Discerning the discernment resource

So there I was surfing the net and I stumbled upon a site entitled the “discernment resource”.  How thoughtful, another watchdog site against any Christian idea that is somewhat progressive.  I read about the concerns of Rick Warren and Billy Hybels and of course the Emergent Church.   So I clicked on the first article under the emergent church and could barely get out of the first sentence.  Here it is:    “Unfortunately, todays church is caught in a paradigm shift. That is, the church is moving from a modern church, where teaching fundamental Bible doctrine is the norm, to a post-modern, or transformational church in which loud, watered down, seeker-sensitive services are the order of the day.” Want to check the remainder of the article and see the context?  You should – click here. 

This is what I read, “Unfortunately, the church is changing, because the world is changing and because both of these are made up of people, this unfortunately means that people are changing.  The church is moving from what it Jesus had meant (you know how we did church from 1950-1989 or whatever arbitrary date that is defined as the “good old days”), where milk flowed like honey and the land was plentiful, where we had our doctrine, hermeneutics and translations right.  Now we’re headed to …

Pardon the sarcasm, I didn’t really mean it.  Well … anyway, although I could go on and on about the mistakes, incorrect assumptions and flawed thinking (and please don’t blame it on the Bible), I would like to just talk about that first line, “Unfortunately the world is changing …”  It’s not unfortunate.

The world is changing because people are changing.  The world that writer changed from something else to the one that he enjoys, this is the reality of life.  We cannot stop time, we cannot dwell too much in the past, we ought not to curse the future, but be faithful stewards of it.  It is my belief that the emerging church conversation is part of this stewardship.

Maybe I didn't say it right …

I was honored to do an infant dedication yesterday.

 

And you know the drill.  You ask a set of questions to the parents to promise to raise the child up in a Christian home.  Then you ask a set of questions to the church as a community to commit to invest in these young souls.  Now, I don’t know if EVERYBODY said, “we do” but I heard a lot of them.  

Here we are, still can’t get more children’s ministry workers, vbs volunteers or nursery staff.  Maybe I need to rephrase the question.

 

Good news is I didn’t drop the child.  Of course, she refused to be held by me but I checked with the legalists, it still counts as an infant dedication.  Score one more for the good guys!  (Sarcastically yours, tim)

Reflecting on Dan Kimball on Shapevine

Who doesn’t love Dan Kimball?  I probably shouldn’t ask such loaded questions on a blog but if you know what I mean, you can’t help but appreciate this guy.  Sure, he has weird hair, and he’s from CA (but apparently he’s from north Jersey – holla!) but he really gets it.  I appreciate his heart for non-believers, appreciate how he’s trying to “do church”, and love how he comes across in his books, seminars, and various ways.   We could say this about many people, and praise God.

Dan wrote a couple decent books and his new one is, “They Love Jesus but Not the Church”.  It’s one of those you wished you would have written this but you never would have but whatever.  If you are new to the emergent, emerging church, we need to do church differently conversations and you’re too frightened (or have been frightened off) by great minds like Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, etc.  then you might appreciate Kimball.

Concerning the webcast, one thing that he said that got me thinking was something like this.  Dan tells a story of being picked up at an airport by this couple.  They talk about church, he asks them what he likes about their church and they talk about how wonderful the pastor is.  They love him.  The preaching, the personality …

Fact of the matter is, some churches are too pastor driven.  If you know me, you know why this bothers me so much.  Churches cannot be built around their senior pastor (or their staff in general).  If a church falls apart after the pastor leaves then we ought to question what the church was based on anyway.  It wasn’t Christ.  I know I’m preaching here but this is something very important to me.  It’s like there’s a book out there called “The Personality-Driven Church”.  

Check out Shapevine.com

I’m enjoying watching a live webcast of Dan Kimball on Shapevine.com. 

Very cool to be able to do this.  I’m at coffeeshop doing this.  Sign up for free here  Just create an account and you’re good to go.  Every Thursday there’s a new webcast.

Here’s what I know – check the site for more info.

It doesn’t appear that the previous webcasts are stored anywhere.  (I could be wrong but I couldn’t find it and I spent at least 3 minutes looking and clicking and looking).

Anyway, here’s the schedule. Webcasts begin at 4pm:

Dave Ferguson – Jan. 17 

Leonard Sweet – Jan. 22

Tri Robinson – Jan. 24 

Ryan Bolger – Jan. 31

Enjoy. 

Listen to Derek Webb … on his podcast

 I’ve been trying to catch up with the Derek Webb podcast lately.  Really appreciating it.  He’s been doing it for a while.  If you are one who enjoys his music, most likely you’ll enjoy the podcast as well.   

In the third podcast, he is summarizing good art and the Christian involvement. He insists that it’s his (like all artists) job to produce bold and truthful art.  Derek also says that too many Christian artists want to be popular and sell a lot of cds as opposed to making great art.   We have all heard that a million times before but what I appreciate about it is that it’s

coming from someone who actually is selling records.  Someone who has enjoyed the royalty checks from the Christian music industry and someone who turned his back on it.

 He also mentions his appreciate for Dylan and Wilco – can’t wrong with that.  

Check him out here.