Emerging/Emergent Church

[AndCanItBe]

We're going to start some stickies for topics that continually come up to keep the info more easily accessible. I'm gathering some threads here to start for reference. It's by no means comprehensive, feel free to add your own links to info at FP if you feel I've missed an important one, and please post new articles in this thread. Thanks!


Are you a Christian or a Christ-follower?

David Jeremiah Proposes "Major Paradigm Shift" For

EMERGING CHURCH SOWING NEO-ORTHODOX CONFUSION

Purpose-Driven and Emergent Merge at Conference

Mark Driscoll Rejects Emergent Label But Endorses Mysticism

Emerging Pastor to Young Believers: Ask Anything

Roger Oakland's Trip to Rethink Conference

TIME MAGAZINE TOUTS ROB BELL

What is Robert Schuller 'rethinking'

[InHim]

Where you looking for links like these? Or just threads in FP?

They have within them good documentation, but I can't personally say I've read everything they have to say, though they seem solid.

http://www.apprising.org
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com
http://www.herescope.com
http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com
http://www.discernment-ministries.org
http://www.newswithviews.com/West/marsha66.htm

[AndCanItBe]

Hi, InHim! I was just posting a few old threads from FP. Thanks for the links!

[SoftTouch]

Here are some links to online video's on the Emerging Church Movement:

The Church Is Changing… What Is Emerging? By Pastor Gary Gilley
4 parts – each part approx 10 mins. Total viewing time should be around 40 minutes:
Pt. 1 http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?v ... fcdcd377d6
Pt. 2 http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?v ... 43eba6a540
Pt. 3 http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?v ... 2639167175
Pt. 4 http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?v ... b15482e757

Gary Gilley is the Pastor of Southern View Chapel in Illinois. Here is a link to their website: http://www.svchapel.org/index.asp

Let's Talk Post-Modernism and the Emergent Church...
YouTube - Let's Talk Post-Modernism and the Emergent Church...

Here R.C. Sproul, Al Mohler, and Ravi Zacharias discuss post-modernism, modernism, liberalism, and the emergent church. Is there any real difference among the four?


Here's a Word of the Master Radio Interview with Emergent Church Pastor Dog Pagitt:
Pt 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0isqLRhClo&feature=related
Pt 2: YouTube - Doug Pagitt Denies the Doctrine of Hell on WOTMR (2of2)

Emergent Church movement PBS Religion and Ethics News Weekly
YouTube - Emergent Church movement PBS Religion and Ethics News Weekly

Is the seeker sensitive, emergent & modern church biblical?
YouTube - Is the seeker sensitive, emergent & modern church biblical?

The Emerging Church Roger Oakland each part 10 mins
http://www.youtube.com/v/idZCcg3MvEI
http://www.youtube.com/v/-oCmbsBlnUA
http://www.youtube.com/v/2XlUCvO_Q-I
http://www.youtube.com/v/E6inrdtzN6c
http://www.youtube.com/v/MV9yB0wu6s8
http://www.youtube.com/v/gvwSlrEDd7Y

[Spreading Salt]

Anything out there on Kim Clement or Rick Joyner anyone?

Thanks,
SS

[ChristineMarie]

I hate to admit it, but I don’t like going to mosques. Whether it’s the crudely written signs informing me I must cover myself, or the awkward way men and women avoid each other, or the Friday preaching that is just so irrelevant to my life, I usually feel happiest when I’m walking out the door.

I long for a Muslim environment that is spiritually fresher, deeper, and, perhaps most importantly, untainted by a Saudi-style conservatism or bitterness over the war on terror. With a small but growing number of “emergent Christians” – and now “emergent Jews” – reinventing the very idea of religious communities, I have also begun to hope for the emergence of a post-modern, post-9/11 Muslim faith life.

