My friends at Zondervan have recently begun shipping a book titled Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, edited by Dr. Robert Webber. Contributing to the book are five pastors (Karen Ward, Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, John Burke, and myself) with varying beliefs on the assigned issues of the Trinity, the atonement, and Scripture. As is common in counterpoint books, we each wrote one chapter, and then briefly responded to the chapters written by the other contributors. We never did meet for the project, but over the years I have had the pleasure of meeting each person in various contexts, so that was helpful in allowing me to understand something of their ministry and theological perspective. Anyone wanting to order the book can do so here. You can also view and download a portion of my chapter that Zondervan has made available here.
Also, beginning on February 6th at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego, each of the contributors will be part of an extended discussion (you can find more information about the conference here. And, Friday June 1- Saturday June 2 we will have the authors in Seattle for an event hosted at Mars Hill Church where we will discuss/dialogue/debate various theological issues that are some of the hot topics among varying streams of the emerging church. The Resurgence will be distributing the sessions for free in case you cannot join us, and also giving the files to the other speakers to distribute as they see fit through their own networks. Sadly, the editor Dr. Robert Webber will not be joining us as his health is not good and I would encourage people to be in prayer for him and his family in this difficult season.
In 2004 Dr. Gerry Breshears, professor at Western Seminary, gave a presentation on the Emerging Church at that time during the Reformission Conference in Seattle, WA. In this audio piece we see Dr. Breshears critique the key players in the Emerging Church Movement up to 2004. The great thing about this mp3 that may be different then some other analysis is that Breshears looks through different writings to expose the theologies that tend to drive this movement. Although the audio is long it is because Brashears is taking questions along with his session. With that said we encourage the liste
In this audio from Chris Seay, we learn that the conversation does not start with what looks cool for the church but with the stand on convictions for the things we do know are true. There is a myth about narrative that it is just ambiguous, but in the church narratives are grounded in truth about God's redemptive story. We need to figure out how we can engage in culture with the modern tensions of our time, whether it is on the popular TV shows or current events. We need to gain Biblical wisdom which is seen as incarnational. Our knowledge must hit the road of reality so people may see authentic Christianity not just learn about it cerebrally.
I began reading the works of Dr. John Piper as a new Christian in college. I think the first book of his that I read was Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which was very seminal in shaping my understanding of gender roles in the home, church, and culture. A few years back, in conjunction with the release of my first book, The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out Without Selling Out, I had the great honor of having Dr. Piper join us for a conference we hosted in Seattle to preach from the Mars Hill pulpit. It was a great joy to have people from my church fill up our room to learn about Jesus. Ever since, Dr. Piper has been something of a rock star to many of our folks. Over the years I have also greatly respected and enjoyed the work of Dr. D. A. Carson, who is one of the leading New Testament scholars in the world today. I had the pleasure of finally meeting Dr. Carson at a recent theological colloquium at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School that included such pastoral theologians as Kent Hughes, Alistair Begg, Bryan Chapell, Ligon Duncan, Phil Ryken and Mark Dever. Needless to say, the group of roughly forty men was the pumped-up, Barry Bonds version of a Bible study. Over the years I have also had the great pleasure of meeting a few times a year with Dr. Tim Keller. He and my friend Dr. Ed Stetzer are the leading missional thinkers in America today, in my opinion. Dr. Keller recently joined us for the Reform and Resurge conference in Seattle (click on the following for the conference audio and video).
