Barnabas File

Trinity Baptist Church (a new church start in western Murfreesboro)held its first major community outreach event yesterday. Sponsored by First Baptist Church, Murfreesboro, and the Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the event--called the Family and Neighbors Festival--offered activities for children, bar-b-q, fellowship, and door prizes. In addition to about 35 people from the launch team (and their children), there were about 40 guests who dropped by. We considered the event a success. Not only was it successful in numbers, but the event helped us to discover some needs in the area. In addition to married couples and their children, there were several single parents there. Many are searching for a caring and supportive community for themselves and their children. This was a positive step in identifying with the community and discovering new ways to work in that community.

Last week, I joined a group of friends to attend a telecast of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit in our area. I won't take the time here to justify this choice(although I will say that the Willow Creek Church in South Barrington, Illinois, has a better record of affirming women in ministry and reaching out to ethnic people than many of our progressive Baptist churches)but it was a great learning experience. Participating in this meeting also reminded me of the shifting patterns in cooperation among churches today. These new relationships cross denominational, regional, and ethnic lines. Even the huge churches that measure weekend attenders in the thousands seek ways to partner with other churches for the sake of the kingdom of God. They realize that kingdom work is not a "lone ranger" task and that no church can do all that God has called believers to do. These churches and many smaller congregations may not carry the Baptist name, but their theology is often very cl...

Someone recently asked , "Is your church dually aligned?" My immediate thought (left unsaid) was, "Or course not. We are aligned with Christ." OK. I know what he meant: "Is your church affiliated with both the CBF and the SBC?" Not an usual questions but certainly an irrelevant one. The question is based on a modern paradigm that saw the local church (even if we called it "an autonomous Southern Baptist church") as a local franchise of the national body. Thirty years ago you could walk into any Anglo Baptist church in the south and find people using the same hymnal, using the same literature, supporting the same missions program, and using the same terminology about the faith. Certainly there were variations in worship. We Baptists have always covered the spectrum when it comes to worship, but most of us were using some edition of the Baptist Hymnal. One value of this approach was that you always felt "at home" in church, whe...

Several years ago, I was teaching a SS class and led the class in a discussion of Brian McLaren's book, THE CHURCH ON THE OTHER SIDE. It was not an easy study, and I realized why it was so hard when we came to the last session and someone observed, "Well, all this is important only if you really want to reach postmodern people." Suddenly I realized that the speaker and I were on two completely different paths! Yes, I really care about reaching postmodern people. I care about reaching anyone who is not part of the Kingdom. This is not trumphalism but compassion. I believe that a person who is a Christ-follower has a better opportunity to have a fulfilled life and to bless others than one who is not a Christ-follower. I believe one is better off knowing God! Mike Young and I talked today about the importance of being involved in the emergent conversation. Why? Because we think it is important to reach postmodern people and we will only do so through relevant dialogue...

My colleague Mike Young hosted an "emergent conversation" in Chattanooga last week. I was not able to attend, but I understand that it went well with about 20 people present. It was intergenerational and ecumenical (for want of a better word). As with most "emergent" gatherings, the gathering just "mushroomed" overnight, the fellowship was good, and the meeting concluded with no specific goals for the future. That's fine. One thing with which this movement struggles is how far can it go and how effective can it be without becoming organized or institutionalized. A couple of people have asked me recently, "What is the unifying force behind the emergent movement?" (Another question asked was "What is the emergent movement?" but I will address that at another time.) A common thread for those involved in the movement seems to be a bad personal experience with fundamentalist (or propositional) religion. Many of the leading voices ...