Say hi to Michelle and the family.

Toby

To Bill, #5, I hear your concerns about this critique. I will say that I stated clearly in my paper:

The scope of the “Emergent” in this author’s critique will focus on the movement found in North America and largely defined by the Emergent Village.

There is a larger movement out there that is being characterized by this group. The more conservative churches seem to be harder to find. They also are willing to “associate” with more liberal churches and get classified as the same.

Romans 6:23 (New International Version)
23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.

Plain and simple Jesus paid a price for our Sins, we should not be so flippant in saying if we do the right thing all is good.

The red flags went up when I kept hearing the pastor mention the leader of the churches (AKA gatherings) at every sermon. I went their web site. It took me only a minute to pick up they were an emerging church. They have a list of their vision and beliefs, but then they have a link to the Baptist Convention for more statement beliefs. I also dug a little bit deeper and found some articles on this leader re: Emberent Church.

It was cool to stumble across your article while looking up information on all of this.

The scary part is that I know there a lot that attend the church that doesn’t have a clue what is going on. The think it is cool to see someone painting on the side of the stage while the pastor is giving his sermon and the praise and worship is more like a concert.

Thanks for directing me toward this article. Without sounding too critical, it sounds like you have read a few things about the Emergent Church, but have never really visited one, or spoken to an Emergent church’s pastor. The Emergent movement is very broad and deep, in my opinion, and I think your paper would have had a better title if it reflected the fact that you seemed to have only visited one Emergent church’s website.
It is very easy to catagorize a movement based on one Christianity Today article and one church website, and a couple of books. But I think you might have gotten a much deeper (and in my opinion, honest) impression on what the Emergent movement is if you had read some of these Emergent pastors sermons, blogs, books, etc. I’ve been deeply impressed by the work of Ecclesia in Houston TX, and in Mosaic in LA.
Blessings Jay - hope we’re still friends. See you at lunch.

[Bill, no need to worry about our friendship. Thanks for the insight. -Jay]

As a pastor, one of the most difficult things is the pressure of having to be “cutting edge” all the time. I love being creative, but creativity takes so much energy on top of all the other responsibilities. In addition, there is incredible inertia from a large part of the church to not be creative, but to maintain. Sometimes I feel like I’m the one dangling by my feet while I hear Solomon say, “cut the baby in half!”

It seems to me that part of the draw to emergent church is that it is fresh and uncharted.

I really found your Emerging Church paper really interesting, especially since up until this Sunday we were attending one of these type of churches. The church wasn’t this way when we started going there 12 years ago and it’s a long story how the church hopped on board in becoming an emerging style church.

I believe part of the entire problem is the congregation. I am sure you run across this, it is amazing how many people that have been in church all of their lives do not know the basic foundation of Christianity. It is so important churches teach the “basics” and stop getting off into the “new trend” of things.