Confessions of a Reformission Rev

I’ve been doing more reading about the emerging church of late. Haven’t read much more of Contemplative Youth Ministry or Becoming conversant with the emerging church but… I have been reading a bit about Mark Driscoll and his books. I’ve yet to get hold of his them but have read some reviews as well as info on his blog and church site. His latest book is called Confessions of a Reformission Rev. (Avid readers of my blog may remember that my podcast was ahead of his sermons in the iTunes top100 on Monday!!)

Mark Driscoll was one of the early leaders in what has come to be known as the emerging or emergent church. He is careful to define both terms, suggesting that he still believes in the principles upon which the emerging church was founded, but deliberately separates himself from the emergent crowd and such men as Brian McLaren. On pages 21 and 22 he says that “the emergent church is the latest version of liberalism. The only difference is that old liberalism accomodated modernity and the new liberalism accomodates postmodernity.” As for Driscoll, he “swim[s] in the theologically conservative stream of the emerging church.” (from here)

I’m interested to see how Driscoll interacts with culture without being dictated by it. It seems that in the history of his church at each difficult turn he’s gone back to the scriptures.

I’ve spent a bit of time (not recently) reflecting on Tim Kellar and Redeemer Pressie Church NY. Don Carson has this to say about them:

“The irony is that, while this sounds like an outstanding exemplar of the emerging church movement, this church – Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City – is thoroughly unlikely to identify itself as a candidate for emergin rolls. The reason I talk about this church should nevetheless be clear: it displays all the strengths of the emerging church movement while avoiding most of its weaknesses. In other words, the emerging church movement has numerous strengths, and we should be grateful for them – but they are not exclusively theirs” (from p56 of Becoming conversant)

I’m keen to keep thinking about how to interact with our culture yet not be swayed or shaped by it.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Romans 1:16 (esv)