I didnt blog it last month because i was blog-fasting, but i followed closely the conversation in Perth between Don Carson and two leaders of the emerging missional church - Andrew Hamilton (Hamo from Backyard Missionary) and Geoff Westlake. And since then, FORGE have posted the audio online. HT: Adonis Vidu
Don Carson Critique of Emerging Church (50 mins)
Andrew Hamilton Response (15 mins)
Geoff Westlake Response (15 mins)
Don Carson Reponse (10 mins)
Forum (20 mins)
Ohhh great . . . of all the possible candidates for emerging church leadership, Carson ends up in the Baptist Theological College with 2 YOBBOS!
I just had to say that about them because both guys have been my mates since our late teens. And we were all Baptist pastors in Perth in the early 90's - so you see i am constrained to insult them as a token of affection. The other reason I feel compelled to give them a hard time is because both guys were very good looking IN THEIR DAY [he he he] and managed to have a constant stream of girlfriends while yours truly - blessed in areas other than stunning good looks and cursed with severe shyness and poor self-image - only on a blue moon managed to have female company. And the girls who did go out with me had somehow already gone out with either Andrew or Geoff.
But putting the past aside, and not holding anything against these playboys . . uh hum . . . pastors, I am honestly glad that they were picked to stand with Carson for their conversation about the emerging church. And despite the obvious handicaps and the tarnished reputations from their dating years (i can testify truthfully that before they were married, both guys went out with practically every eligible Christian girl in Perth and probably a few other cities also . . . i have witnesses . . really . . ) they did a spectacular job and enjoyed a profitable conversation with Dr. D. A. Carson, author of Being Conversant with the Emerging Church.
Technorati Tags: don carson, emergent, emerging church, forge
Hamo said some excellent things that i could have easily said myself:
“Am I part of the emerging church? If I define myself by the caricatures on Purgatorio then probably not…
I’m a tad old and boring and bland to be a funky hip post-modern church leader. And yet I am here today because I do find myself for better of worse aligned with the tag of ‘emerging church’. I don’t fit the descrip very well!
(Ned Flanders as the ‘evangelical’ rep!)
The thing is I don’t think I fit the description in Don’s book very well either. I don’t know many in the Aussie emerging missional church who do. In fact if I did I would be concerned. (If I did then I think some of you would have had some fierce arguments with me by now!)” link
Hamo, who went out with a great looking girl named Julie back in 1981 who turned me down flat a few years later), diligently blogged the Carson Conversation [Part 1, 2 3 and 4 and the final reflections] while Geoff (who once dated one of my worship leaders) went out for a beer and didn't say anything at all on his spasmodic log. Actually, Julie refused me because she already had a boyfriend at the time. So she said. . . I am sure it was true. She probably dropped Hamo like a ton of bricks . . I must ask him about that.
Speaking of dating, I was hanging out a few months ago with one of my Church Mission Society colleagues named Carol Walker who not only went to Cambridge, but went to Cambridge at the same time as Don Carson who - despite being a hard-core intellectual, managed to find it within himself to be deeply impressioned with Carol's roommate. And through careful and somewhat sneaky planning, Carol was instrumental in helping the Bible-geek Don Carson to start dating the girl who would eventually become his wife.
Which shows that you don't have to date a thousand girls before you marry one [Hamo?? Geoff??] At least both guys ended up happily married with great wives and were taken off the circuit.
But what about the conversation? Carson spoke very well and offered some critiques of the emerging church to ponder. Read the summary of those critiques in the Final Reflections. They include;
“- understanding of modernism and post-modernism is limited
- avoidance of truth claims / inability to speak of knowing something certainly
- accomodation of pomo rather than critique
- sloppy about history / exegesis
- need to learn to listen more to what scripture actually says
- need to be more careful to avoid sectarianism”
As for the romance between Carson and the Emerging Church, it sounded like some relationships were mended and the way opened for a little flirting in the future. Hamo and Geoff are good at that . . . mending relationships i mean.
Related:
D.A. Carson and the Australians (2005) and on Backyard Missionary
The Carson Chronicles on TSK:
1. Carson and My Sleepless Night (Sept 1, 2004)
2. The Skinny on Carson's Emerging Church Tapes (Sept 2, 2004)
3. The Skinny on Emergent Criticism (Dec 13, 2004)
4. Are We A Threat to the Gospel? (March 26, 2005)
5. Open Blog Post for Don Carson 1.1 (April 15, 2005)
6. The Carson Chronicles: Where Now? (April 16, 2005)
7. The Book of Dr. D.A. Carson
But wait . . . theres more
When it comes to defending missconceptions, I understand Andrew Hamilton's frustration. I just read John Mark Reynolds in Loving Your Emerging Church Neighbor where, according to his view of emerging church as “newly middle aged!” movement, the “ healthy goals of emerging churches are:
a desire for authentic community
a disposition to favor the intimate over the grand
a delight in blending the best of the old with the new
a disgust with the ”overly contrived“ like the four-d alliteration in this list.”
. . . all very nice goals but not at all the heart of the emerging church. He gives the example of Rock Harbor in California as an emerging church that “gets it”. As for me and my house, Rock Harbor is a great church but its the kind of platform-led, hierarchical attractional church model i left behind. And I am not knocking it - its a great improvement on the old model but its not really what i consider “emerging church”
Now John Mark Reynolds is a great guy, a huge blogger (hear him this weekend at Godblogcon) and his critique is gentle and gracious. But the emerging church he describes is NOT . . . I repeat NOT. . . [wait . . let me find the bold] . . . NOT the emerging church that i signed up for and NOT the emerging church that i sold the farm for.
And the description Don Carson gives does not fit either.
The emerging church movement my family has sacrificed career, money, fame and comfort for [ok . . not fame] is a massive global movement of a reformed and purified body of Christ that is rapidly multiplying with power and impact, not because of recent innovations but simply because we have gone back to the pattern that Jesus taught and the early church employed and because we are starting with the mission of God rather than our great plans. This is the emerging-missional church movement that gets me up at 5 in the morning and gives me dreams at night.
Newly middle aged? I dont think so. There have been 300,000 house churches planted outside of China in the past 6 years and the movement shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Nothing middle aged about that. USA probably has between 10,000 and 30,000 house churches which is up from a few hundred in the late 90's, when I was leading a house church in San Francisco, right before Geoff Westlake came to visit. And that is just the house churches.
btw - These figures are from a new book by Wolfgang Simson that i hope to review on Nov 10th here on TSK
So I understand the tension that Hamo experiences when he doesnt want to shy away from criticism but at the same time wants to be integral to this missional journey God has placed us on - a journey that often does not match what critics have seen. So you went to find an emerging church? What did you go out to see? Probably what you expected to see - something younger and grungier that your church. But you may have missed what God was doing because His Kingdom growth is tiny and hidden and totally what you did not expect.
Nuff said. i will make like a tree and get out of here.
