Since I did not want to post "on top" of this "Convergent Church" interview, I posted a clarification below from Rick Warren's people below. Click here to read that and only comment on that issue in the Rick Warren post.

Mark Liederbach and Alvin L. Reid wrote the book, The Convergent Church: Missional Worshipers in an Emerging Culture. I had a chance to talk to them a bit about the book and why you all might want to read it.

What prompted the writing of the book?

Alvin: Mark and I had talked for some time about writing a book together that would bring together ethics (Mark's field) and evangelism (Alvin's) in a way that is rarely seen. As we witnessed the rise of the Emerging/Emergent movement and as we observed the waning influence of the evangelical church, we began to talk about writing a book that was even more, a book that looked at faith and culture in our time in a manner that would not only discuss relevant issues, but also offer suggestions for change.

Mark: While this book interacts with the emergent church, I think for both of us it is much bigger than that one issue. We are concerned that as culture on the whole embraces the ideas of post-modernity (or what David Wells call "hyper-modernity") the Church must be careful to do three things:

1) Know where we are and how we got here,

2) Re-invigorate our commitment to foundational faith and doctrinal certainty,

3) Layout sound strategies to live in culture as missional worshippers

This book is our attempt to serve the Church by writing on these very things.

What do you mean by convergence?

Mark: It is so important for us evangelicals to not be afraid to listen to our critics. We do so many things well... but not everything. Like it or not, there are areas that conventional Christians have failed methodologically and where we are also failing to listen and learn. Thus, when we say "convergence" we are hoping to give an honest listen to folks in the emerging church movement who seem to be very aware of some very important ways the "conventional" church has failed to recognize we are living in a new era of thought and cultural norms. At the same time, while listening we also want to be careful not to simply capitulate to new ideas without first testing them by the standard of God's word and historical orthodoxy. Thus, convergence means an attempt to take the best critiques of the emergent movement while rigorously seeking to stay true to the doctrinal purity that the conventional evangelical church fought so hard to maintain.

Alvin: Simply put we mean bringing together the best of two things that may not be exactly alike for the greater good. Mark and I had such a convergence in writing the book. I grew up in the south and have pretty much always been a Southern Baptist. Mark grew up a self-proclaimed "theological mutt," and only recently has become committed to the SBC. I am not a Calvinist and Mark is; I teach evangelism, Mark ethics; and in all these things we have attained a personal convergence that we think can happen in the evangelical world and in our tradition.

What do you mean by "conventional" and "emerging?"

Alvin: I will let Mark answer this one.

Mark: While it would be wrong to categorize the Emerging Church Movement (ECM) as one large, monolithic entity, in our book we lay out what we believe to be six aspects or traits that serve as core values of the ECM. These include a commitment to being missional in methodology, wholistic in ministry emphasis (practice not just doctrine), culturally and contextually relevant. Crucially, this group will describe themselves as post-evangelical in the sense of "outgrowing" evangelical ideas of the past. This does not not necessarily abandoning them, but being willing to move beyond.

In light of these core elements we also identify (following Ed Stetzer's lead) four different "streams" or divisions appearing within the emerging church movement: relevants are those who are doctrinally conservative but methodologically innovative; reconstructionists who are seeking ecclesiological change; revisionists who are willing to surrender key elements of historic orthodoxy in order to achieve relevance; and a group we call roamers because while they are disenchanted with the conventional way of doing things, they are uncertain of where to go forward and often merely drop out of local churches and attempt to go it alone.

Is this even possible? Can we attain a convergence today?

Alvin: We believe it not only possible but essential. You can see this in the SBC today. There is a growing tension between holding on to our conventions, our heritage, and at the same time a growing number who argue that if we do not see a genuine, deep, biblical, great commission resurgence our convention will slide more and more into decline. While we did not write the book with that in mind, we think it can add much to discussions in our own tradition.

Mark: I can only wholeheartedly agree with Alvin. Too often we evangelicals find ourselves years behind the cultural shifts and thus we miss out on great opportunities to be in the midst of the messiness of life where only the name of Jesus can bring healing and hope. Emergents seem to have the vision of where culture is going, conventionals have the hope of truth and biblical fidelity. Lets figure out how to take the best of both so that we can be about the mission of God for the glory of God in the most effective manner possible!

How does this relate to converging evangelism with social ministry?

Mark: There seems to be a rather unhealthy fear among evangelical leaders that as soon as someone wants to engage social justice issues they will also surrender historical orthodoxy to do so. No question there is historical precedence for such a fear in light of the "social gospel movement" of the early 20th century. But the greater and richer history of the people of God is that throughout the previous 2000 years it has consistently been the people of God wh were not afraid to stand up for social justice issues that have also been some of the most effective witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One need only think of Annie Armstrong or William Wilberforce to understand this. In our chapter on this issue, however, we expressly emphasize that it is via a intentional direct VERBAL proclamation of the gospel message that social justice ministries reach their most effective level. It is a both/and strategy and methodology.

How does this translate into effective church ministry?

Alvin: our attitude is one can add without subtracting. We do not argue for abolishing current methods of evangelism, but reshaping our perspective and changing the culture of our churches to be less institutional and more missional. We offer eight points of convergent evangelism:

Mark: Likewise, discipleship and mentoring moves out of the classroom and into the lives of men and women who we must seek to train up into mature and ministering worshippers of God. This is not to say Sunday school and curriculum based training is a thing of the past - far from it. When combined with life on life accountability, interfacing with lost people in real life settings and commitment to authentic community we see significant change in the quality of life, discipleship and ministry of the people of God.

Mark and/or Alvin will be on the blog today to answer your questions, so jump in the comments and let's talk. Also, I wrote the book's foreword and will post that later this week.