emergent convention planning blog

I just posted a comment on the emergent convention planning blog. How great is it that the planners have "open-sourced" the planning to get input from us as they work on pulling next year's events together?

This year's convention was great. I particularly enjoyed the fact that very little of it was glitz and simple pragmatism. More of what I attended was dealing with deeper theological and philosphical matters. Also, it featured some people that really challenges thinking in some very practical ways--especially social justice (with the likes of Jim Wallis presenting).

I had the great privilege of being among the "McLarenites" (as we eventually called ourselves). About 24 of us met each night with Brian McLaren so that he could help us process what we were experiencing and thinking. Nobody is as warm and gentle as Brian, yet he is fully capable of dealing sqaurely with difficult issues.

One thing I found out was that one of my seminary professors has been criticizing Emergent.

Since the convention, I received the CDs of D. A. Carson (presented at Cederville College in Feb). I am taking a lot of notes, and will be presenting a full response at my website soon. Suffice it to say, while there are few scholars I have had more respect for than Don Carson, I was shocked at how flawed his presentation was. Very un-Carson like!

Watch for the response at
www.vanguardchurch.com