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BFC-MC : The Emerging Church
Well, we're off to Ministerial Convention. We'll be sleeping at my wife's folks tonight. Rachel's mom is going to watch the kids Tuesday and Wednesday. This will be the first time Rachel and Evelyn, our youngest, will be apart through the night and the second or third time Rachel and Nathaniel, our oldest, will be apart through the night. Early tomorrow morning, we'll be driving up to Pinebrook for the convention.
The agenda is a conversation on the Emerging Church which will be led by Dr. John Franke, a professor of theology at Biblical Theological Seminary. Franke has led the seminary to enganging the issues of postmodernity, missional theology, and the emerging church. There are of course many opinions on these issues. Some say that to even talk about postmodernism is to tread across orthodoxy into heresy. Personally, the jury is still out for me, but I DO think we should not be afraid to engage in a conversation on these issues. We should be eager to examine what is happening in the church culture and the greater societal culture and make plans to minister to the lost in a more successful way.
A Methodist brother in the minstry told me his church hired a consultant who has been studying Delaware culture for some time. According to my brother, only 16% of Delawareans have gone to church in the last 2 years. There is no doubt, even if the study is off on numbers, that God's Church is not reaching the lost in this world. Why wouldn't we talk together about how we can do better in our mission?!?Labels: BFC Denomination, Emerging Church
posted by Timothy Schmoyer | 1:09 PM
7 Comments:
Hi Timothy,
Wanted to tell you I enjoyed poking around your blog...
The subject of the Emerging Church is a hot topic. While I believe they do reach the lost with the Gospel, the Church must be careful about how tolerant it becomes...conformity comes with a price. Lord bless you!
Great thoughts Jaybird,
Conformity does come with a price.
Dr. Franke shared the foundation (if there can be one) of the emerging church or the postmodern church. Namely, the modern church is too scientific. It makes God and His ways into scientifically verifiable and provable things, whereas the Church in its longevity has always said what Augustine expressed as "I have faith so that I might have knowledge). Our pastors and professors have BS in the Bible. That is to say, we have a scientific approach to the Word of God which is mysterious and inscrutable. Perhaps the modern church has conformed to the scientific method.
Perhaps also the emerging postmodern church is conforming to many of the precepts of the postmodern secular culture. I walked away from the conference with this question "if we lament the Church's decision in the Enlightenment to beat the modern culture at its game (namely science), than will our descendants lament our decision to try and beat the postmoderns at their game?" I think it is a fair question to ask.
Thanks again for the shout out!
Tim, I put up the notes from the first session. They are here . More to follow soon.
PS, I'd appreciate if you'd look over them and make sure I didn't miss anything crucial.
CHECK OUT PART 2 .
Here are my notes from the second session. I also added several comments of my own in red. Stop by and tell me what you think.
Here is PART 3 of Franke's lecture.
yeah, i will. Here is what I'm gonna do...
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