Greetings. Not a big poster but I wanted to toss something out there. What are your thoughts about Mars Hill Seattle's Mark Driscoll. I know he's in the right wing of the Emergent Church movement and I've listened to a bunch of his stuff.
So go ahead, shoot.
I personally find Pastor Driscoll to be very faithful to the word of God and find many of his views quite refreshing and solidly (dare i say it!) Biblical and almost boldly fundamentalist... which is not something one sees much of in the often spineless emergent church movement... which is why many "emergent" leaders have separated themselves from him... because he tries diligently to be contextually SCRIPTURAL.
Read his book "the Radical Reformission".
IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND YOUR MINISTRY!!!
This my own review of his semi-autobiography [url=http://www.xanga.com/Prayer_Warrior83/629719777/book-review-confessions-of-a-reformission-rev-hard-lessons-from-an-emerging-missional-church.html]Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church
Comments are more than welcome.
Ben
I do think he is the better of much of the emerging church but at the same time his church is still far from a strong biblical model of church. I am going to post this article by spurgeon here and it might be healthy to watch a video of him after reading the article. Oh how we need men that are serious and sober about the reality of hell and eternity. The church is playing marbles with eternity.
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[b]The Mission of Amusement Produces No Converts[i]by Charles Spurgeon (written in 1887)
An evil resides in the professed camp of the Lord so gross in its impudence that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years it has developed at an abnormal rate even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out as the Puritans did, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses.
My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’ That is clear enough. So it would have been if He has added, ‘and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.’ No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to Him. Then again, ‘He gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers, for the work of the ministry.’ Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr roll.
Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the Church to the world? ‘Ye are the salt,’ not sugar candy — something the world will spite out, not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance, ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’ He was in awful earnestness!
Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into His mission, He would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear Him say, ‘Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick, Peter, we must get the people somehow!’ Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of the gospel amusement. Their message is, ‘Come out, keep out, keep clean out!’ Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.
After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the Church had a prayer meeting, but they did not pray, ‘Lord grant Thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.’ If they ceased not for preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They ‘turned the world upside down.’ That is the difference! Lord, clear the Church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her and bring us back to apostolic methods.
Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the Church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy-laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of their conversion, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.
-Charles Spurgeon (1887)
Hello...
I agree with Greg. This entire concept of an "emerging church" is quite foreign to me. I first heard of this concept here at SermonIndex, and, it is quite alarming.
Yes, there are areas in which the Church has historically based doctrine and practice upon the traditions handed down by our forefathers. While this is not proper in our need to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling," it doesn't make these traditions wrong. A former youth pastor once told me, "[i]Before you go around tearing down the walls of supposed 'tradition,' you might want to understand the reason that these walls were built for
The "emerging church" movement simply tries to "question everything," which [i]can
I'm not aware of Mark Driscoll's positions or beliefs. A quick Google search turned up [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcbnGXSYxuI]this video clip[url=http://theresurgence.com/?q=node/5]his own blog
In my opinion, there is no question that there are doctrines that need to be questioned. However, we should consider the ideas and opinions of those lovers of God who have gone before us. And we can NEVER question an idea that is clearly presented in Scripture. Cultural and modern reasoning is a terrible motive and basis to question the concepts of a God who never changes. Sadly, with the methods of the modern Evangelical Church in regards to evangelism, Church structure and propriety, there are far more "members" of this dangerous movement that don't even realize it."In the mid-1990s, I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church and spent some time traveling the country to speak on the emerging church in the emerging culture on a team put together by Leadership Network called the Young Leader Network. But I eventually had to distance myself from the Emergent stream of the network because friends like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt began pushing a theological agenda that greatly troubled me. Examples include referring to God as a chick, questioning God's sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, denial of the substitutionary atonement at the cross, a low view of Scripture, and denial of hell which is one hell of a mistake."
:-(
The "emerging church" movement simply tries to "question everything,"
Emergent is an evangelical euphemism for theological liberalism. The essential characteristic I find in an Emergent theologian is a reaction against conservative fundamentalism with liberal agnosticism. What makes emergent Christianity different then good ole' fashioned theological liberalism is not theology but demographics; liberal churches attract mainline liberals while emergent churches attract disgruntled conservatives.
In fact if the movement was simply called 'liberal theology' I believe it wouldn't have even been noticed at all. By calling themselves 'emergent' the movement was able to rebrand Jesus Serminar liberalism just in time to welcome the dissatisfied children of shallow seeker sensitive evangelicals, who otherwise couldn't have accepted it. Now, having accepted rebranded liberal theology, their children on the other hand, are poised to accept anything.
Mark Driscol seems to me someone who couldn't drink the koolaid with his former emergent peers. I respect him for being willing to single himself out of this movement, even though he might have been one of it's more popular spokesmen.
I did like the point he once made in this quote, that I think Ian posted here before. The way I share the gospel is better then the way you don't share it."
MC
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