SPENCER BURKE: Runs THE OOZE, for Christian leaders.
For a modern evangelical pastor, it was a dream come true. A successful ministry in one of the country's fastest growing megachurches, spanking new facilities – even the opportunity to start a Saturday night service aimed at youths not drawn to the regular programs.
"The only problem," Spencer Burke realized, was "that I'm not a modern evangelical pastor."
In anguish, he walked away from the church, not knowing where he was headed next.
What he did know was that the institutional church wasn't attuned to the world he lived in; open to theological questioning; or responding to the challenge of a postmodern culture in which institutional authority, absolute truth, and even a rationalistic world view no longer hold sway.
...