September 25, 2006

From the Archives: The Pendulum Swings...

I wrote this in May of 2005... The more things change, the more they stay the same...


Tuesday morning is when I work on our weekly email... Constant Contact seems to be crashing right now, so while I wait for them to get their act together...


To every action there is a reaction. The pendulum swings one way, then the other, and back in the first direction. Rinse, repeat.

I understand completely the nervousness with which many are currently looking at the whole emerging church thing. At this point, the pendulum is swinging towards what has classically been categorized as liberal thought. The quickest way in Christendom to unleash a hailstorm of "heretic!" is to take even a step in this direction. The slippery slope metaphor is one we seem to hold always in the forefront of our minds.

That having been said, I see the point of some of the criticism.

So, here's what drew me to the emergent conversation, and what I hope can be retained. I want these emphases to remain alive and kicking in this conversation.

The first thing that drew me to this whole deal was a renewed emphasis on the Gospel. Not that we were rediscovering it, but that we were digging away some of the cultural accretions, remembering some forgotten aspects... moving back to something Kingdom centered and away from the simplification of the Gospel down to basically the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. Notice I didn't say tossing out that view of the atonement, but simply recognizing that there's more to the Gospel.
Mark Driscoll was/is great on this. I've had my issues with Mark (Note to all: Don't ever call things you don't like "faggoty"... particularly in a sunday sermon. Not good), but one thing he hammers and hammers well is the Gospel. Not the Gospel of the Individual asking Jesus into his heart... but the full-bodied, robust, Gospel of the Kingdom that is about the Savior breaking into this world and transforming it from the inside out. The Gospel of a Savior who loves us as we are, but is not content in any way, shape or form to leave either us or our world as it is. A Gospel not just for death ("Believe in Jesus so that when you die you can go to heaven"), but for this life. I think at a certain point Mark dropped out of the emerging conversation and I really wish he hadn't.
(Todd Hunter has had some amazing things to say on this as well.)

I guess what I'm saying is that I want us to talk more about the Gospel.

I hope that the emerging conversation can remember even as we think through changes in our methodology and our ministry philosophy and even as we process our theology- the point was to renew our passion for the Gospel and the world and the God who worked through the first to reach the second-to become missional. Yes, we can see God in everything and everyone, but if we can't also see that He wants to redeem everything, that He died for a reason,that mankind has a need and that only Jesus will fill it... we may end up eventually in the same place as some of our forefathers and mothers- presiding over some culturally relevant but spiritually impotent communities, which may feed people's physical hunger, but have sometimes forgotten about the greatest hunger of all.

Sep 25, 2006 5:43:00 AM | emerging church jive

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missional... Last week I was doing some reading up for a class I'll be teaching in a couple of weeks on the missional Church. Some of the cooler resources I came across were these... Becoming Missional Steve's complilation of links for Driscoll and Keller videos with the two of them discussing various issues of church and culture And then there was this. Friend of Missional. I thought... "that's cool!" and I considered doing some writing on the coming split between those who are more comfortable with "missional" and those with "emerging." But I shelved it, wanting to think more about the disctinction, and specifically, more about whether it's one I want to make. But then Robbymac picked it up! I spent a day with Mike Frost about a year ago- he was the first I had heard who made a point of making a distinction between "missional" and "emerging"... He described most of those down under, Like himself, and Hirsch and Forge as being part of something more missional. He called it the kissing cousin of the emerging church, but saw some pretty important distinctions, mostly theological. And now more and more are beginning to make the distinction. It seems as...
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the blue screen of death in Bob's head... Days like yesterday make me want to crawl into a fetal position... At least that's how I felt yesterday afternoon. If you've read my blog very much, you know I'm an occasional sufferer of PMS (Pastor's Monday Syndrome). Actually, it's gotten much, much better over the last year, and really has shifted more to Sunday afternoon syndrome, but still... It happens. So yesterday. I know this won't sound like much, and even as I think about it now, it seems less of a thing... I started getting sick right before our gathering. You know how you feel a head cold/sore throat thing as it approaches? It approached. In fact, it came right in and made itself at home. So, I'm feeling physically crappy. Also- last week we got the word that the pastor of a somewhat emergent-esque church here in PDX had resigned due to some long-running sexual issues. So, that's in the back of my mind when I hear yesterday morning that another pastor is resigning due to an affair- not someone here in PDX, but the father of a friend. That stuff really hits me. Even more so when it happens to someone I know and care about....

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