I am speaking at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego - and one of the joys of speaking places is meeting up with old friends and meeting new ones.
A highlight of a new friend here, was meeting Scot McKnight who was part of the 8 hour Critical Concerns Course on the emerging church I was part of. Scot is professor in religious studies at North Park University and written several biblical commentaries and wrote The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others.
I got to have a few meals with him and chat quite a bit, and I was very impressed with him being such a theologian scholar type - to have such a realistic perspective on church and people. He also was quite a dynamo speaker - so it seemed rare to have a professor-type like this.
He said something during the panel which I thought was so great, I actually left my seat up there to grab a little pad and write it down before I forgot it. We were talking about the church, and he said that the church is a people whom embraces and gets embraced by God's grace and then embraces others. But then he said a wonderful line about the church which connected with everything I personally feel the church should be, as he said:
"The church should be a training center for missional people"
I love the thought the our churches should be seen and exist and training people not just to have head knowledge, or have nice worship bands or nice preaching or children's programs - but that the church exists for training disciples for the mission we are on. If only we as church leaders would see it that way, and if only the people of our churches would see it that way - how incredibly different would our churches function and also what an incredible difference our churches would make in the world.
I have become a Scot McKnight fan while here.
You can read his blog at www.jesuscreed.org
