Tall Skinny Kiwi

Coming back soon. But first a plug for the emerging church forum.

OK. That month of silence was really good for me. And, [you add], it was really good for us also!

Thanks. I appreciate that.

I plan to start blogging again here really soon. I have some clarity on how this blog needs to get back to its roots as a global mission blog. More on that later. Right now, we are about to drive across Germany to reach Poland where the Slot Art Festival takes place next week.

Some highlights next week.

I am moderating a panel discussion on the global emerging church on Wednesday July 8th, at 3pm.

Global Emerging Church: Is the movement dead? stopped? run its course? OR is its still fulfilling its objective and running its course? Where did it come from and where is it going? How does it differ from continent to continent?

Participants include:

Jonny Baker (CMS, emergingchurch.info) for UK

Ian Nicholson (24/7 Prayer) for Europe

Wolfgang Fernandez (Next-Step) for Asia.

Becky Garrison for USA

Olgavaro Bastos Jnr (Tribal Generation) for South and Central America

I am also speaking at a main session on the last day in Sy Rogers place because Sy has to leave a day early. And I am helping out with the Global Roundtable for Emerging and Underground Leaders. If you make it to SLOT, please say hello. The last time we were at Slot was 2 years ago and my thoughts and pictures were blogged here.

Rock Harbor an Emerging Church?

Its an interesting conversation for some. Rock Harbor Church is an item in the blogs right now after Lighthouse Trails gave them a hard time for being an "emerging church" and Rock Harbor has responded with a video. Phoenix Preacher has the skinny and is following the conversation. I wrote my thoughts a few years ago on Rock Harbor, which I did not consider an emerging church, as if that really matters to anyone or not. All quite silly, actually. Not quite sure why I am blogging this.

Baptists and the Emerging Church

Hi everyone from yesterday's Baptist meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. Thanks for coming to the meeting and for such an inspiring and encouraging afternoon. REALLY REALLY GREAT to be with you.

Here are some links related to our talk yesterday about emerging church, church planting, etc.

"The Emergent/Emerging Church: A Missiological Perspective" Dr. Ed Stetzer, Fall 2008, Vol. 5. No. 2. The Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry, The Baptist Center of Theology & Ministry: A Research Institute of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. You can download the PDF here. On the same document is a great response to Stetzer by Dr Jack Allen Jnr - its hilarious and clever and thoughtful. You will LOVE it!

Also:

- You will find information and thoughts on the Fourth Sector and mission here on my blog.
- Video of Dr. Francis Dubose who brought the "missional" term back into use in 1984.
- My thoughts on "missional"
- Tribute to Bro Thom Wolf

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Is the Virtual Church a REAL Church?

Douglas Estes, one of the participants of yesterday's Cyberchurch Symposium, and who managed to get lost in London twice during our walk [must be a curious fellow] is releasing a book on the Cyberchurch in a few months. He interviewed me for the book and a few questions I just dug up from an old email might be worth blogging here, whether they make it into his book or not. And if even I change my mind down the road.

Douglas: Is the virtual church a real/genuine church?

Andrew: Absolutely not. But neither is a physical gathering in a church building on a Sunday morning. The body of Christ is a spiritual aggregation of believers whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. That body finds itself aggregated, or called out into assembly with each other, in both physical and virtual gatherings. There are seeking non-believers in both physical and virtual aggregations so neither expression can claim to be fully church. And also, there are believers in physical churches who connect with each other online during the week and there are believers from cyber-churches and online faith communities who intentionally seek out physical meetings when possible. The dividing line between the two is therefore more artificial than actual.

Douglas: Is it possible for a virtual church to be missional, and more importantly, is it possible for a virtual church (due to its nature) to be more truly missional than a real world church?

Andrew: The church needs to be missional in both physical and virtual worlds. That means allowing the form of church to be shaped by the context, and on the internet that means the missional church will take native forms and seek to find its place inside them. Being missional in the virtual world means recapitulation over representation. It is not translating your Sunday service into a Second Life experience but rather transcoding from the ground-up inside platforms.

How To Gate-crash a Cyberchurch Service and Take Over the Pulpit.

This Saturday, leaders of online faith communities come together for a Symposium in London. I am hosting the event, actually, In preparation, I thought I would upload a video of my time at Church of Fools, a cyberchurch experience which would later would lead to St Pixels Church.

It was 2004, opening day, and I was videoing the whole event through screen capture. I wanted to get a better shot of people's faces so, yes, I crashed the pulpit. It sounds terribly rebellious and irresponsible but I was invisible to all but myself, like a ghost, although some people thought they saw a shadow on the stage while the Bishop of London gave his sermon. They were right.

Luckily for me, the Bishop of London decided to step down from the pulpit and let me have it. After that service, they blocked off the front altar so it became a much greater challenge to take over the pulpit.

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Exploring the Emerging Church Conference Today

Interesting conference on today in Michigan. Exploring the Emerging Church: Theology, Culture, Ritual, and Meaning, hosted by Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. A book will be emerging from this conference and a list of budding chapters can be downloaded here and read. I am guessing the authors will be kicking around the material today.

