Emergent Village sponsored a regional event in Philadelphia on Nov. 8, with Peter Rollins as the main speaker. There was no way I could miss this, since I had spent an enjoyable morning with Rollins in Belfast last May while on my sabbatical. Rollins has become something of a celebrity among serious devotees of all things emerging, with his provocative books, How (Not) to Speak of God, The Fidelity of Betrayal, and soon to be released, The Orthodox Heretic.

Rollins is an entertaining and stimulating speaker, inundating his audience with waves of philosophical reflections on what it means to be authentically Christian, all delivered in a delightful, thick Irish tongue. He was in Philadelphia on a six week speaking tour in America.

As I strained to follow the rapid discharge of existentialist, postmodern, deconstructionist ideas of this unconventional follower of Christ, I reminisced on my experience last spring of the polarized Christian community in Belfast. Rollins is so much a product of that polarization that I had to wonder how his approach to radical Christianity would play out in Philadelphia.

At the same time, in attending this event I was taking stock of Emergent Village, which attempts to be a leading voice in the ever-evolving emerging church movement. The first thing to notice was that I was easily the oldest person in the room; second, that there didn’t appear to be many pastors of conventional churches present; third, that this crowd was far more interested in ideas than in application. And I think these three observations are related.

There is a certain luxury in being young, open and uncommitted. Exploring ideas wherever they may go can be captivating and energizing. And even for me, no longer young, this past year of reading and observation has thrust me up a steep learning curve, and I have loved every minute of it.

But now I am getting a little impatient. I want to take these ideas and run with them. And if they turn out to be worthless in practice, I’m ready to move quickly toward something else that might advance the kingdom.

And that is what disturbed me about my second encounter with Pete Rollins and my day with folks in the Emergent Village. It’s one thing to dislike the traditional church because of its ineffectiveness and inadequate presentation of the gospel. But are these folks going to showcase a better way or just theorize about what might work? It brought to mind D. L. Moody’s famous retort, when someone complained about his evangelistic approach, “I like my way of doing evangelism more than your way of not doing evangelism.”

Exactly.