When to Leave: An Early Emergent Church Leader Speaks Out, with Dan Kimball 

I went to Youth Specialities Conference in Nasheville in 2002 at the end of my formal Bible education and was introduced to the Emerging Church. The Emergent Church published by Emergent YS was like a handbook to me. It's taken 20 years to pick out the "pebbles in my shoe," but God is bringing me out of the wilderness of Progressive Christianity. Really grateful to see Dan Kimbell here sharing Truth.

The funny thing when I became a true follower of Jesus. I thought hallelujah about time, life will be easy now. Haha it was a trick on my mind, never has it been harder. Homeless lost everything… but my faith is stronger than ever. When you can focus on our saviour things change for the better. Bless you all love Michi

How can you separate the word from Jesus? Jesus is the word. I can't even wrap my head around that one!

They always say "methods change, message the same", but inevitably the priority will be placed on the people's wishes, desires and above all their attendance. Emergent, Progressive Christianity should really and rightly be called Compromised Christianity.

Such an important conversation. I really appreciate Dan Kimball. Our small group went through his "How NOT to Read the Bible" small group video study - absolute gold and would highly recommend it 👌👌👌

About 40 years ago when I had been a Christian for a few months, someone took me to a big "faith teacher" meeting. I just KNEW something was wrong, I couldn't have told you why at the time but I went away and studied and soon the Lord showed me the truth from His word. So I ask, why do all these young ministers not have the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Maybe they have quenched Him so often He stopped warning them?

This is such an interesting conversation, especially in light of recent positions people such as Andy Stanley have taken.

This is really timely because I just found out hours ago about his book, The Emerging Church. So glad to know he found his way out! Thank God for other believers who saw though this!🙏🏼 Thanks for bringing this to us Alisa! PS - Absolutely LOVE your voice!

We can’t know God apart from His word.

Divorce is never the way out, My wife and I have been having issues before I sort out help from a spiritual adviser,i wasnt going to let my marriage of 18years crash

I have no words to explain the massive importance of what has been described here. I didn’t realize the hijacking of words/language was in churches before the prevalence of what is seen in LGBTQ arenas today (sex & gender are actually synonyms and doctors cannot assign sex at birth) Thank you both so very much

I have pushed theological teaching to be in 4th and 5th grade for over a decade. I get eye rolls and push back. Yet when given a chance to learn and explore Biblical truths, students love it.

I followed Dan a little back at the turn of the century and remember my concern for him and his running mates. Then lost touch with that group. Good to learn that he broke free and continues to fight the good fight. Stay strong brother!

Thank you both for sharing this conversation. I have not heard Emergent Church in years. I remember the discussion what is it, a style or theology. The church I attended at the time launched a Sunday afternoon Emergent service. The lights where dim and music soft just as Dan mentioned. I found the points of the message the same points preached Sunday morning. So I thought I’ll keep attending the early service. Later I became aware of Emergent theology is something very different than what I know of The Gospel. I see how from this movement even more different and strange doctrines came about. Thanks for helping me connect the dots. Take care and God bless.

Oh my gosh. My life story - thank you so much for this Alisa!!!❤

Believe it or not, I was one of Dan’s interns when he was a youth pastor at SCBC in 1993-1994. I am so happy to see that he has come through this journey with success! For a while, I was quite concerned. May the Lord keep His hand on Dan and his ministry!

Very good discussion! I am amazed at the various flavors of false gospels that have surfaced over the past 25 years. The significance of the finished work of Jesus Christ and who He TRULY is can not be overstated. Thank you Alisa

Super Encouraging to know that people like Dan are out there! God bless!

This is exactly what I am dealing with! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Our daughter was invited to an Emergent Church in college but saw red flags the first Sunday. Talked to the Pastor, asked questions and realized it didn’t align with her beliefs.

"how did they define fruit?" was such a fantastic question! the progressive/new age bible study i was a part of was so incredibly symbolic it could have meant spiritual gifts, growth, belief, or blessings in life. the double use of language is so tricky! i had a teacher for 6 years who taught that the resurrection of Jesus was both literal, & a physical example of what we're supposed to do inside ourselves, & if we didn't, we would be reincarnated to try again or remain in the "lower levels of Heaven". those teachings nearly destroyed me.. thank you for all you do here!! 💚

Paul tells Timothy to "teach sound do trine". Doctrine is sooo important.

