Expert on the Experts #3: A Hollow Fulfillment

I spoke earlier about how I was having disagreements with my Church's leadership.  I hope that no one misunderstands me that I dislike the people in my congregation or thought them poor Christians.  On the contrary, they are my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ and they have helped my wife and I when my wife and I lived hundreds and thousands of miles from our family.  

Things were, for the most part, good then too... even though I was having disagreements.  Our congregation, as much as I love and loved it, had some issues.  Nothing out-of-the-ordinary for congregations like mine; we had questions and aspirations revolving around terms like "seeker sensitive" or "relevant" or "needs-based" or "modern" or cutting-edge worship, or "purpose-driven."  We needed more numbers; not for vanity's sake, but so we could reach souls.  But still, numbers (and what drew them or turned them away) became something of a discussion and slowly it became an obsession.  Our congregation was largely, spiritually immature and (by my own, imperfect and spiritually immature observation) and largely Biblically illiterate.  Some people wanted to take "Baptist" off of our Church name.  A few of them even suggested we take "Church" out of our name.  

7 Quick Takes Friday (vol.3)

Click here to view the original post at ConversionDiary.com

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Lent snuck up on me.  Living in the Evangelical bubble, where lint is mentioned but never Lent, it is no surprise that it did so.  However some online friends of mine (translation: I have no life) have encouraged me to observe Lent in my imperfect little Baptist way.  That should be an interesting source for posts... not that I'm doing it for that reason!  

Expert on the Experts #2: Am I Guiding my Guide?

Don't misunderstand me I didn't have blind faith in people with degrees, books or popular pulpits.  I had always known that you could never 100% fully trust everything any human said.  We are all fallible, even the most brilliant of us.  But when the experts guided me through my interpretations of Scripture to arrive at the theology I accepted... it all made sense, I could see it so clearly.  But then I noticed something else... if an expert of an opposing theology guided me through the Scriptures I could (often, but certainly not always) see their point of view as well.

So... why was I choosing to listen to experts I had always chose to listen to?  There were other writers and people who were obviously smart who I would allow to influence me but I never considered them to be on my "go-to-list" for real theological answers.  Why had I always steered clear of the more post-modern or emerging Church guys like Rob Bell, Donald Miller or Brian McClaren?  Probably because I knew where they would lead me!  Why had I avoided writers whom I knew to be Methodists, or Pentecostals, or Presbyterians, Catholics or charismatics?  Probably because I knew where they would lead me!