Jimmy Draper Blog

UPDATE: Dr. Draper has now changed to a blog hosted at Lifeway.  Hopefully this will make comments possible, but not so much yet.

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Jimmy Draper, the head honcho over at SBC's Lifeway, is now blogging at Crosswalk.com (Lifeway).  Here's a link to his blog.  His first post is about blogging and about what he's learned in the Younger Leaders Dialogues (for emerging leaders in the SBC).  In the last paragraph he is very generous to my other site, Emerging SBC Leaders.  UPDATE: Baptist Press has an article on it as well.

Dr. Draper knows that he doesn't fully understand us, but also says that we don't fully understand his generation either.  Fair, and as he says, it's a good reason for us to talk.  It's obvious he could care less about blogging, but realizes that blogging is a means to connect with us better.  Good move.  Unfortunately he's using a blogging system that doesn't allow comments (which he admits), but it's a start anyway. 

A part of my concern with the current leadership of the SBC and older generations (if you will allow me to broadbrush), is that they usually think that for us this conversation is about our way of doing things vs. their way of doing things.  I don't think this site or the concerns we raise are only about (or even primarily about) doing things differently.  I think it's also about doing them better.  But maybe that's our problem too, in that we find things older generations do as always inferior to our brilliance.  We need to be very careful and willing to listen to see if we are overstating our case.

Is a desire to move from institutional to incarnational, or from monuments to a movement, about doing it different?  Or doing it better? Are we only about being different to reach younger generations, or more missional to reach all generations better?  I think these are some of the most important questions as we seek to see walls come down and find real understanding between us.

Comments

[Bob Robinson]

I think one of the misperceptions is that this is merely a generational thing--that "emerging" ministry is about reaching 20-somethings.
As a 40-year old, I can attest that this is not the case. Certainly, the 20-something generation is one that is more emmersed in postmodernity, but postmodernity has been coming for a long time. That is why a guy like Brian McLaren (who is even older than I am!) can speak to it and in it and through it so well. I personally know at least two grandparents who would identify more with emerging sensibilities in hearing the gospel than the gospel they've been witnessing for their 60+ years of life.

[Phil in CA]

To me, Reformissionary (not to be confused with Emergent) is just Christians living the scandalous reality that church doesn't have to look like a cast reunion from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. So long as SBC (and related ilk) continue to draw their leadership from the International Society of "We were raised Christian and have never made big mistakes", and so long as those elites only welcome members proffering similar appearances of righteousness, then regular sinners -- "the rest of us" -- will continue to go to church elsewhere. If that makes Reformission-style churches superior so hyper-fundamentalism, so be it.

[Jim Millirons]

For comments see my "Yes-No! Help! I need some caffeine" at theimpactcoach.blogspot.com

It is definitely a missional issue. God is orchestrating a missional resurgence to fulfill His vision for the theological resurgence-to reach the world. It's not about methods and models in the church but about contextual missional models incarnational and indigenous to the cultures and communities of the lost.

Jim millirons