Thank you for this insightful discussion. I was particularly impressed with your exposition on "UNITY" and the possible associated pitfalls. In truth there are 2 places at which a Church can be in unity. First, there is the unity in Spirit and Truth, based on God's Word. But the other "unity" is when the whole loaf is leavened. That is the inevitable result when Truth is sacrificed for the sake of worldly "unity."

Excellent discussion-gave me more understanding of what kids in my grandkids’ generation are hearing and thinking about the Bible

I tried to fight Emergent theology at my former church during the mid-2000s. Had to leave.

Great video! I am from Santa Cruz and now live near Seattle. We really do need to get back into the word of God.

So I love watching Aleshas videos. When I chose to watch this after praying for God to put the video in front of me that I needed to see I kept thinking, Dan looks really familiar. It all clicked when he mentioned Santa Cruz. I grew up at SCBC moved away durning high school and when I came back to Santa Cruz found the SCBC had expanded and they offered a young adult service called Graceland. It was nice to be around my age group. I got involved with the Ushers group and reestablished my faith. Dan was the pastor there. I ended up leaving Santa Cruz again around the time Graceland mentioned opening their own church. I’m so glad to hear things have worked out.

Another thought…listening about how he started his “ministry”, I never heard anything about him STUDYING God’s Word to even KNOW what to teach. He’s a prime example as to why one should research the teaching of one to make sure their teaching lines up with the Word before accepting what they are saying.

I recently left a church that isn’t necessarily progressive, but they don’t stand for a whole lot and they cave to culture by being woke. It hurt my heart. It’s hard to find bible believing/teaching churches who aren’t too fundamentalist.

We need not only unity but unity and the truth !!!

Alisa and Dan. This was a profound confirmation for me. Thank you and God bless you for this.🙏🙏🙏

I'm thankful Dan has had his eyes opened I was there at the beginning of Vintage faith in SC and left due to what heard in the sermons.

When I gave myself to GOD, accepting the Perfect Sacrifice, Jesus Christ 💖🙏. I truly hold on that God is and will always be: THE SAME Today, Tomorrow and forever ‼️🙏🥰🙏🇺🇸

Hindsight is always 20/20. For me hearing him talk about language being redefined and realizing that his peers were defining things very different from him and from scripture was very jarring. I am a gen x'er , the very target of this movement. I was raised unchurched in a very chaotic environment. I came to Christ in 2000 and the church I started attending and attended for 12 years until I left the state was at the forefront of all of this. But because I had no basis to define these things I didn't have any idea , at least at first, that something was wrong. God began a work in me and I did start to question things. I became very unsettled in my environment. And really uneasy with the church I was now fully immersed in and working for. The politics, the teaching, the lack of teaching. I was wrestling with all of it. Now I look back and I see what was happening. I can connect dots between who mentored my pastor and who he lent ear to and the direction the church was going. By the grace of God I got out. But the hurt is still present. I'm so grateful for the church I am a part of now. I have an amazing pastor who faithfully exposits the word every Sunday. And he is a very connected part of the church. None of this celebrity pastor stuff. But it was a painful road. 20 years to be on the dot. And I always grieve over the impressions on my children's hearts over that course of time. The things I have to pray are undone.

Great video

Hey Dan! Great interview! I was enlightened, and glad, to hear about your departure from the Emerging Church community. I didn't know that happened (I've moved out of santa cruz a little while ago). Love this channel, Alisa. Thank you for your work. ~Renee

Honestly, I always felt like the Emergent Church thing was just weird. I had a check in my Spirit about it so after researching it a bit I moved on and forgot about it

Yes, the Red Letter Bible is a way to believe what you want to believe and disobey scripture. I agree with both of you.

SO good! Thank you both.

I've only seen him interviewed once before, but he seems to be another absolute treasure! Such an encouragement to come across! 🤗 🙏🏼 👏

Excellent discussion! Thank you! We went thru leaving a church with similar concerns.

Oh, my goodness. This is such an important discussion. Thank you both!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

So grateful for this.

Thank you for sharing! Going to put another book in my Amazon cart! 🙏🏻

A very important conversation. Thank you.

Thank you Alisa and Dan! Excellent!

Thank you Alyssa. Blessings to one and all.

