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By admin | May 1, 2007
Hartford Seminary did a study on common, observable, things that were present in churches that grow. Check it.
For those of you dying to read something heady, here you go. Check it.
Or if that isn’t good enough why not read someone on Speech Acts. Read it.
If you haven’t heard Driscoll appeared via video at the conference I attended last week, though I left before that session. Bill Hybels took the platform after the video and made a couple sentence response that has echoed throughout the blogosphere. From what I can tell here is the best synopsis of the situation, it doesn’t seem like it was that big of a deal. Check it.
And here’s the infamous video.
Topics: Church Planting, Link Love |
May 1st, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Preface: I attended the conference and was present during the video.
What’s interesting to me is what appears to be a rather blatent double standard by many taking issue with Driscoll and his video.
On the first day of the conference, everyone listened to Ed Stetzer speak on the issue of contextualizing the gospel. Making the gospel fit within and speak to a local context.
The next day a hip-hop group from Houston took the stage and did some pretty crazy things. Rapping, miming, a DJ, running all over the auditorium dancing. Things that the vast majority of church leaders present wouldn’t find acceptable in their local context. Yet, most of us enjoyed this performance and accepted it (either conciously or sub-conciously) as a unique form of contextualization.
So the next day we have an edgy (if that) video from Driscoll. A guy who, seemingly, has done the same thing in contextualizing the gospel for a target group in Seattle. However, for some reason, his contribution to the conference is not seen through the lens of contextualization. Instead, it’s viewed as offensive, unneccessary, and extremist. Why is this?
As for Hybels, I do not think he was offended by the video. I do think he felt it necessary to add something that he believed was valuable. Don’t we do that all the time when conversing with people? Adding a little clause to the end of what someone else has said for further clarification and emphasis.
Anyway, I just gotta say I’m surprised at people’s response to the video. Specifically people who were at the conference. I could tell some around me were bothered by it both during and immediately after the video. When the conference was over many of the people I heard talking were discussing the video and Driscoll’s methods. For better or worse it did seem to stir up emotion within many people.