Dan Roth - Pastor of Disaster

I'm never quite sure what I think of labels. Sure, it's easy to get into the whole "don't label people" groove, but you've already labelled them as "people". Sometimes labels help clarify, but sometimes they convey inaccurate information.

For instance, I'm equally comfortable (and uncomfortable) with many label pairs, including this small sample:
conservative/progressive
mainline/Evangelical
believer/skeptic
realist/dreamer

For the last several years, one label that has highly intrigued me is "Emergent". The "emergent church" is a phenomenon (or is it a philosophy? or are these just more meaningless labels? or are they meaningful labels?) which has fascinated me. In some ways it seems so promising... "We're gonna throw out the garbage which has weighed the church down, and just worry about God and people." However, it seems nobody quite agrees what that means.

Myybe that's good, because it's an embracing of the postmodern epistemological anarchy which helps define the Emergent Church. Then again, maybe it just repeats the disagreements of old, and shows that there's nothing new under the sun.

In any case, I think the Emergent Church, like anything else, has something to teach us and we'll find God at work. So, I'm excited to know that there's a local Emergent event happening in Princeton, NJ. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to some of their upcoming events. (And hopefully our former youth pastor Liam, won't be bothered by me re-emerging into his circle of experience.) There's a Philly cohort too, and I'll be more likely to get involved with them on an ongoing basis... if they can handle somebody as annoyingly interested in church growth as I am!

And then there's the word Progressive. I'm not even gonna vamp on that one, other than to say that I really hope this proposed progressive Christian radio station takes off. Do you listen to the radio?