectic group of characters, many who have lived at a distance from organized church for decades.  It is no accident that the flow and vibe of our worship has shifted enough to leave the old timers a bit uncomfortable at times, as she has sought to make space for new cultures of people whose spirits resonate with the Gospel.

I get to serve alongside an Edgewalker pastor!  I am so blessed.  We at UMCPS are blessed.  To be part of a thriving church in these post-Covid times is a rare treat!  As a result, God has brought a most beautiful ensemble cast together to do ministry in the 2020s in our community.  It would not have happened without a pastor who dared to live life on the edge of church world, and beyond!