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Darrin Patrick on the Emerging Church Movement

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Written By Tim Brister

Tim has a missionary heart for his hometown to love those close to him yet far from God. He is husband to Dusti and father to Nolan, Aiden, and Adelyn - fellow pilgrims to our celestial city.

I intended to mention this earlier in the week but simply forgot about it!  Letitia, who frequently comments here at P&P, mentioned to me that her pastor, Darrin Patrick (of The Journey Church in St. Louis) is speaking this weekend at the Fall 2007 Francis A. Schaeffer Lectures at Covenant Theological Seminary.  The theme of the lectures is “The Emerging Church: Discerning a Missional Milieu,” and it is my hunch that you will be able to find the audio on this page (I could be wrong).

It’s encouraging to find young voices in the SBC addressing the issues in the Emerging Church Movement.  A couple of weeks ago, SEBTS held a fine conference with guest speakers including Ed Stetzer and Mark Driscoll, and other voices such as Darrin Patrick and Dr. Mark Devine have also “emerged” recently to speak intelligently and critically of the ECM.   Lastly,  I should mention that Stetzer has pointed out a forthcoming book I think entitled Evangelicals Engage Emergent which will be published by Broadman & Holman.  Contributors include Darrell Bock, Scott Smith, John Hammett, Russell Moore, Mark Devine, Ed Stetzer, and Danny Akin (among others).  All this to say that I am heartened that Southern Baptists are stepping up to the plate when it comes to the ECM, and I hope more continue to take the approach of carefully studying firsthand the movement which is capturing the lives of so many people in the younger generation.

9 thoughts on “Darrin Patrick on the Emerging Church Movement”

  1. Darin was also at the Founders MidWest Conference last year in St. Peter’s, Mo. He was seen talking with numerous Reformed Pastors and teachers and students. I have been praying that his doctrine would be more biblical rather than emergent.

  2. One more thing: we need to be careful to delineate between “emergent” and the term “emerging church movement.” There are several streams in the “emerging church movement” – “emergent” being only one of them. I am quite sure that Patrick is not in that stream.

  3. Timmy,

    Darrin was quite enlightening about where the major Emerging players have come from in the last 10 or so years. Thanks for the post.

    He even ruined my day by revealing that The Journey is officially classed as Southern Baptist. LOL.

    I should have my notes up on my blog as soon as I make sense of them. I found that taking notes of his talk last night was difficult, which I think he did on purpose. And then this morning I had my 21 month old son with me, which made listening nearly impossible! However, Darrin offered me his material and told me to bug him about it in a week, so I will.

    Terry,
    I encourage you to look at The Journey’s statement of faith off the website and/or the Acts 29 website. I guess I’m curious as to what you mean by “more biblical.”

    http://www.journeyon.net
    http://www.acts29network.org

  4. I should follow that comment about Darrin being difficult on purpose with a disclaimer, just in case he reads this…that it was a lighthearted joke he shared with me. I’m not dissing my own pastor, just to let everyone know!

  5. Mike Corley is presently attending emergence 07 and I can sense the sadness and concern in this post on his blog here:

    Day One at Emergence 07

    “The opening day of the Emergence 07 conference in Austin, Texas is a done deal.

    I will freely admit I am learning some things, yet many, many opinions and ideas I have had concerning the Emergent Church are being clarified and confirmed.”
    Continued in the above link.

    Isaiah 59:9″Therefore justice is far from us, And righteousness does not overtake us; We hope for light, but behold, darkness, For brightness, but we walk in gloom. 10We grope along the wall like blind men, We grope like those who have no eyes; We stumble at midday as in the twilight, Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men. 11All of us growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We hope for justice, but there is none, For salvation, but it is far from us. 12For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And we know our iniquities: 13Transgressing and denying the LORD, And turning away from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words. 14Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands far away; For truth has stumbled in the street, And uprightness cannot enter. 15Yes, truth is lacking; And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Now the LORD saw, And it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice.”

    Has truth fallen/stumbled in the pulpits as well? A lot of what I hear coming from the emerging/emergent camps is really confusing to me. It is so difficult to distinguish which of them are telling the truth, proclaiming the truth. If there are several streams, which ones are preaching the truth?

  6. I can share this with you without fear of copyright infringement, I hope. When you struggle to remember if Emerging or Emergent is the one with the dodgy theology, remember the “Music Man” rule: Emergent with a T (and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool), oh, we got Trouble.

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