In the mid-90s, Leadership Network hired the youth pastor of Wooddale ... a young man named Doug Pagitt. Pagitt left Wooddale and helped to launch Emergent with Mark Driscoll, Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball and a few others. Read more about the history of the emerging church movement.

Update: This fall (2006), Wooddale is beginning a Sunday night meeting called The Gathering.

News Alert - June 2006 Leith Anderson Joins Emerging Church Leader Erwin McManus to Teach at the pro-contemplative Bethel Seminary
"Bethel Seminary is launching a prototype cohort ... that will feature Dr. Leith Anderson as its primary instructor and mentor....This cohort will seek to engage its members in multi-sensory learning experiences in an effort to ...developing leaders ... to serve as senior leaders in larger emerging churches." (See Prospectus)

Is Wooddale Endorsing the Emerging Church?
According to Pastor Ken Geis, maybe so.
See "Young, Hip, Reverent" Article in Star Tribune

(Do the 12,000 people attending Wooddale know the direction their leadership is heading?)

A Partial List of "My Worklife Toolbox" Books/Authors:

Laurie Beth Jones
Jesus CEO

Henri Nouwen (Contemplative Universalist)
In the Name of Jesus

Thomas Keating (Contemplative Universalist)
Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel (Now discontinued but Keating's work still listed in store)

Thomas Merton (Contemplative Universalist)
Shambhala Pocket Classics: Thoughts in Solitude

Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen (New Age)
Chicken Soup for the Soul

Brian McLaren
A Generous Orthodoxy

Leonard Sweet
SoulTsunami

Jim Ballard (New Age Author)
Managing by Values

and many more.

(Sources have told us that "My Worklife Toolbox" has been contacted more than once and told about these titles.)

Wooddale Church Promotes Contemplative Books

Jan Johnson's book, When The Soul Listens Take a look at Jan Johnson's meditative exercises	Spirituality at Work by Catholic Publisher and Author Gregory Pierce A Book about the spiritual disciplines including the use of "sacred" objects.
Courage and Calling by Gordon T. Smith, who quotes an array of contemplatives in this book: Henry Nouwen Thomas Merton Peter F. Drucker Peter Senge(Buddhist sympathizer) Eugene Peterson	The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace by Alan Briskin, quotes favorably Matthew Fox, Carl Jung, and Buddha

America's Wisest Pastor?

Leith Anderson is called by some, America's wisest pastor ... But is he really using wisdom by connecting with those who promote contemplative spirituality and interspirituality?

• Richard Foster
  [Get Connected at Wooddale]
  In March of 2003, Wooddale was one of the sponsoring churches in the Twin City area to bring Richard Foster and Renovare to Minneapolis, even though they had been given information to show Richard Foster's connections with contemplative prayer.
  
  
• Richard Mouw
  Liberal President of Fuller Theological Institute endorses the back cover of Leith Anderson's book, Leadership That Works.
  
  
• C. Peter Wagner
  Endorses the back cover of Leith Anderson's book, Dying for Change
  
  
• Rick Warren
  Endorses the back cover of Leith Anderson's book,
  A Church for the 21st Century
  
  
• Henri Nouwen
  [Leith Anderson Sermon quoting from Henri Nouwen's Sabbatical Journey in which Henri Nouwen says he is uncomfortable with those who say Jesus is the only way to Heaven.]
  
  
• John Ortberg
  Leith Anderson Sermon
  
  
• Fuller Theological Seminary
  Leith Anderson teaching a course the winter of 2005—Using resources by Peter Drucker.
  
  
• Emerging Leaders at Bethel Seminary
  Scheduled for June 2006
  
  
• The Very Contemplative "Leadership Journal"
  Leith Anderson, a writer for the journal
  
  
• Leith Anderson Shares Platform with Emerging Church Leader Erwin McManus at the pro-contemplative CCN