I've seen these posters before, but it's always funny.

Here is the link that works:

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/posters.htm

Oops! Let me add the new link....

"i don't care who ya are, that's funny right there!"

I love it guys! I take a week off from the blogisphere and come back to find you guys have been busy! I got a HUGE laugh from these posters, Michael. I'd like the the "Chastened Epistimology" one hanging above my desk. (For some reason I feel I can relate to that guy.) Also, I think we should use "Spicy Talk" as the promotional poster for our meetings, since "too much is never enough," right? Besides, he kind of looks like a clean-shaven pastor Michael without the Wal-Mart cowboy hat, don't you think? ;) LOL

LOL, Wal-Mart hat. Yeah Michael could lose the hat.

Na, just kidding about the hat, Michael. You know I wear a cowboy hat most of the time too.

On a more serious note, there are people who don't find as much humor in this as we do! Many people do not know why the emerging church is 'emerging' or anything about it, therefore when they see this propaganda they have already made up their minds as to what the emerging church is before they look into it for themselves. They think we're a rebellious bunch of wild-eyed tattooed hippies that just want to cause trouble. I am afraid that most people will be susceptible to this kind of negative propaganda.

Maybe we should send them a nice photo of us? A smiling pic of us good lookin' clean-cut Montana boys with cowboy hats on might throw a wrench in their operation, eh? Don't worry, we can find a cowboy hat for you too, Jesse!

"They think we're a rebellious bunch of wild-eyed tattooed hippies that just want to cause trouble. I am afraid that most people will be susceptible to this kind of negative propaganda."

...We're not?


"Maybe we should send them a nice photo of us? A smiling pic of us good lookin' clean-cut Montana boys with cowboy hats on might throw a wrench in their operation, eh? Don't worry, we can find a cowboy hat for you too, Jesse!"

LOL, well, the WalMart hat serves a dual purpose of preventing me from having to comb my hair on Thursday morning. I get in trouble all the time for wearing it to Kirkwood :-)

I am actually thinking of bringing my camera down on Thursday to take some pictures for the site. That way, people can get an idea for who we are and get a glimpse of the casual atmosphere of our Thursday get-togethers.

Sounds great Michael! Love you and your Wal-Mart hat! A picture would be nice, I can put it on our facebook group.

I guess I'd like to wade in here and ask a dumb question. What is the "emerging church?" Is it simply referring to a preterist interpretation of the Bible? Never too old to learn, eh?

Hi Imatypr! Welcome to our blog!

No, the "emerging church" movement is not related to preterism. There is no official eschatology that is common to all emerging Christians. Some emerging Christians, like Jesse and Ryan, may hold to a preterist interpretation of Scripture, while others, like myself, hold to a more future-oriented eschatology.

Properly speaking, what's "emerging" in our generation is not a church, but a conversation about what it means to be the church. We are rediscovering what it means to be disciples of Jesus and finding new ways to express our faith in a postmodern context. Asking "what is the emerging church" is not a dumb question at all, because it's a conversation still unfolding. We're all learning together, as a community, what it means to be followers of Christ in the 21st century - and that's what makes this such an exciting conversation to be a part of!

There is no single definition of "emerging church," and you can find a variety of viewpoints represented within the movement, from the theologically conservative (Mark Driscoll) to the theologically liberal (Brian McLaren).

A good place to begin your exploration of the "emerging church" is on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_church

While Wikipedia is not always a reliable source of information, I find that their overview of the emerging conversation and its distinctives is fair and relatively accurate. Please let me know if you have any questions.

In His Peace,
Pastor Michael

Yeah Michael, I don't think you and I are susceptible to this kind of negative propaganda. I believe you and I are "competent judges," as John Stuart Mill would say, concerning what the church should look like in our present day. We may not be right on everything, but we are at least trying to discuss the problems and what we need to do about them. We are equally acquainted with the modern church and the post-modern church (I hate those terms). Anyways, we have had a taste for what church could be like if we didn't have all the problems associated with the modern mega-church. Therefore, we can look at these goofy posters and laugh a little, knowing that the goof-ball that made them works for John MacArthur and he could never possibly believe that J.M. might be wrong on something. Silly, very silly. Moreover, being the astute, discerning types that we are, we can recognize propaganda when we see it.

