Listening to the global South, the need to find emerging voices from here, the polarisation of American society, funny food (!), blogs, the internet and spiritual disciplines are some of the things Brian McLaren talks about in his email interview with me at EmergentAfrica.

Brian talks about the need for listening to the stories of "integral mission" that are emerging from the global South. South Africans (and Africans) have so much to offer to the rest of the world - I don't think we realise that the way we work out our faith here actually has something valuable to contribute to others all over the world.

I didn't summon up the courage to ask Brian about the "mass produced American Christianity" which is being sold to the rest of the world in the form of worship cds and dvds, mega-church models, evangelical crusades (oh please not another one!) and books. Of course, these things are not inherently bad in themselves - as long as both producer and consumer acknowledge the difficulties of taking a method of doing Christianity in one place (i.e. the US) and transplanting it to another context (like SA or Ghana or whatever). Sorry, but no - your mega-church model which works in the States isn't necessarily going to work here. Yes, we can learn things from you but please - your model of doing ministry isn't the absolute, correct and only way of doing things :) And I got through this paragraph without even mentioning Purpose-Driven Life!

I agree ,should we all go out and buy busses just because a small church found growth by transporting the un-churched?With all due respect:is God our Father only in america?and lastly:Has the Bible [the Word of God]suddenly become a book so complex that the poor cannot possibly understand it or are too spiritually stunted to understand that WE the fantastic have to charge them a small fortune to have our interpretation shoved at them.ps:are not the lessons learnt by the persecuted church of any value[or are those truths too difficult and the WAY too hard!

Posted by: patrick 16 Mar, 2006 - 21:31:04