The Emerging church.

It's funny a few years back... 2003 I believe, Dave and I flew down to attend the National Pastors Conference, that was occurring congruently with the second "Emergent" conference. Dave had gone to the first the year before and was excited enough to buy every Brian Mclaren book he could get his hands on. It was an interesting time. They had drum circles, DJ led worship, Peter Nevland was there and blew everyone away. We heard Dallas Willard, Tony Campolo, and a bunch of others. There was a panel with Robert Webber and Jack Caputo arguing about whether or not to call God "mother" or "father"...

My how things have changed. Dave's new favorite book is probably, "Why we're not emergent" and his favorite conference is "together for the gospel"...

Me, I'm a flaming liberal, emerging neo-orthodox whose favorite tape series is "highlights from the Jesus Seminar vol.1-15".

Just kidding.

But one of the good things that came the conference (besides prayer labrynths!) was connecting with the ministry of Dan Kimball. I think he is a guy that really gets it.
I've followed his blog for years now and have been impressed with his heart and ministry non-stop.

The guy actually wrote the book "the emerging church". He's been through all the issues, de-construction, burn out, trouble with church leadership, blah blah blah... and has kept his head on straight. You would think that a guy who helped coin the term "emerging church" would have some stock in trying to defend it. But it looks like he's actually disconnecting from it.

Largely from the amount of baggage and confusion it brings and some of the doctrines and teachings that he describes being totally opposed to that it is now associated with.

Wow. Good for you Dan. 

Here is a quote I pulled out of the article. Well-worth a read:

"I am not wedded to any term and I don't think most people are. I, like most others, am wedded to the gospel  and to Jesus' command of making new disciples - not a term to describe it. So I will be not using terms, as I want to get back to why I entered this whole discussion originally (evangelism)"