I admit I have been reading the nonesense of those who have attacked me in the past.

I admit I have been reading some of the nonsense of those who have attacked me… and have really had a good laugh… (Sadly really) at how far someone will go to “be right” and make others “wrong”.

Phil Perkins has been writing on being “anti-missional”. I tried to point out that he is really speaking against the great commission and is not relaying that it is not that emergent’s deny “hell” (some maybe, but not all of us, and even those that supposedly do, may not entirely) but that is the point of “missing the point”.

Phil is at his best… I think at writing satire!

He goes off on some weird tangent of Ronald Reagan versus Jimmy Carter to make a point… which I get but misses the big point, then goes on

“So then, this Christian will stick to biblical vocabulary.”

Then throw out these words also as they are not in the scripture:

Trinity
Missionaries
Sola gratia
Sola fide
Solus Christus
Sola scriptura
Soli Deo gloria

(I am being a bit facetious here as none of these ‘words’ are in the bible… as missional is not also yet to follow through on the logical conclusion of the statement as stated… is silly.)

With that, I say call back all your churches missionaries Phil, cuz they are being missional by going to another country and “missional” is not in “your biblical vocabulary” so I think to follow you logically… neither is to be a “missionary”!

This is another classick case of missing the point! LOL!

The point is… Jesus gave us the Great Commission… get that? Let me spell something out fer ya!

comMISSION.. Do you see it?

Jesus told us to go… and this is Bible right here… Matt 28: 18. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20. and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (NIV)

Those where not my words but Jesus’!

God placed all authority on Jesus… though we as Christians do not have to fear His authority as we are walking in His Love… which is the higher Law. We are now through Christ able to walk in relationship with Jesus…

The fact is Jesus sent us to make disciples… not converts. A convert is someone who has just accepted and believes… but a disciple has taken it into their life to learn and build on a relationship with Jesus. Really to make a convert can just amount to casting pearl before swine.

I see in Phil’s post that he is falling into the very thing he is accusing emerging thought to be doing. “Window of vulnerability” was the concept that Reagan used… and effectively. Yet, to miss that the idea of being missional is doing the Great Commission… then to say one is anti – missional based on their assumption that the great commission is only about getting people out of hell (which is a great disservice to what Brian McLaren is really saying), It is setting “getting out of hell” highest if not alone on what the Great Commission is about… and that is making disciples and spreading the Kingdom of God… which included in that is that people “get out of going to hell.” It is a disservice to what Jesus called us to do and not very biblical at all.


Phil is using hell in his arguments the same way Reagan did, yet for the opposite effect. It is to divide, instead of create stability, or rather reconciliation. In many ways this is just a straw man which Phil has again set up to knock down… to make him appear “right”… but really in missing the point… becomes a great parody of the thing he is writing about.

Blessings,
iggy