How Leadership Network created the “Emerging Church”

There are many interconnections between Bob
Buford of the Leadership Network, Rick Warren of “purpose-driven” fame, and
Brian McLaren of the “Emerging Church.” On the website

http://www.anewkindofchristian.com/archives/000226.html, “The website
for A New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren answers the question, “How did
Emergent start?”

“1. Emergent grew out of the Young Leader Networks, which was launched in
the mid-90’s by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based foundation. Doug Pagitt,
Chris Seay, Andrew Jones, Brad Smith, and others were involved before I was,
and they did a great job of setting a tone and direction for the emergent
conversation.”

In order to understand the significance of this answer, a bit of background
information might be helpful. This is a movement that is bringing in new
doctrines and new church structures, particularly targeted at a younger
generation of Christians. Berit Kjos, writing about

Brian McLaren, notes the connection between McLaren and Rick Warren and
comments on the methods of changing doctrine:

“While many pastors and church leaders have
written books that describe this spiritual transformation, the message
of Pastor Brian McLaren carries more weight since he is an acknowledged
leader in this movement. Some of his articles are posted at http://www.pastors.com/,
a website founded by Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven
Life.

McLaren’s book, A New Kind of Christian, is written as a
semi-fictional dialogue, so that readers can experience the thrill of
questioning old truths and discovering new truth through the dialectic
process. . . . [T]he introduction touts the postmodern worldview while
raising doubts about Biblical faith….”

Robert Klenck, in an excellent and comprehensive
article at
http://www.crossroad.to/News/Church/Klenck2.html entitled “What’s Wrong
With the 21st Century Church?” writes about the purpose of the Emerging
Church:

“The Mission of the Leadership Network is to
‘Accelerate the emergence of the 21st-century church,’ and that the
(emerging) ‘paradigm (of the 21st century church) is not centered in
theology, but rather it is focused on structure, organization, and the
transition from an institutionally based church to a mission-driven
church.’ [emphasis added]

“The Young Leader Networks, affiliated with the
Leadership Network, under the heading ‘People We Connect’ state that they
connect ‘Theologians who construct new theologies that emerge out of
practice.’ and that ‘We need your help to move to this “new age” of ministry
built upon various experiences and expressions (emphasis added).’ ‘Our
vision is to contextualize our message…by narrative preaching opposed to
propositional. … within the framework of relationship. We prefer the mediums
of art, expression, and experience opposed to a 95-point sermon used by
generations before us to communicate truth.'” [emphasis added]

[A more comprehensive history and explanation of Bob Buford and the
Leadership Network is found in Robert Klenck’s report, “How Diaprax
Manifests Itself in the Church (Growth Movement),” available in a booklet
published by the Institution for Authority Research’s “Readings in the
Dialectic” (e-mail iardeangotcher@yahoo.com for information on how to
purchase this excellent report). For more information on the Leadership
Network and Rick Warren, see “The
Shepherding Movement Comes of Age” and “The
Pied Pipers of Purpose.”

“What Is Emerging?”

In an article with this title, Chuck Smith, Jr. wrote in April 28, 2005,
under a section entitled “Rewind to the 1970s” that Leadership Network had a
direct role in setting up the Emergent Church:

“As far back as 1970, Larry Richards was
calling for A New Face for the Church and in 1975 Howard Snyder
pointed out The Problem with Wineskins. The student revolution of
the 1960s marked the beginning of change in western society, and
prescient believers were already discovering that the church would have
to alter some of its structures in order to recast biblical community
in the new world, still forming. The recommended changes of the
‘60s, however, had more to do with tweaking existing structures rather
than calling the entire structure, right down to its foundation, into
question.

“In the last decade of the 20th century, a small group of Christian
leaders were drawn together by their mutual conviction that
evangelicalism had produced a subculture that was no longer the best
possible representation of Christianity. The world that had given birth
to North American evangelical institutions (established basically
through the 1940s to the 1960s) had disappeared by 1990. These believers
realized that pushing the same methodologies (perhaps even the idea of
methodology) and striving to salvage the old worldview would
increasingly alienate popular culture and future generations of
Christian youth.