Emerging Christians struggle with stale ways of “doing church” they say are left over from the 1950s, or even the beginning of the Reformation, wrote Sam Crum, pastor of The River, a small emerging congregation in Florida, in a Facebook discussion with me. Emerging congregations – including a number of Jewish ones – emphasize authenticity and deemphasize hierarchy; both of these qualities, coincidentally or not, overlap with the values of the Web 2.0 world, where everyone – not just the anointed, institutional leaders – are content creators.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfa ... _want.html

[Pretzelogical]

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/posters.htm

The posters at this site are really "out there", but perhaps some may prove useful to someone? The Pyromaniacs blog is excellent! They provide these poster for free for copying and posting at your websites as long as you give their web address/credit for the posters. The poster are satires on the emergent perspective. Satire is a key aspect of the emergent church, so these posters turn their weapon right back at them. Not so sure laughing at the problem is the best way to go, but some of the poster really made me chuckle. A clever poster shows a page of scripture with Gumby and his pal standing in front of the verses with the caption: "Texts. Wonderful, bendable, highly amusing toys." Of course, it is true the emergent church bends the texts to say what they want it to say. Another poster has a guy pointing his finger at the reader with the caption: "Unity. If you won't accept my new point of view, then its pretty obvious who the devisive one is." It is frightening how common this intolerance in the name of tolerance is taught as Biblical. Another poster reads, "Maturity. Yeah, when I was like you, I never doubted the Bible either. But I outgrew that." If you ever had a conversation like that with an emergent, laughing at the posters might be of some help. Use with caution.

[Just_Betsy]

I just listened to a shocking Rob Bell sermon with commentary exposing the heresy, and I wrote a summary of my concerns to my pastor. We've only been going to this church for about 6 months, and the pastor's preaching has always been strong and on the money, but I was still concerned. I've been accustomed to pastors being evasive, insincere, politically correct, placating, etc at my former church, and I knew that my confidence in our new pastor would stand or fall with his response to my concerns. (Our church's youth group uses the Nooma videos.)

I am so pleased with my pastor's response. He was open, straightforward, sincere, and agreed with my concerns. I won't bore you with all the details, but I just wanted to speak the encouraging words about pastors who DO see this stuff and recognize it for what it is. There are still good ones in the pulpit! He's even planning to get a Sunday School class started which will be all about discernment.

May the Lord raise up a mighty host of Spirit-filled pastors in these troubled times!

[Pretzelogical]

http://biblicalthought.com/blog/james-s ... en-church/

2 videos from a seminar by James Sundquist
"Who's Driving the Purpose Driven Church"

[Pretzelogical]

http://www.intotruth.org/apostasy/cell-church8.htm

Willow Creek is theologically conservative; it holds to the inerrancy of the word of God, salvation by faith alone and other tenets of the Protestant faith, yet it falls over itself to cater to the crowds and address their needs rather than openly challenging their standards and sins.

It preaches a gospel message, but one so compromised that it fails in its primary purpose to move people out of the fallen world and into the kingdom of God.



The Willow Creek methodology as described in one publication is this: "Take a poll of lost people, find out what they want in religion, then make an all out effort in the church to provide what they want." (5)

In his book about Willow Creek, ("Rediscovering Church") Bill Hybels clearly sees himself as God's appointed leader to transform the world about him.

Claiming that when God needed to accomplish any great task of transformation in society he would seek out "leaders" such as Moses, David and Solomon, Hybels says " after all, who is going to cast the vision of, or creatively imagine the future for, a biblically functioning community?" (6) and "Leaders have the ability to cast a vision: People with the spiritual gift of leadership have a God-given capability to imagine a preferred future for whatever kingdom-related enterprise they're leading.....God has created human beings to respond to a worthy vision when it's passionately presented by a gifted leader". (7)

What a contrast to the Apostle Paul's denunciation of human effort and human words in preaching the gospel, for Paul recognised, in humility, that it is only the Holy Spirit's unction and drawing ability that will convince any human being of the need to repent.

"And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." (1 Cor 2:1-5)

Bill Hybels in several places in his book touches on this theme of "imagining creatively" as a method of introducing change. He even implies that Jesus "imagined" the Church into being because he "challenged his followers to imagine a city perched on a hill..." and " his followers imagined a beacon of hope, a lamppost of love, a torch of transforming power - and the church was born" (8)

Much more at the site!

[Straightshot]

The various leaders of the "emergent" church [like Warren, Hybles, Driscoll, etc.] have been found wanting today as their mega assemblies have dwindled and some have even been closed .... and there are many forms of this theology of experimentation on "how to do church" today

The idea of considering the Bible to be irrelevant for this "post modern world" and billed out as something that "cannot be understood anyway" is horribly apostate .... these are not Christians

The "church'' is not a place to dwell upon human self felt needs, run by using Drucker business marketing techniques, and neglecting the feeding of biblical truth to the membership

In recent poles the critical return has been that what people want is to be taught biblical truths and not things like the "purpose driven" life stuff spewed out by the leaders of the Megas