On the other hand, the ones susceptible to this propaganda would be people like imatypr, who hasn't really heard what the emerging conversation is about. When the non-competent judge sees these brilliant (yes, the photography is quite excellent) yet negative posters, they might get the wrong impression, which is the whole point of them, really. For readers new to this blog, check out pastormichael's post on "Why John MacArthur is Afraid of the Emerging Church" to see what motivates the authoritarian, top-down teaching mega-church to drive people away from this movement.

anyways... maybe we need to bring up a discussion on secular philosophers and how we can benefit from their ideas as Berean-minded Christians.

imatypr,
Thanks for chiming in! Any question whether it be on "Will not Delay" or Trail Blazer is welcome. I'm won't be as hard on you as Michael. :)
Emergent, Emerging, Post Modernism is all hard to define. Post Modernism questions absolutes, but doesn't deny them. In general Post Modernist love to use history, science, and philosophy to form their opinions. As opposed to just accepting absolute truth forthright.
Anyway, glad you found us!
Jesse

Thanks, Pastor Michael, for enlightening me on the "emerging church." ["Some emerging Christians, like Jesse and Ryan, may hold to a preterist interpretation of Scripture, while others, like myself, hold to a more future-oriented eschatology."] So the controversy/discussion continues ... and the "emerging church" is not on the "same page," but still talking about differing opinions regarding interpretation of the Bible? The discussion on the posters today was interesting, but there was a tone of "us versus them." We all agree that we are sinners and that Christ died for our sins. No wonder people are skeptical when Christians can't agree on what the rest of the Bible says. Being a new preterist, I am still reeling from a lifetime of erroneous teaching. I guess I'm just wanting to make up for lost time now and re-educate myself. You guys have a great blog here. My poster pick: Conversation ... Because the pooling of ignorance just feels better than hard truth.

"Non-competent judge?" That's good, Ryan. Mmm ... She's learnin'.

There is always an "us vs them" in different philosophies. I believe Christians shouldn't divide over issues, unfortunately we can only try to find some "common ground" http://www.spurgeon.org/images/pyromaniac/TeamPyro/e-s_006.jpg
Christianity is still growing and refining. Asking hard questions shouldn't be wrong, when there is absolute truth.

I don't think that the emerging conversation is necessarily about an "us vs them" mentality, so much as it is about an "us *with* them" mentality. Our goal is to be in dialogue with the entire church about what it means to be a disciple of Christ in the 21st century. If we are going to reach our postmodern culture with the gospel, then it is going to have to be a team effort. We need "all hands on deck" to bring God's love to a world in need.

Speaking of "common ground," that somewhat adds to this discussion, my nomadic horse-shoer friend Lee and I were having some "common ground" down at the new Buffalo Wild Wings joint one evening when he said one of the more thought-provoking statements I've heard him say. He said, "The most humbling thing a man could ever do is entertain the idea that he could possibly be wrong about something."

Now, I'm probably pretty guilty of using "us vs. them" phraseology but I also recognize that what we have in common with the modern "non-reformers" (how is that for a new buzz-word?) is greater than what we don't have in common. The only thing different that we have done in our Christian walk is maybe humbled ourselves a little bit and entertained the idea that maybe we have been wrong about some things--our whole lives, possibly. That hurts--it really hurts the pride a little to think of all the time and expense that we have been putting into a church machine that hasn't been quite revving at max rpm with the good holy-ghost grease like it should. It's like we have a little engine sludge that has been slowing us down, you know? The only difference between us vs. them is that we see it, they don't (because of personal paradigm issues). That is why it is more of an "us WITH them" conversation, as Michael says. I feel obligated to have this dialogue with other friends of the faith because I can see the sludge build-up in their brains. Again, that is why we laugh at these posters, because not everybody can claim to be a competent judge, we can. Sorry, imatypr, I'll explain what I mean by the competent judge in more detail in a later post--no offense.

One more thing I'd like to say after looking at these posters for the hundredth time, I think the most blatantly arrogant of all of these is the poster "Ecclesiology--who cares whether we know how it's supposed to work? We're going to take a crack at fixing it." Was the bible only given to the people that stand in the pulpit? Do they think that we're too stupid to figure it out for ourselves?