Thank you Alisha and Dan! Great conversation. We as believers have so much work to do. We need to do better. Please God, forgive our complacency. ✝️ 1:06:43

Just listened on podcast. This was so good and interesting! Thank you both!

Such a good conversation.

There is NOT a book of "secondary issues " it's all essential you can't let compromise come into church!

I met Tony Jones (leader in Emergent at one point) in 2005. I'd had some conversation with a guy I met at a conference, and he then talked to Tony about me, and had Tony invite me to a small meetup that Tony held regularly at a restaurant in Princeton (during Tony's time at Princeton Theological). Tony was cordial, and only had the word of this guy I'd just met to go on about me, so he kind of made some assumptions about where I was coming from. The night was filled with the carefully vague, high-sounding talk that was so common in those circles. At one point, Tony turned to a friend and laughingly said "Evangelicals always freak out when they realize you don't believe in absolute truth." That was when I knew for sure where these folks were coming from. The next day, I emailed Tony (we'd had a friendly multi-email exchange prior to the meeting), and asked him about it. He had been quite chatty and responsive previously, but I got no response to my new email. I waited a couple of days, and tried again. I never heard back.

John 1:1. 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Great show Alisa very educational on the emerging Church.

Wonderful teaching

Thanks very much 🙏❤

Thank you!! 👏💖✝️🕊️🙏

This is so good. What an important discussion.

Hello to Dan from his friends at Valley Bible in Jersey :). Thanks to you both... an excellent, helpful discussion, and so important!

Beautiful!! 😍

I would have liked to hear more about when mysticism and occult tools such as the enneagram enter the churches…and the response is “we will have to agree to disagree on the “non-essentials!”

the part about words and meanings is crucial

GOD will always bring those of honest and humble heart out of darkness. There is a protection from worldly compromise which only GOD’s Holy spirit that only is from GOD and Jesus Anointed which envelopes those to be saved. In every generation there have been those who discern words of truth and cannot be snatched out of GODs hand. Be well!

This is a great topic.☻

Thank you, Alisa and Dan. So informative. So welcome. So good to hear your stories. Thank the LORD that you came out of that lie.

Great discussion. I disagree strongly that women being in pastoral or leadership positions in local churches is secondary. I feel when the Bible speaks clearly on something, that is primary doctrine. There is no debating that Scripture explicitly and implicitly states that women are not to be pastors or teachers over a church.

Im excited to get your book! Although no one can change my mind that God is true good and just, id really like to learn more about these topics that people use against him.

Interpretation of God's Holy Scriptures is paramount,so help us God 🙏✝️🕊

thanks for sharing as I didn’t under stand the Emergent church, but I was in a very charismatic church, world famous, I started hearing things that were just a little bit off, according to the scriptures, one day I questioned something that was said from the pulpit, the reply was who do you think you are to question the leadership, the church had merged with the catholics and others, well it wasn’t earth shattering to be told to shut up, but the straw that broke the camels back for me was about a month later, when the paster got healed and gave the glory to the angel Raphael, NO Jesus paid for our healings, when he took the 39 strips on his back, thus the reason I left, when the bible speaks of unity, it means among believers, Jesus didn’t unite with the pharisees he had some choose words for them, many churches agreed to unite with the pope, the leaders were planing to fly to Rome to complete the deal they were to fly May of 1921 if I remember the time correctly, I watched on you tube the pope embrace the Muslim leader and prayed him around in the pope mobile, thus we were going to embrace a one world religion, but the pandemic stopped the leaders from flying it’s not the right time, I said that to say, I literally don’t understand how these born again leaders could think of such a thing, I’ll explain I was raised Catholic, I know their false teachings, one such one, praying to Mary or the saints, Deut. 18:9-12 “…do not learn to imitate the ways of the nations…let no one be found among you …who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD;…” Mary and the saints all died, and Mary is NOT God as is now claimed by many catholics, I also had the privilege of spending 2 1/2 years witnessing to muslims in Albania, they wanted to kill me, I told them they couldn’t I was under the blood of Jesus, Albania 1993-1996 was totally void of laws and anyone could do what they wanted to, but why would they want to kill me well because to them I was a blasphemer, because I said Jesus is Lord, thus if Jesus is Lord, Then their prophet Mohammed is a liar, along with their false god, now as a born again christian, I can and do witness to catholics, muslims, etc. if they come to Jesus I could have fellowship with them as united by Jesus but I could never Join their religion with the bible, one incident when i lived in Canada I would often go a hour drive with a muslim friend to the Mosque or other meetingsI was in a muslims car one day with him his son and a pentecostal born again christian, that had now become a Muslim, at least that is what he claimed, well this happened twice, that is the one hour trip there and one hour back, I preached Jesus and I let him know in no uncertain terms what he did was wrong, and I was not gentle, well I hope he repented and came back to Jesus but I don’t know, I was informed two weeks after the last time that he was dead, he was 51 yrs. old and in good health, the muslim’s wouldn’t tell me how he died, although they knew he was driving taxi for them, so this so called uniting all religions, is not what Jesus was saying, for Jesus is exclusive, and it’s a relationship not a religion, I hope this helps others see the difference, especially trusting THE JESUS of THE BIBLE! not any of the many false jesus’s out their.