“The group that met together to discuss these issues was fortunately
blessed with astute and theologically informed thinkers like Brian
McLaren and Tony Jones; ecclesiastical innovators like Todd Hunter,
Chris Seay, and Brad Cecil; advocates of worship renewal like Sally
Morgenthaler; and world-Christians like Andrew Jones. Scholars who had
been discerning the times—Len Sweet,
Stanley Grenz, N. T. Wright, Robert Webber, and Dallas Willard, to name
a few—forged a biblical vocabulary that enabled the early team to
converse intelligently on issues that were their passion. All of them
shared two basic beliefs: western culture had radically changed since
the 1950s, and the church desperately needed renovation to respond to
cultural changes.

“The more the original crew talked among themselves, the more their
numbers grew. In the early 1990s, Leadership Network provided the
initial platform for them to generate more discussions and host
conferences. Later they adopted the name The TerraNova Project, and when
Leadership Network withdrew its support, they became Emergent, which
Brian McLaren insists is a conversation rather than a movement.” [New
link

http://www.forministry.com/vsItemDisplay.dsp&objectID=A670797B-0CBE-43D1-A877B4F9EA43CC4F&method=display&templateID=C3435351-D45C-4B52-867A3F794D1CD85C,
emphasis added]

Brian McLaren confirms this history in an
interview at

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week846/interview.html, July
15, 2005, in answer to the question “How did all of this get started?”

“Well, back in the early 1990s there was an
organization called Leadership Network funded by an individual in Texas,
and Leadership Network was bringing together the leaders of
megachurches around the country. By the early and mid-’90s, they
noticed, though, that the kinds of people that were coming to their
events were getting a year older every year, and there wasn’t a [group
of] younger people filling in. They were one of the first major
organizations to notice this.

“They started realizing that there was a sentence that was being said by
church leaders of all denominations across the country, and that was,
‘You know, we don’t have anybody between 18 and 35.’ When they started
paying attention to this increased dropout rate among young adults in
church attendance, that opened up a discussion in the mid-’90s about Gen
X. And so they starting bringing together young leaders in the Gen X
category to talk about what was working in the church, what wasn’t
working, what was going on.

“After a couple of years some of these young Gen X guys said, ‘You know,
it’s not really about a generation. It’s really about philosophy; it’s
really about a cultural shift. It’s not just about a style of dress, a
style of music, but that there’s something going on in our culture. And
those of us who are younger have to grapple with this and live with
this.’ The term that they were using was the shift from modern to a
postmodern culture. And so what began to happen — and as this thing had
a life of its own, they said, ‘If it’s not just about Gen X, then we
have to make sure that we get some older people who aren’t just in that
age frame to talk about this.’

“I had just written a book on the subject. That’s how I got involved,
and it turned out that there were a number of us, all simultaneously
thinking we were the only one talking about it and thinking and writing
about it, who all around the same time were noticing the same
phenomenon. So it was a very exciting coming together of these younger
leaders and some of us a little bit older, saying, ‘This is our world,
and this is the future. And the Christian faith and our individual
churches, we’ve got to engage with and deal with it.'”[Emphasis
added]

The Truth:

Pastor Enrique Ivaldi, at www.freewebs.com/luteranos/ in a recent sermon
entitled “Ye are Clean, But Not All,” observed:

“There is much truth in what the devil
teaches. Remember, the devil is called the master deceiver in Scripture
and to deceive people, you have to use truth. You cannot use all error.
Nobody would be deceived if it were all error. You have to mix truth and
error together and that is what the devil is a master at doing. There is
much truth in what the devil teaches. In fact, there is so much truth in
it that you may not be able to find anything wrong with it. In these
last days that truth will be so combined with error that unless the Holy
Ghost is working on your mind, you will not be able to tell the
difference.”

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the
serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be
corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3)

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good
works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

© 2005


Discernment Research Group





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