Re: Reinventing the Christian Church Re: Sane Industrial Policy Re: [RC] Article: Decline of U.S. Manufacturing

[David R. Block]

Title: "Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech

OK, that's helpful. One possible problem area is a lack of non-denominational seminaries, or at least the perception of such a lack. Perkins locally is Methodist (SMU), Southwestern Assembly of God is well, look at the name, Southwestern Baptist is also obvious, Truett Seminary is also Baptist (Baylor). Tyndale Seminary and Dallas Theological Seminary are really the only independent seminaries in the area (not necessarily the entire state). How does one take the denominationalism OUT of the seminaries?? Or is such even desirable or possible?? David   "Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection."—Neal Boortz   On 5/2/2012 1:03 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote: Hi David, On May 1, 2012, at 7:53 PM, David R. Block wrote: And just what does "reinventing the Christian Church" mean?  The short version is that, pretty much since the birth of Western civilization, Christianity has been propagated by three distinct institutions: * local congregations (by nurturing families) * missionary organizations (by creating converts) * seminaries (by training pastors and missionaries) A gross oversimplification, but even a casual reading of church history shows the power and durability of all three institutions. And the sometimes awkward relationship between them. My current hypothesis is that we need to re-integrate those three functions into new, more holistic concept of church that includes outward-facing mission and theological training as part of its *core* reason for existence.  You might call it "Viral Church", in that the goal is to make the regional church self-reproducing (though not self-sufficient; there still needs to be some level of outward accountability). You can get a taste of our first steps at: http://www.kingsway.us/about-us/church-spread/?view=mobile It'll probably take a decade or so to flesh out the full vision, but if it works, it literally changes everything. :-) -- Ernie P. See also: http://2transform.us/grow/ http://triversity.org/ -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org