Worldview class: Rob Bell and the emergent church

For worldview homework this week, we studied a presentation of Rob Bell.  Although I disagree with his theology and beliefs about certain topics, I would rather address his style and approach to his preaching and videos.  I can see where his style and manner of teaching could be very appealing to some people.  He tends to lay things out in a way that is simple to understand, and applies to everyday life.  In the video that I watched, his main point was that people should work at saying no.  He pointed out that Jesus said no to the people when he moved on to a new town.  He argued that life is passing everyone by as we spend too much of our time "moving" and "doing".  I think that many people would find his method attractive- kind of a to-do list for success.  Many people might even think that watching Bell's videos would be sufficient for Church.  The danger of this is that they would miss out on all of the other needs only fulfilled by a Church body.  The individual would miss out on worship with music and scripture.  Also, if someone only watched videos by people like Rob Bell, then they would grow to believe everything that they were fed- even the things that are not true.  In the video, Bell made the statement that "Jesus cannot be everything to everyone".  This statement disturbed me.  I believe that it contradicts the Bible.  I had never heard a pastor say anything like that before.  His belief lies in the "emerging liberal" category laid out by Mark Driscoll.  Driscoll outlines 4 different sections of the emergent church (which i talked about in the last post).  These four different "lanes" are emerging evangelicals, house church evangelicals, emerging reformers, and emerging liberals.  Emerging evangelicals work to reach out in society by doing church-plants, "cool" outreach programs, and discovering the relevance of the Church.  House Church evangelicals do "little church". They work to just meet in houses and in small groups.  They focus on relationships.  Emerging Reformers focus on church planting, evangelizing with contemporary worship with charismatic tendencies.  Emerging liberals call into question many different Christian doctrines.  They question the standards set forth in the Bible, and even the validity of scripture.  I haven't looked too much into the doctrine and teaching of Rob Bell, but I would like to encourage people to be on their guard against people questioning the truth of the Bible.  As always, I pray that we may be discerning in what we choose to accept and believe.