Does Church Matter?
I’ve just finished teaching a week long intensive called “Denominational Distinctives.” It’s an “all things Baptist” unit – and most of the dozen students who were in the class are well on their way to becoming Baptist pastors. Pleasingly while most make it clear they think the age of denominations is long past and come to the unit a little resentfully, (it’s obligatory if you are to become a Baptist minister), by and large they land up enjoying it. In fact over the years I have taught it, many have said it turned out to be their favourite...
Read MoreTowards a 21st Century Church (2): Time for the 500 year Rummage Sale?
In my earlier blog post “Towards a 21st Century Church”, I discussed four assumptions we should challenge if we are to make a constructive journey towards the future. In this post I explore Phyllis Tickle’s contested but thought provoking thesis that roughly every 500 years a “great emergence” occurs within Christianity during which a new and “more vital” form of faith emerges. Roughly stated, Tickle’s big idea is that every five hundred years the Church cleans out its attic and has a giant rummage sale. This enables the church to reevaluate and sometimes discard forms of faith she...
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