Scott Sunquist, mission professor at Pittsburgh Seminary, invited me to the monthly gathering of a group of emergent church pastors. We met at The People’s Restaurant, a storefront serving great Indian food in Pittsburgh. The discussion was thoughtful and intense from the beginning. Here were four young pastors trying to think missionally as they lead their churches in creative interaction with the unchurched.

I represented what they were running from: conventional, suburban churches. Two of the pastors could hardly contain their impatience with the traditional church. Even the sexy, hip, postmodern versions of institutional church were more than they could stomach; they are still all about programs, buildings and self-promotion. The other two pastors have their feet in both worlds: the emergent church, which they love, and the conventional church, to which they still have some allegiance.

I dove right in, dropping a name they all would immediately respect (Point scored). I referred to Alan Roxburgh’s The Sky Is Falling, in which this missional guru maintains that emergent leaders (like them) and “liminal” leaders (pastors like myself) need each other. They hadn’t read the book. (Two points.)

We do need each other, and that is why I was so delighted to engage these pastors in dialogue about the nature of the church and its mission. Roxburgh observes that emergent leaders have developed fresh, effective ways to connect with populations the church seldom can reach. They tend to be reactionary, however. In their zeal to do church differently they throw out the wisdom of 2,000 years of church ministry. Liminal leaders are the carriers of hard-won theological insight and “been there” practical wisdom but their way of conveying the faith, and their idea of what the church should look like, do not compute in a postmodern culture. “It’s my conviction,” writes Roxburgh, “that without dialogue and cooperation between these two tribes – the Liminals and the Emergents – we will never be able to discern the shape of the communities God truly wants to call forth.”

We had a great conversation at The People’s Restaurant, which led to plans for further dialogue this week. Maybe it was the location. The name of the restaurant seems to this Baby Boomer like a throwback to the Sixties, so I felt at home. And as we talked, the Indian music in the background couldn’t help but put these multicultural, postmodern pastors at ease. Whatever it takes to get us together.

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