Wooddale Church

Wooddale Church - One of America's largest churches - where does it stand with contemplative and emerging?

In 1992, Leith Anderson (Doug Pagitt's former pastor), spoke of this new emerging 21st century church. His views eventually became set in stone as the emerging church has chosen experience over doctrine. Anderson reveals:

The old paradigm taught that if you had the right teaching, you will experience God. The new paradigm says that if you experience God, you will have the right teaching. This may be disturbing for many who
assume propositional truth must always precede and dictate religious experience. That mindset is the product of systematic theology and has much to contribute ... However, biblical theology looks to the Bible for a pattern of experience followed by proposition. The experience of the Exodus from Egypt preceded the recording of Exodus in the Bible. The experience of the crucifixion, the resurrection and Pentecost all predate the propositional declaration of those events in the New Testament. It is not so much that one is right and the other is wrong: it is more of a matter of the perspective one takes on God's touch and God's truth.

Anderson is saying that the Word of God is still being written, and today's experiences can dictate what that Word is. (Faith Undone, p. 55,56) (also see Tony Jones' The New Christians)

Wooddale and the Emerging Church

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.

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 may load slowly)

 

Wooddale's Bookstore
Carrying New Age and
Contemplative Books
(This list is from 2005)

Wooddale Church Promotes Contemplative Prayer
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
Soul Tsunami

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, When the Soul Waits
Jan Johnson's book,
When The Soul Listens
Take a look at Jan Johnson's
meditative exercises
Spirituality at Work by Gregory Pierce
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
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
 Stirring of Soul by Alan Briskin
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?

 
Connections at Wooddale

 

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