blog reading...
I'm sure you have enough to read already, but I thought I'd share with you some of the good things I've read recently on the blogosphere:
I thought Bob's reflections on worship were EXCELLENT. I loved several of the points he made, but my favorite was this: "Worship takes place in a throne room. We are citizens of the Kingdom and we are called (or have the privilege) of entering the throne room of the King to offer our worship and praise. He alone is worthy. He is fully present in our midst. He is utterly LORD. All that we do as we approach our King (our speech, our clothing, our gestures, our interactions) should be aware of the One in whose presence we stand." I know he'd welcome your comments.
Gospel Driven Blog has a series of posts on preaching that are perhaps the best thing I've ever read on the blogosphere about preaching. The series, entitled Pastor, what are you eager to preach?, addresses the crying need of the hour. Here's one quote: "Pastors who think they are helping their congregation by giving them practical, relevant steps and tips, insights or inspirational devotional thoughts each week are in reality cutting their people off from any real possibility for living the Christian life. There are not 'secrets' to living the Christian life. No amount of tips, advice, insights, steps, takeaways, creative and winsome presentations or relevant applications, can bring about Gospel obedience." Read part 1 here...a link at the bottom will lead you to part 2, and then to part 3.
Jared at The Gospel-Driven Church had a great post entitled, The Gospel is not advice in which he addresses this comment by a friends: "Love your neighbor has nothing to do with the Gospel." It's a good read, and not very long.
And finally, Challies has a review of Brian McLaren's new book, Everything Must Change. Based on this review, it sounds like Driscoll and McLaren will now have even LESS in common.
fr'nklin
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I've started McLaren's book and I read the review and the comments. One of the things that bothers me about both the emergents and the traditionals (in fact Christians as a whole) is the tendency to see everything as completely right or completely wrong. Obviously, there is truth that God has revealed that is absolutely right, but a lot of our "systems", whether old or new have error in them due to being put together by fallible human beings.
I think there is great potential for the emerging conversation to bring about a unity that is centered in the Gospel. There is also the danger that it will splinter the church into even more factions than we have now. We don't want to be like some of the Reformed churches in Canada who split over disagreements on one or two points in their confession.
I plan to read McLaren's book someday. I certainly think there is truth in more places than we are often willing to look, but I'm increasingly concerned about the direction of McLaren. It seems to me that the possibility of his beliefs being unorthodox are real. And to me, that is important.
Arius said many good things and asked some great questions, but I'll take Athanasius over Arius.
Oh, and if I gotta bet on what happens, I've got my money on lots of splinters...sad to say. The more things change...
I'm concerned with the direction McLaren seems to be going too. If all that happens is a return to the old, liberal mainline social gospel, then Emergent will have failed. It'd be like more conservative emerging Christians going back to fundamentalism as the best way to follow Jesus (Oh, gosh. I shouldn't have thought like that so soon after lunch).
You're probably right about the splinters, unfortunately.
On McClaren, I've always suspected him as having a particular audience in mind with his work--conservative fundamentals. And he has always set himself at odds to them. I always gave him a generous slice of grace because I felt he was not trying to pull this group to where he was, but rather to pull them back to the middle--where he and they would both meet.
Unfortunately, he missed his intended audience (who was firmly rooted in the Scriptures) and hit a semi-informed rabble of folks who were just looking for something "new". Now he has a huge following who have read little else but his work and they have little to draw on to test what he says.
Now that his audience has formed, I would have expected him to see that and begin to educate them in Truth. Instead, he seems to be educating them in ridicule, further polarizing rather than uniting.
I guess my "slice of grace" is getting a little less generous...