What is the 'emerging church'?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 10:56AM My friend Arthur, who is the Children's Pastor at Bryanston Methodist Church, sent me an email about the emerging Church. WOW Art, this blows my mind! AND...., your blog needs updating.....
What is the emerging Church? Here's a quote from the paper you can download below:
Perhaps a little Mark Twain tomfoolery will give us a fresh start. Here's the urban legend: The emerging movement talks like Lutherans - which means they cuss and use naughty words; they evangelize and theologize like the Reformed - which means, in the first case, they don't do much of it, and in the second, they do it all the time; they confess their faith like the mainliners - which means they say things publicly they don't really believe in their hearts; they drink like Episcopalians - which means - to steal some words from Mark Twain - they are teetotalers sometimes - when it is judicious to be one; they worship like the charismatics - which means with each part of the body, some parts of which have tattoos; they vote liberal - which means they all move to Massachusetts come election time; they deny truth - which means Derrida is carried in their backpacks.
Ha! Isn't that GREAT! I loved the bit about worshiping with every part of the body, "some of which have tattoos"!
Download Scot McKnight's address to the Westminster Theological Seminary on the emerging Church here. (Gus, you and I will enjoy this guy, he is a progressive New Testament scholar! Very few of those around! Except you and I of course ;-)
Wes, I would love to hear your learned thoughts (being a Doctor of the ecclesiological arts yourself).
The article is a GREAT read, and certainly resonates with my idea of what the Church should be! I will be using some of this when I preach at the Highveld and Swaziland SYNOD of the Methodist Church in a few weeks!
Reader Comments (3)
Thanks for the reminder on my blog!! Yes - I have been slack on this for some time now :(
However, I have also been exploring other areas of life and so have begun to author another blog- http://sahomebiz.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow">@Home.Biz
For years I have had an interest in business, marketing and so on and this blog is just an attempt for me to learn more and share my thoughts with the world! Not sure there is anything mind-blowing or earth-shattering there but I find it a fun diversion!
That said, I will heed your wisdom and write some more on my ministry blog!
Let me study it, but at the mean time I have written something of what the church should NOT be. This morning I preached a sermon on the difference between belonging to a club and belonging to a community. Key thought: How do we deal with diversity?
Just found your blog! Catching up on all your news and your brand new baby! Much love from Nic and Heather in Arizona, USA