Clarity

It's been over 2 years since I posted to this blog, but a recent comment regarding the blog suggests that I should clarify a couple elements.

1. The blog refers to missional, emerging and emergent to refer to churches engaged in service and relevance in the community rather than the Emergent Church, led by Brian McLaren and others).

There is a quote regarding this in a post: Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses nine practices. Emerging churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities. (http://dmatmbc.blogspot.com/2007/09/defining-missional-and-emerging.html).

McLaren and the Emergent Village include some doctrinal and practical elements that I do not embrace, so if you're wondering, read what I write and take that to be my understanding. This blog primarily is focused on challenging myself and other Christians to be more active in the world to be an influence of reconciliation (2 Cor 5).

2. Emerging means "coming forth" and at the time of the writing of the blog, this term was not attached to a particular system of Christology as it now is. I am not going to labor to change the language used in the blog to distinguish this. In this blog, "emerging" is used interchangeably with missional and emergent primarily because our conversations were engaging the terms in similarly.

The articles in the blog are meant to point us to consider how the church can be relevant in a post-christian society like we encounter especially among those under 30. I shouldn't have to make this defense, but after a re-read of all the articles, I believe that the issues discussed are important for the church to discuss and grapple with.

I am always happy to discuss these with anyone if my reading of the Scripture is in error. Thanks!

-Derek