Tim already wrote an article on the subject, so I will keep this brief.  The Willow Creek Arts Conference video clips that Slice is up in arms over are short commentary about a 90 minute talk that the speakers gave at the event.  To make statements about the small amount of content in the clips is akin to walking in on the last 5 minutes of a 90 minute conversation and feeling you have a handle on the while thing.  From someone who was actually at the event, Donald Miller’s content was hardly controversial and, in my opinion, timely and very biblical.

In closing and responding to many of the comments at Slice, many people have questioned the whole reason for having an arts conference.  Let’s not forget that once upon a time, the church was known for its art.  In fact, the church was the artist center for the culture.  Everything from the Sistine Chapel to the David statue, the artists communicated biblical truth thru their work.  And, it was from this art culture we received many of the hymns that more believers hold as holy and sacred.

I re-iterate a point I made earlier if if you can’t understand someone from your own country, speaking your native language, born in roughly the same time, and raised with roughly the same traditions how can you possibly understand scriptures written by men thousands of years ago, in a language you weren’t raised with, in a different country with different traditions? The charge this time, is that Donald Miller has obscured the gospel by speaking with too much complexity. The problem with the critics’ charge (*sigh* yet again)? Miller was talking to a bunch of Christians and wasn’t giving the gospel. Rather, he was talking about how how to communicate the gospel to people who think artistically (right brain) rather than like logicians (left brain).

His answer? Go back to the scriptures. He points out that the scriptures aren’t left brained documents, there’s no bullet points anywhere in there, its only been our communicators of the scriptures that have made them into left brained documents.

BTW, that’s a great answer, I love that answer, and it seems to be the answer I have to give to the watchblawgies over and over again. Maybe someday they’ll actually listen to it.

Is it just me or did anyone else read this post and say, “Um What?” This quote really made me shake my head.

It is my belief that we should develop a bridge that connects the seriously Christian men to the seriously Christian women. There are
small isolated pockets of both scattered across the
U.S. We need to unite Godly couples who can
grow together, marry, and nurture a family so we who
are the remnant can stand firm throughout these
tumultuous times. (emphasis added)

Didn’t God say He has kept to himself a remnant. This post actually illustrates the dangerous ideology that drives many watchblog mentalities. “We are the chosen few, the only one’s holding the standard high. God is so happy to have me on His side.”

I  had the privilege to perform at the Willow Creek Arts Conference this year.  I have to say that it was a pretty amazing event, having 5,000 Christian artists from round the world worshiping in one place.  It was obvious that God is once again moving through the arts in the church.

One session on Wednesday Afternoon, Dan Kimball spoke for about 20 minutes on his new book, followed by a group panel discussing issues of the day.  The goal was to address hard issues of our day, like the rising topic of homosexuality, increasing ethnic diversity, and the hot topic of 18 – 30 year olds in the church (or lack there of).

Many of the watchdoggie blogs have jumped on a video that was meant to be an “after thought” on the session that just happened.  The problem is that these writers missed the 90 minute conversation and presentation that went on before the video was filmed.  In fact, the clip was meant to be a “bonus” to the conference for those that attended the event.  Once again, the context in which this video was filmed was not addressed or even known.

The article written at one of these sites had little to no content on the film.  Really, the only substantial  comment made about Dan Kimball was the following

One humorous note about this clip of Kimball. He tells us with a straight face that church should be about its mission, not trends. Apparently that doesn’t apply to emerging hairstyles.

Once again, if you can’t beat ‘em, jut make fun of how they look, right?

One writer at CRN wrote this strong statement:

Please understand that there is an impassible chasm between men like me who proclaim the Gospel to unbelievers and men like Dan Kimball who want to talk about it with them…. Men and women, we have now reached the point where either men like Charles Spurgeon and Dr. John MacArthur are Christians or people like Rob Bell and Erwin McManus, both leaders in the neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church, are.

With this attempt to let the truth be known, no writer at the watchdoggie site bothered to add this quote from the clip to their article from Dan Kimball

But you can’t argue against the teaching of Jesus.. and that should be why we want to change, not just because this is trendy or this is trendy.