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Reforming or Conforming? Chapter 7

Church and Community or Community and Church? by Ronald Gleason
From the book Reforming or Conforming? Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church

This chapter by Ronald Gleason and Phil Johnson's chapter, were the best ones in the book for me so I am responding to them before the others, in case I dont get to the whole book. Both men have some history with the emerging church conversation and have done their homework. I have chatted to both by email in the past.

Ron Gleason sees evangelicalism sliding down a slippery slope over the past 4 decades, characterized by these landmarks:
1. A glaring lack of and disdain for the historical Christian tradition
2. A thirst and desire for "tangible" religion
3. A hunger for genuine community and relationship.

Technorati Tags: emergent, emerging church, reformed, reforming or conforming

Reforming or Conforming? Chapter 9

Joyriding on the Downgrade at Breakneck Speed: The Dark Side of Diversity, by Phil Johnson. From the book Reforming or Conforming? Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church

Phil Johnson has written the best chapter in the book and in fact should probably have written the introduction. If you buy the book, read this chapter first and it will add light to the whole conversation. He does well in setting the scene. He acknowledges blogs as well as books (Phil is an accomplished blogger himself and quite the digital artist) and he compliments the ECM on recognizing the mega-shift of postmodernity and "sounding a wake-up call."

He says "the movement is a typically postmodern phenomenon - deliberately diverse, perplexingly amorphous and constantly in flux." This diversity, claims Johnson, is driven by three motives:
1. The unwitting (or sometimes intentional) adoption of postmodern values
2. A gnawing doctrinal indifference as a radical reaction to fundamentalism
3. Self-defence. Individuals are free to assert or deny anything because "Not everyone in the movement believes like that". It is notoriously hard to pin down and criticize because there are always emerging church leaders who don't fit the mold. I can sympathize.

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Reforming or Conforming? Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - The Doctrine of Scripture: Only a Human Problem, by Paul Wells. From the book Reforming or Conforming? Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church

Paul Wells discusses the divine-human relationship to Scripture and offers four models - witness, accommodation, the analogy between Christ and the Bible [incarnational] and the servant form of Scripture. Treatment is given to scholars who's names begin with "B" - Bavinck, Brunner, Barth, Berkouwer, Barr and special treatment for Bloesch. I know what you're thinking . . . . Where the heck is BRIGGS? Well, Charles Briggs gets treatment in the book's Introduction, along with Bave. Oh yeah - Clark Pinnock and Peter Enns also gain a mention from Wells also.

Key thought: "The doctrine of the humanity of Scripture cries out for a fresh approach that will liberate it from the self-destructiveness of modernism and postmodernism."

Technorati Tags: emerging church, reformed, reforming or conforming

Reforming or Conforming? Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church

A really good book came in the mail two days ago. Reforming or Conforming? Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church. I always said that when a book of a decent calibre comes out as a corrective to the emerging church, I would give it some airplay and consideration on the blog. Although I think it misses the mark at many points, its probably a better critique of the emerging church movement [or EmergentVillage, to be precise] than any other I have come across. Its well written, not condescending, not patronizing and it offers some good advice for the wider evangelical church.

And its Sunday today. I have a bit of spare time and it might be a good way to spend it. No promises - I might not finish it today and I might not make it to the best 2 chapters in the book (Johnson and Gleason) but I will give it a shot and will add links below when there is something to post. Feel free to jump in and leave your own comments. Here we go.

Reforming or Conforming? Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church, edited by Gary Johnson and Ronald Gleason.
Introduction by Gary L.W. Johnson.
Chapter 1 - The Doctrine of Scripture: Only a Human Problem, by Paul Wells.
Chapter 2 - Sola Scriptura as an Evangelical Theological Method, by John Bolt
Chapter 3 - No Easy Task: John Franke and the Character of Theology, by Paul Helm
Chapter 4 - Whosoever Will Be Saved: Emerging Church, Meet Christian Dogma, by R. Scott Clark
Chapter 5 - "Right Reason" and Theological Aesthetics at Old Princeton Seminary: The "Mythical Evangelical Magisterium" Reconsidered, by Paul Kjoss Helseth
Chapter 6 - Cornelius Van Til: "Principled" Theologian or Foundationalist? by Jeffrey C. Waddington
Chapter 7 - Church and Community or Community and Church, by Ronald N. Gleason
Chapter 8 - It's "Wright", but is it Right? An Assessment and Engagement of an "Emerging" Rereading of the ministry of Jesus, by Guy Prentiss Waters
Chapter 9 - Joyriding on the Downgrade at Breakneck Speed: The Dark Side of Diversity, by Phil Johnson
Chapter 10 - Entrapment: The Emerging Church Conversation and the Cultural Captivity of the Gospel, by Martin Downes
Chapter 11 - Saved from the Wrath of God: An Examination of Brian McLaren's Approach to the Doctrine of Hell, by Greg D Gilbert
Chapter 12 - The Emergent Church, by Gary Gilley

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