"If it gets people to church, why should we not do anything possible, short of something immoral or illegal to get people there?"
Burger King Christianity...
"At its heart, the Gospel is a message with something to offend everyone. For the postmoderns, the Gospel proclaims an authority and a truth- a King. For the moderns, the Gospel proclaims a God who can be experienced, not just theorized about propositionally- a Friend. For the liberals, the Gospel and God’s Kingdom give us a system of morality that will undoubtedly seem “regressive.” For the conservatives, the place of the poor in the Kingdom and in God’s heart is a huge challenge."
Seven Questions, pt 1
"What do you see as the four (because three is too traditional) differences between the community of faith you are serving, and those churches in your area?
Well...we meet in a pub, which at least on the surface would be a huge one. That means we exist in a public space. One effect this has on our community is that we very much feel the “strangers” part of our Christian identity. We are perpetual guests, existing in someone else’s context, attempting always to bless our hosts and yet to be countercultural and proclaim the Gospel clearly. It’s a challenge. I think that churches who exist in their own spaces, particularly the ones who build up their own campuses that act as small towns, often lose this sense of aliens and guests…"
Seven Questions, pt 2
"I think postmoderns need an open source community, one they can help create and tinker with and change… and that’s a challenge because it means re-inventing a lot of wheels- wheels that don’t necessarily need to be reinvented (we could buy some great children’s curriculum somewhere, for instance), but our community will be better because we’ve gone through the process of making things our own and making our own things. But it’s also a challenge for the whole community, to watch the ditches on the side of the road and make sure that in our rethinking and reinventing we don’t drift off into weird heresies or become so individualized that we lose sight of 'one another.'"
Seven Questions, pt 3/4
"The Word of God is central to what we do on Sundays. It's in and through and over the whole thing. Yes, we try to communicate in such a way as to make sense to everyone- church, unchurched, formerly churched... But that doesn't mean we cherry pick it or seeker sensitive it..."
Seven Questions, pt 5/6
"Mark, you are standing at a crossroads right now. Down one road lies all kinds of applause and kudos from a lot of people who already agree with you. They'll slap you on the back every time you lash out at "those who drink from the toilet of emergent theology" and they'll high five you every time you put another "limp wristed" "homo-evangelical" in his place. Your stock among the Truly Reformed will rise... and those who identify in any way, shape or form with the emerging church conversation will write you off completely as an obnoxious, arrogant ass. The young preachers you supposedly want to influence will miss what you are saying to them because of the way that you are saying it to them.
But down the other road is actually having an influence on all the people and churches you claim to be so concerned about.
And the difference between taking one road or another lies primarily in your ability to control your tongue."
Some thoughts for Mark Driscoll
"Here's the story... when we started, one of the things I put into the category of "Don't do for the people the ministry they should do for themselves" was kid's ministry. In our core group phase (a month or two before our first child was born) I'd look around at the group and say things like "We're going to have a kid soon. I was wondering what you guys are thinking of doing about that." They'd look at each other and say things like, "Uh... Well we thought that was your job."
Nope."
bob.blog: children...
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