Mark Driscoll Explains The Emerging Church (kind of)

Okay, so I said my next entry will be the books that have shaped my missional/emergent thinking so far. I need to find my camera first. But until then, this video is an interview with Mark Driscoll, who pastors Mars Hill Church in Seattle (not to be confused with Mars Hill Bible Church of Rob Bell fame). Mark Driscoll has been on the forefront of the Christian postmodern movement for the last several years. His book The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out Without Selling Out is a good read and will probably make my photo of books that have influenced me.

This video is interesting because Driscoll talks about the Emerging Church movement and breaks it down into four separate "movements" within the Emerging Church movement, which is helpful to understand what's going on. Here is his list of the four (EDIT: I also have included the designations that the book Breaking The Missional Code uses in describing at least the first three groups, and the fourth designation that I'll give that coincides with the other three 'R's):

1. Emergent - confusing in that it's almost the same word as Emerging, Driscoll labels this group as a more liberal theological group than the other three, and it seems that he almost wants to call them heretical, but doesn't. (By the way, this group would include Brian McLaren and Tony Jones) Breaking The Missional Code calls this group "The Revisionists."

2. the House Church movement - which is basically a group of evangelicals who are trying to minister to the Postmodern culture in different ways, one big way of which is the house church movement. Breaking The Missional Code calls this group "The Reconstructionists."

3. Traditionalists - these would be mainliners who are just trying to change their music and services in order to appeal to more of a postmodern culture. This group is changing the externals (the look) without changing the internals (what I call "Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy"). These are "The Relevants" according to Breaking The Missional Code.

4. New-Reformed Missionals: this group are Reformed in their theology (think Calvinist to paint a broad brush) but who are trying to be missional in their approach to postmodern culture. This group is what I believe Driscoll would fall into. Especially considering that this video is from the website "Desiring God", which is the web site about John Piper, who is a Calvinist. And in keeping with the 'R's, I'll designate this group (to quote Mark Driscoll) "The Reformissionals."

I think it's interesting how different all four groups really are, yet they are all labeled as the Emerging Church movement. All are trying different things and approaching missional thinking in different ways. It will be interesting to see which of these are "fads" and which of these have staying power and will be most effective in reaching the postmodern culture.