For me, on a personal level I am doing both of these things all the time. 

I am a wanna-be scholar (as I’ve referred to myself before).  I was intimidated by the level of education when I first started reading this site.  Since then I’ve read more, and while I still don’t know 10 words in Greek, I at least know what "exegetal" means (though I’m not sure I spelled it right.)  And I’m somebody who was already pretty educated & knowledgeable- heck I’m a PK -who was intimidated by the level of discourse on this site.  I can’t magine how many others must feel.

But as stated, this is the place for the formulations, not the summaries, and this is the level at which the formulations should be made.  But I also think that we can’t afford to wait until its finished before we make it accessible.  That’s not how life works.  If we acknowledge the post-modern nature of this process, we know that we’ll never be finished and we have to act and evangelize from where we are now.

To my original point, I am personally doing both of these things all the time.  I read scholarly historical papers on the john at work half the day, and then I read my 3-year-old son stories (bible and otherwise) at night.  I am constantly trying to sift the real moral & doctrinal kernels from the extremely intellectual material that I’m reading, down to concepts that my son, who is right in the middle the most crucial time of forming his moral identiy can understand and make his own.  A better word might be grok.

 And I’m happy to report that it can be done.  Not without its snags and mistakes, not without losing him sometimes, and not giving him enough credit at others.  But together, even at our vastly different phases of development, we are both emerging as Christians.  He is teaching me at least as much as I’m teaching him.

Maybe we should take time to think that way every time we write a treatise, "How would I explain this to my 3-year-old?"  Then again, the formulators and the summarizers son’t have to be the same people, right?  Not even the same web-site.  Many gifts, one spirit, right?

 It’s funny, but emergent practice (which Andrew distinguishes from emergent theology) is probably the perfect go between.  People join a church and start doing good and beautiful things, and then they say, "Why are we doing this again?"  That’s when we need to have some good answers ready.