Psalm 1 says blessed is the man who censores all the dangerous sources of information and has learned who to listen to.

QUESTION: Wouldn't it be important to name the names of the false teachers to warn people, like myself, who came out of a cult and is looking for a safe place to land? They did it in the Bible , right?🤷🏻‍♀️ It took me years of confusion and study to find that safe place too land and I guess it's only my opinion, but I think it would be wonderful to help others in that way. Anyhow; thank you so much for everything you do; I truly appreciate it. 🙏🏻

The Pastor who said privately that he didn’t believe Adam and Eve were real people, yet preached on Sunday that he believed the story, was actually lying and therefore stands condemned by the words of scripture that say that all liars are headed for the Lake of Fire. This is a very serious business and these people need prayer.

Glad your on the air thank fir your exposing these wolfs ❤

Thank you....this vein lines up with Gavin Ortlund's "Finding the right hills to die on". Ask your Christian friends, start the conversation, "What do you mean by........?

One crucial thing to look for is where a church stands on Biblical inerrancy. If they don't believe the Bible is without error in all things, then they can pick and choose what they want to believe in the Bible. This is where churches drift.

Thank you…I have been so confused…TODAY IS HARD ENOUGH

As long as the church continues to tolerate child sacrifice we will suffer delusions, lack of discernment and will continue to cover her sins

Our church dropped the Orange curriculum last year because our leaders saw that coming

This applies to any leader of any age.

It's not wacky that churches have serious controversies over women in ministry because it's not only a belief issue like eschatology or Calvinism; it's an obedience issue. Going against the Bible on this is not just error, it is sin. If you read the passages themselves they do not present as matters that should be regarded as trivial and shrugged off; they support the idea that departure from scriptural principle here should not be tolerated among Christians. Having said that, Kimball is right in this respect: charismatics and Pentecostals who take a permissive view about women in ministry overwhelmingly tend to have a very high view of scripture. However the same is not true of Baptists and Presbyterians who are permissive about women in ministry. They tend to place current progressive thought on a higher plane than scripture, and unlike permissive charismatics and Pentecostals, the permissive Baptists and Presbyterians overwhelmingly reject the Bible's teaching on submission of wives to husbands, which is a teaching as obvious as what Kimball cited about the Bible's teaching on gossip. Among non-Pentecostal evangelicals, permissiveness about women in ministry is an off-ramp from the authority of scripture and in the long term from the faith itself, as Wayne Grudem pointed out in his 2006 book Evangelical Feminism. Therefore the battle against drift in this area should be fought urgently. Christians should pray that the Southern Baptists this summer will not readmit to their convention Saddleback Church, which has become a woman pastor church and a gay-affirming church (see Robert Gagnon's Facebook April 11-16, 2023). It has occurred to me recently that the attempts to provide supposed biblical rationale for disregarding instructions for women in the local church including women serving as pastors have served as a template for the efforts to provide purported biblical justification for homosexual relationships. The same emphasis on ancient manners and customs rendering didactic NT passages understandable only to a small clique of seminary professors with very specialized knowledge. (Compare the Reformation doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture.) The same bogus assertions that Greek words in the New Testament have been horribly mistranslated for 2 millenia and in all of our current English versions. The same use of passages like Gal 3:28 setting forth broad principles to nullify very specific teachings of other passages. The same insistence upon using "lenses" for allegedly interpreting scripture. It is a good video, and congrats to Dan Kimball for being willing to course-correct. We see so little of that on the part of church leaders today.

