Albuquerque - Day 1
We had a great morning hooking up with Doug Sachs and Angus McDonald and getting caught up with each other.
For lunch, we took our 12 passenger van out into Albuquerque and roamed around for a bit before deciding where we would eat. We chose (I am not 
making this up) 'Whataburger'. We ate lunch (a pretty tasty burger but nor quite the equal of the West Coast's famous 'In and Out Burger') and looked out at the mountains to the West of Albuquerque and the flat Mesas to the East.
Right after lunch, we got into our 12 passenger van and went to Hope Evangelical Church for the afternoon session. Greg Strand, the Director of Biblical Theology and Credentialing at the EFCA National Office, was the leader of the session which was titled 'The Nature of Reform Movements'. This was an analytical view of major reform movements in the church and what they had in common. Ultimately, what Greg proposed was that any authentic move of renewal by the Holy Spirit in His church would be comprised of the following elements:
.God doing His work through the Holy Spirit
.The preeminency of Jesus Christ and His Word
.The work of Satan to undermine God's plan through doubt and division
.A confessional element that catalyses renewal
.An element of messiness and the need for discernment
. Salvation
We then listened to a panel of pastors who have had direct experience in or with the Emerging/Emergent church movement.
All in all, I think the sessions today were a sincere effort to look at a controversial topic in an objective fashion. The purported reason for all this is for us to gain a better understanding of the Emergent Church and all it entails.
We had some lively conversation around the dinner table and retired to our rooms exhausted but looking forward to the next two days.
Posts
Oh No! Not the Whataburger heart attack bomb! I think the Weight Watchers Points Chart shows something like one Whataburger counts for a whole weeks worth of points. All you can have now for the rest of the week are pickles, celery and carrots and drink only water, green tea or black coffee (no sugar or creamer).
ReplyDeleteTalk more about the Emergent Church. I hear it referred to with terms like "allow persons the freedom to discover their version of faith through conversation" and think it is a watered down version of the Gospel to appeal to people who don't like to hear that the only way to the Father is through the blood of Jesus because that sounds too arcane or intolerant of other people's feelings and beliefs.
On the other hand if it is merely a different way to present the same basic doctrine, but using modern methods such as via new multi-media techniques and the like then that seems to go along with the idea of "being in the world, but not of the world" and may still be a good biblical view of the modern world.
Can't wait to read/hear more!