By: Joe Bagget

Joe Bagget — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:32:51 +0000

I like you Matthew and I like your idea stated here in article the about interacting with the community. However I disagree much with the GA’s stance on the emerging churches both within and outside the churches of Christ. The so called emerging movement is not really a movement like the restoration or reformation but rather a phenomenon within the broader scope of organized western Christian religion. It is probably the most misunderstood and most significant phenomena in both numbers and theology that has transpired in last 50 years within the broader scope of organized Christian religion. There was a major article recently in the Houston Chronicle entitled “Baptists consider what it means to be Baptist”. The content summed up a group of people who were challenging their religious roots. This is occurring in all fellowships, there is Presbyterian emergent, Baptist emergent, Methodist emergent, church of Christ emergent etcetera. In his book “The present future” Reggie McNeal explains that traditional church culture is collapsing because most churches are not really willing to continually restudy their convictions about the scripture based on a fresh unbiased approach to thinking about the Bible. Recently the GA published an article called “Size is not the issue” which attacked the so called emergent or community church movement. This was one of the saddest articles I have read in recent time. It basically said if you have the right theological and doctrinal conclusions everything else will fall into place and it really does not matter if young people grow up and leave the church or churches close down or if churches split, or if a church goes for years without any significant growth. Jay Guin had a great Blog post about it here http://oneinjesus.info/2008/08/19/the-gospel-advocate-creed-size-is-not-the-issue/. I am so tired of emergent church and community church bashing. It is hard for me to read the GA now because so much of the focus is still about how we are right and how everyone else is wrong. Thanks Matthew for your positive contribution.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:22:10 +0000

Terry, I do not know, but I do not think so. Matt, thank you for your help on this article. Also, there is a special section on the EM in the Advocate this month.

By: Matt Dabbs

Matt Dabbs — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:49:03 +0000

Glad it worked out. Are there other related articles on the Emerging Movement in there as well?

By: Terry

Terry — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:05:20 +0000

I would like to read it. Is it available online?

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:09:37 +0000

Please check out this month’s issue and I would recommend people to have a subscription to the journal too.

Comments on: Featured in the Gospel Advocate

By: Joe Bagget

By: Matthew

By: Matt Dabbs

By: Terry

By: Matthew