PAGITT: “I have no agenda to go around and convince people of things that they don’t want to be convinced of. That seems to be the least gracious, kind and loving thing you can do… is go disturb someone who chooses not to be disturbed. I think places like ours are maybe hope producing for people who already are disturbed and hope there’s another option.”

I don’t see how this squares with the apostolic teaching on leadership and preaching. I actually think “convincing people of things they don’t want to be convinced of” is a good description of biblical preaching and evangelism. When Paul says: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20)” he is talking about disturbing people with the fearful truth that their sin separates them from God and makes them His enemies. What does the word “implore” mean if it does not mean tearfully, earnestly trying to convince someone who is not and does not want to be reconciled to God to BE RECONCILED!

Paul tells Timothy, “Preach the word, in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching”. Why does he say this? Because a time is coming (boy are we in the middle of it right now, huh?) when “people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths (2 Tim. 4:3-4).” What Paul is saying is that many people will not want to be convinced by what is true and life-giving. They will want to settle for sermons (or conversations) about mudpies. “Don’t let them! For their own good!” Paul says.

In the video, the strawman preacher is cast as the one who is consumed with arguing about insignificant non-essentials (rather than doing something good in the world as one young woman states). He is one who, by exercising authority, is destined to abuse it and hurt people. He is a noisy gong and clanging symbol, heralding propositional truths without love.

I would say, “Did you catch what Paul said about how to preach the word?”

“…with complete patience and teaching.” There are many other scriptures that underscore this. Preaching must “not [be] domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock (1 Peter 5:3).”

As an aside, I wonder how this ends up looking in practice at Solomon’s Porch. The few clips in the video of Doug “speaking” sounded more exhortational and leader-like than the other congregational sharing.

I pray that God, the divine “disturber of those who don’t want to be disturbed,” in His grace fill pastors and elders with His Holy Spirit as they study, pray, prepare and preach. May there be a demonstration of power and His Spirit when the word is preached, that the unconvinced would turn and sing a new song.

I for one am eternally grateful that God disturbed me through a faithful man named Russ when I was in the fourth grade.

Kenny Clark

Another thing I picked up on was a sense of arrogance and superiority from some of those interviewed. While they'd all clearly contend that isn't “them” I see it nonetheless.

Unfortunately it eventually devolves into the blind leading the blind eventually if stretched to it's final conclusion.

The part that is the most frustrating (to me) about all of this is that Doug Pagitt is very engaging, smart and charismatic. Instead of fully leveraging those gifts, he allows his people to wander in the wilderness. I think the social gospel they are preaching has it place, but not as the exclusive presentation of the Gospel. There is so much more to God's Glory that seems to get discarded.

Big Chris

What is “neat” is that they put themselves “out there” for open critique of such kind. It's part of their emphasis on dialogue as well and open questions. If you truly allow for questions you must allow yourself to be questioned. That's attractive if it is melded with true humility. You can invite questions in order to “defend” and be intelligent enough to silence the other's critiques, or truly and humbly recieve the questions and critique to be sharpened. What they seem to do is, again, very “neat” (you can see I'm very intellectually inclined by vocabulary) in that there is a genuine desire to seek to follow Christ.

That is attractive, and possibly one of the things that EE says emergent has a finger on better than other traditions.

They also tend to contradict themselves, which I suppose is what happens when everything is up for grabs. Apparently, “Christianity is always hyphenated,” but, at the same time, “it's just not useful anymore” to use the terms “Conservative-Christian” and “Liberal-Christian.” So which is it? My guess is that it's okay for Christianity to always be hyphenated–unless the word on the other side of the hyphen is “Conservative.”

Reminds me of the UCC (united church of christ)I was a member of as a kid, and the UU (unitarian universalist) church we attended briefly for a number of years before just adhering to our secular humanist and agnostic tendencies.

Would Solomon's Porch fall under the heading of a UU banner or is it more traditional missonary chistianity, because their rhetoric sure sounds like a Unitarian Universalist meeting hall to me. UU folk were some of the most sensible Christians and Humanists I've ever had the pleasure of congregating with when I was still practicing any sort of organized religion.

I just want to see disciples who are God-oriented even more than they are community-oriented.

This doesn't appear to be a video created by Solomon's Porch, but by one of the members. I did mention before that I can only comment on the image given by the video, and that their actual community may be different.

However, I need to add to that now the fact that this video isn't any sort of official representation of the church. The creator may or may not have captured its essence, and it's possible this reflects what's important to the creator of the video rather than what's important to the church.