His “hurting God” comment ties in with Brian’s comment about hurting people on both sides. I wouldn’t use “hurt” but rather find some ancient Hebrew or Latin word for “fury”.

MacLaren is a wimp. The books mentioned in the podcast imply a whacko and a guy seriously sold out to biblical truth. Doug, I won’t even mention.

Bell, is a worry. He tries to get all Rabbinical in order to give his views credibility yet sticks to the mindset that mankind’s evolving mindset will prove God wrong. I think Driscoll did a wonderful job in unpacking the end result of what Bell said of Mary.

While I’m sad you don’t get much out of Driscoll, I admire his passion for the Word. Freaky thing in the Bible is that God holds His Word even above His own name.

“For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.” Psa 138:2b

So when I see people like Brian et al trash the Word, I wonder what God thinks. When I see the likes of Driscoll get fired up, although some may not lie hi style, he kind of reminds me of John the Baptist calling the Pharisee’s a brood of vipers.

Thanks for pointing me to this sermon.

I’m not using “numbers to certify ministry legitimacy.” If you look back at my posts on Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches you’ll see that I’m very clear about that.

“I don’t mean this to be a judgment call, because there are plenty of pastors with terrible theology who lead huge churches (Osteen, Jakes, Dollar, Long), but there’s something important here.
[...]
I’d say there’s a good bet that the percentage of these two congregations (MH and CotA) that could be called ‘faithful’ is about the same.”

However, numbers do signify how effective a church is at reaching the people around them; particularly the number of converts.

And why ar CotA and Mars Hill apples and oranges? What’s so different about them except the fact that that MH is very conservative and CotA is very progressive?

Considering that they’re both cutting edge churches in the same relatively nonreligious city, it’s fair to compare the effectiveness of their evangelism.

COTA and Mars Hill are apples and oranges. be careful you don’t tread down the path of numbers certify ministry legitimacy. Numbers DON’T, neither does obscurity.

I’ve been looking at Driscoll’s stuff lately and am really liking how he loves the Word.

Good stuff.