I wouldn't consider my church to be progressive whatsoever but recently my pastor said something that didn't sit right with me. He said we are as anointed as Jesus. It really rubbed me the wrong way and he had the congregation repeating it. It was really weird. Can someone shed some light on this?

In essentials unity, in non essentials liberty, in all things charity. Augustine of HIppo

“The Church isn’t the building on the corner of ‘WALK’ and ‘DON’T WALK.'”The Church is Born Again Child Of God

It's strange to me that the people who left the "table" and pitched a new "tent" are the ones calling for unity. If you want unity, you should come back to the original place. If we aren't unified, it isn't because I moved.

2 Timothy 4:3 KJV - For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

Matthew 28:19, 20 starts with "go". It is not about inviting but going. There is a huge difference in the people between inviting and going.

We need to teach them Scripture but not diminish the reality and implication!

Thank you for the talk. The next thing the church will be facing is AI theology. Which is something very powerful and disruptive.

Aman

Alisa, where can I find the book referenced in this video Finding Hope in the Psalms? Ms. Jones?

Alisa Childers, I have relatives who are and have been "First Nazarene" Christians much of their life who some years back, when in their mid 30's, were quite triggered when I mentioned that Rob Bell was one to be cautious of due to his current "beliefs" at that time. They defended him emphatically basically agreeing with all Rob Bell was about. 🙄 One of those relatives is and was an active pastor at a First Nazarene church. That part is no doubt concerning.

Mark Driscoll was a part of Leadership Network.

I have a friend who feels she is called to be a pastor. When I challenged her with the scriptures, she got so angry that she hung up on me and blocked my number. Eventually, she came back and apologized, but she was wrong on God calling her, according to Paul. She is also wrong about other things that she says. Like she told me to read Isiah 53:5 for a healing of my illness. But that scripture is not for healing the physical body but the spiritual body healing. I say all this to say that when people get the secondary issues wrong, it can be a slippery sloop to bigger issues. To a new Christian, it can leave them angry at God and cause them to leave the faith.

You have no idea how much I needed to hear that @alisachilders. I've been having a conversation by RU-vid comment section with someone, for quite a while now. It's hard to have a conversation with someone who claims to be a Christian but doesn't believe in the authority of Scripture. I am feeling a bit frustrated especially after having you and Jim have so much to constructively criticize on my presentations this past couple weeks, at CIA. I talked by email with Shanda and I've really started to wonder if I'm cut out for apologetics at all, to be honest. Hearing you say you see it's hard when we're playing ball in different parks really hit me. I feel like those are the only conversations I end up in. It's even harder by chat. I was trying to learn, but I'm not getting any better at it. I keep bombing it. **Sigh**

“People in cults don’t think they’re in cults.” No doubt about that. In most cases people in cults believe that they belong to the one and only, true church or path to God.

Yep, liberals will always call you a “fundamentalist” with an emphasis on the annunciation of “FUNDaMENTAList” especially on faith related programs on NPR to emphasize the stigmatism that goes with that term when you try to speak truthful, accurate Biblical teaching to them. Everything to them is open to interpretation and pick-and-choose a la carte spirituality. Same tangent why many of them become Buddhist- basically having feel-good spirituality on their terms and not God’s. Having grown up in a watered down, compromised and false teaching church, I have grown to detest it whenever I hear it. After having been mocked, sneered and condescended to by people who are deluded by such teaching, all you can do is get out and away from those churches, they will not listen because it is a point of pride to be right in their own eyes, not what is true in the Bible and God’s word. We as a society have moved to this off-course place, not God, and we must readjust back to Him, not Him to us.

Women in ministry is a fundamental issue that if not properly applied is not a place of unity.

the big mistake has always been concentrating on the era or the generation rather than the unchanging Gospel. The emergent movement used terms like "reimagining" which is an NWO term. The movement was NEVER about the gospel, but about deceiving gullible people. We will NEVER reach the lost by trying to find ways to draw them to God. Just preach the Gospel without compromise. Some will respond and others will not. Some will attack you, but Jesus told us this.

Very good discussion. But I wished names would have been mentioned.

this is like saying do you believe in God many say yes, but if you don’t ask what God? you must now ask what Jesus or as Jesus said who do you say I am?