Matt's Blog

I took 3 days off this week to attend a preaching and teaching convention at the Christian college in Joplin. It was good. In about 48 hours I heard like 15 presentations. Most of those were good. A couple were really good. And a couple rubbed me the wrong way. But over all, I was encouraged.

As you probably know, there is something about the postmodern or emerging church that I am excited about. (If you search through the "church" entries on my blog you will find links that help explain what this is about.) It's something that a number of Christians, or xians, are excited about. Of course that means there are a number of Christians that are threatened by this anti-modern movement.

What was encouraging about this conference was that those presenters who are out in the world doing evangelism (evangelism was the focus of this year's conference) made it clear that doing evangelism, or even church, the way it was done 50 years ago, doesn't work any more. Bringing the natives t-shirts to cover their chests and bibles to cover their souls, building a little American church in the jungle (I'm thinking of the film Mesquito Coast) and inviting them in, isn't cutting it.

Every missionary that presented at the general sessions reported bringing food and shelter to those hit by the tsunami, working with local hindis in India, supplying food and education to the family of a man incarcerated for killing a Christian missionary, building relationships. And then, sharing the gospel. The presentation I went to about evangelizing in a postmodern world presented the same message relevant to domestic evangelism. This presenter was the only one I heard that used the words postmodern and emerging church in a non-pejorative way, but it was clear that those out in the field know this is what works to spread the good news.

That's what it was so frustrating to hear one of the featured speakers equate postmodern with *gasp* liberalism, or *heavens to betsy* a nonliteral interpretation of the first couple chapters of the bible. This was clearly one of the most divisive and, frankly, nonsensical "sermons" I've heard in a while. He went on to say that the new testament's instruction to spread the gospel literally meant, in a preached sermon from the pulpit of a 19th or 20th century church.

Another feature presenter said, "I'm so sick of hearing about postmodernism!" I'm sure the Cardinals said the same thing about Luther and his protests. Dude (if I may), time marches on, society changes, motion pictures become talkies, and candy bars don't cost a nickel any more.

Anyway, that out my system, those who are out in the real world doing real evangelism are having real success. And that was encouraging.