Just got back from the Missional Leader Dinner hosted by NAMB. I met Geoffery Hammonds and sat with a crew of bloggers at the back table – also the table nearest the food. Troublemakers? Maybe. Here are a few observations, bullet point style:

• Great food and atmosphere. Picking an off campus site was a good decision and transportation was quick and effective.
• Tons of older folks at the Missional gathering. It was a reflection of the Convention in ratio, to my eye. I was a bit confused when standing amongst the crowd, waiting for the trolleys to show up and haul us off. Some thought that many had just found the meal and made the reservation. Others thought that the younger leaders are terrible about signing up for things early, and so were frozen out of the reservation list. 150 came, and another 200 were on the waiting list.
• Stetzer was his normal gregarious self. He was yucking it up with the miscreants troublemakers bloggers in the back, while making his rounds in the room.
• The questions for the panel were pretty good. “What is missional?” was first and it was pretty easy, but then I remembered the room was at least 80% older brothers and sisters and I realized it was a necessary question for them.
• Another question was what we should look out for in “emerging networks?” Did someone send a plant? :) Answered well – stick to the Bible and the Mission.
• Marty’s question was for Bob Roberts, “How do Missional and Glocalization integrate?” Answer: Engaging the culture gives us the opportunity to share Christ more than just walking up to someone with a gospel presentation. (or something like that – Micah and Marty were talking to each other and I was between them. Those guys can gab. :) )
• My question for Bob Roberts, “How does the building of infrastructure rate as a priority in the strategy of evangelization and why?” The best answer yet: It is not enough to simply preach the Gospel and gain converts. Conversion is not the goal, changed societies are the goal. The early church radically shaped the society they were in with the Gospel lived out in every aspect. We have made it about a prayer and we’re done. It’s not enough. Moreover, when we invest in these societies, we have many, many doors opened to the Gospel and evangelization is better. – I knew the answer to that, having read Glocalization, but I knew quite a few in the room wouldn’t. It was the last question asked – though we didn’t know it would be at the time, and when he answered it, our table stood and applauded. The others in the room seemed confused. They didn’t know what to make of it, I think, and were a bit confused. At least some of them, anyway.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch… Dwight McKissic and Russell Moore had a debate in the Exhibition Hall over the PPL issue. I caught a pastor (former Criswell College student and employee) who told me his impression. He said it was like a fight between a smaller faster boxer who was gaining points with many soft blows versus a crusher who was not as fast on his feet, but hit like a freight train when the blow landed. Guess who was who?

Russ waxed Dwight with rhetoric, but Dwight kept saying, “but the Bible says…” In a denomination that has gone through all that we have gone through so that we can call ourselves “people of the Book,” answering with “what the Bible says” is never a wrong move.

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