{"id":3396,"date":"2008-04-03T00:25:58","date_gmt":"2008-04-03T00:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2008\/04\/another-letter-from-an-emergin.html"},"modified":"2008-04-03T00:25:58","modified_gmt":"2008-04-03T00:25:58","slug":"another-letter-from-an-emergin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/04\/another-letter-from-an-emergin.html","title":{"rendered":"Another Letter from an Emerging Pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>I probably get asked this question more than any other. Which means quite often. Again, used with permission and only slightly edited<\/em>.<br \/>\nHi Scot. First, let me say that I appreciate your writing and your heart. I have used some of the pieces you have written for a leadership magazine with my staff, and I find that I click back to your blog to help me on my journey. <!--more|inline--><br \/>\nI was wondering how you handle or deal with the &#8220;Truth War&#8221; crowd that believes anything but their rather minuscle box of theology to be heresy, from contemplative prayer to purpose driven principles. In most regards, you could say that I am an emergent pastor, the church I lead is an emergent\/ing church&#8230;however I have been doing church this way for 22 years, longer than that word has been around, and longer than many of the faces of the current &#8220;movement&#8221; have been around as well.<br \/>\nWith MacArthurs book, and Chuck Smith of Calvary taking stabs at both emerging churches and Rick Warren, I suddenly find myself in the sights of some&#8230;their rigidity and quick use of words like heresy and cult really piss me off&#8230;so as I work on my own heart in the face of some people who befuddle me with their thinking, I was wondering how you handle and deal with that crowd.<br \/>\nGod is good, Jesus Christ is the centrifugal force of the church I lead&#8230;transformed life, new life, and hope-filled lives spill out of our church into the community and region that surround us&#8230;so the fruit is there, the &#8220;truth&#8221; is their, and perhaps even greater, grace is there for any and all who long to begin their journey towards Christ.<br \/>\nAny tips, thoughts, direction would be appreciated, and I am praying for you a you continue your ministry as well. Perhaps one day we might even connect face to face should God see fit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I probably get asked this question more than any other. Which means quite often. Again, used with permission and only slightly edited. Hi Scot. First, let me say that I appreciate your writing and your heart. I have used some of the pieces you have written for a leadership magazine with my staff, and I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastoring-and-preaching"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Another Letter from an Emerging Pastor - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/04\/another-letter-from-an-emergin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Another Letter from an Emerging Pastor - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I probably get asked this question more than any other. Which means quite often. Again, used with permission and only slightly edited. Hi Scot. First, let me say that I appreciate your writing and your heart. I have used some of the pieces you have written for a leadership magazine with my staff, and I&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/04\/another-letter-from-an-emergin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-04-03T00:25:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Another Letter from an Emerging Pastor - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/04\/another-letter-from-an-emergin.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Another Letter from an Emerging Pastor - Jesus Creed","og_description":"I probably get asked this question more than any other. Which means quite often. Again, used with permission and only slightly edited. Hi Scot. First, let me say that I appreciate your writing and your heart. 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