Challenging Thoughts

Right now I'm in Kansas City at a Worship/Leadership Conference that is being held at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. So far it's been very interesting to hear some of the thoughts that are being brought to the surface from those faces who are identified with the Emergent Churches. These include Dan Kimball, Brian McLaren, and Tim Keel. I've really appreciated all they have said that challenges the way we think about Christianity and worship.

One of the things that I have taken from this is the clarification of what some terms mean that I've heard for a long time and not understood. Some of these include fundamentalist, conservative, post-Christendom, modernity, and evangelical. Although many of these terms are thrown around a lot, I've finally come to grips with what they really mean. However, it also seems to me that many people have their own definition for a lot of these words including emergent and post-modern. And to be honest, I'm not sure I fully undertand what these two mean. If I could try and define these after this weekend, I would say this...

Emergent is Christian living and worship that combines the tradition of the Church with the experiential learning style of a community's culture and attempts to remove the central focus of the Church from self to world.

Post-modern still escapes me as far as a definition goes. Some say that its basically as it says, being after the modern era. The modern era as I understand it really l