05.11.05
Posted in faith at 2:16 pm by
I went to my first ‘emergent’ meeting today. I walked in with my guard firmly in place, expecting the worst. I was pleasantly surprised. Emergent West Michigan is having an interesting conversation. Today, the topic at hand was the need for confession as members of the emergent conversation. It was an interesting talk, keep checking the above site for notes on that vein. Unfortunately, I still wasn’t able to come up with a definition of emergent…if I ever find a satisfactory one, I’ll keep you posted.
I was struck, though, by a common theme that kept coming up. Folks seem to be drawn to the movement because they need to heal from the damage the modern Church has done to them. I wonder if the emergent conversation isn’t really just a bunch of folks in a big ‘recovering evangelical support group.’
Whether those hurts arise from sexism, racism, or politicism, people seemed to harbor the same discontent. Discontent from being excluded based on ideology, sex, race, or some confluence of these things. It feels good, when you’re discontented, to hear others that feel the same as you. I wonder if that isn’t why emergent has garnered such a following. It does leave me with some questions though:
1. If those involved with emergent are healing from the church, if they’re really in evangelical detox as Mark Riddle put it, is the concept of an emergent ‘church’ a bit of a misnomer? That is, it seems odd that some folks (i.e. the Mars Hills (the Michigan version) of the world) have been characterized as being emergent churches.
2. Why would people who’ve been scarred by the church, turn to another church to heal those wounds?
3. What does the perception of contemporary worship have to do with the emergent church? It seems to me–from personal experience–that churches who worship in a contemporary style are particularly vulerable to being places that can elicit just as much harm as good.
4. Isn’t it true that a church that calls itself emergent but doesn’t really deal with the hurt of ‘emergent people’ is really just calling itself emergent as a marketing tool?
The meeting was good, though it left me with more questions than answers, because it really helped me to get in touch with my own feeling of exclusion based on an ideology. It all really makes me sad, though, too. Sad that for so many this place of healing has been the cause of so much hurt.
Still thinking about this, these are raw thoughts and I’ll probably edit them in future posts. But, for the time being, I’m still trying to wrap my own mind around the conversations I had today.
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Posted in faith at 2:16 pm by
I went to my first ‘emergent’ meeting today. I walked in with my guard firmly in place, expecting the worst. I was pleasantly surprised. Emergent West Michigan is having an interesting conversation. Today, the topic at hand was the need for confession as members of the emergent conversation. It was an interesting talk, keep checking the above site for notes on that vein. Unfortunately, I still wasn’t able to come up with a definition of emergent…if I ever find a satisfactory one, I’ll keep you posted.
I was struck, though, by a common theme that kept coming up. Folks seem to be drawn to the movement because they need to heal from the damage the modern Church has done to them. I wonder if the emergent conversation isn’t really just a bunch of folks in a big ‘recovering evangelical support group.’
Whether those hurts arise from sexism, racism, or politicism, people seemed to harbor the same discontent. Discontent from being excluded based on ideology, sex, race, or some confluence of these things. It feels good, when you’re discontented, to hear others that feel the same as you. I wonder if that isn’t why emergent has garnered such a following. It does leave me with some questions though:
1. If those involved with emergent are healing from the church, if they’re really in evangelical detox as Mark Riddle put it, is the concept of an emergent ‘church’ a bit of a misnomer? That is, it seems odd that some folks (i.e. the Mars Hills (the Michigan version) of the world) have been characterized as being emergent churches.
2. Why would people who’ve been scarred by the church, turn to another church to heal those wounds?
3. What does the perception of contemporary worship have to do with the emergent church? It seems to me–from personal experience–that churches who worship in a contemporary style are particularly vulerable to being places that can elicit just as much harm as good.
4. Isn’t it true that a church that calls itself emergent but doesn’t really deal with the hurt of ‘emergent people’ is really just calling itself emergent as a marketing tool?
The meeting was good, though it left me with more questions than answers, because it really helped me to get in touch with my own feeling of exclusion based on an ideology. It all really makes me sad, though, too. Sad that for so many this place of healing has been the cause of so much hurt.
Still thinking about this, these are raw thoughts and I’ll probably edit them in future posts. But, for the time being, I’m still trying to wrap my own mind around the conversations I had today.
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meg said,
May 11, 2005 at 6:30 pm
I think you might be right in your musings. In class, we recently reviewed Brian McLaren’s book, The Church on the Other Side and there is a point made in there about how over 50% of those in leadership of emergent churches are recovering fundamentalists. It does put an interesting sociological spin on the movement.
Dave said,
May 12, 2005 at 1:06 pm
Brandon,
Some observations on your observations…One common thread I see among friends and fellow sojourners who are introduced to the emergent movement is their need to define it, which is both hard to do and is a natural reaction to any “movement” or ideology which we are unfamiliar with. However, it would seem to me that emergent exists in several forms, and by its very nature may be hard to define. Because it is part of the postmodern idea of moving away from foundationalism and the need to be 100% locked down in its systematic definitions, it looks and feels different depending on what your exposure and experience is. Here’s a simplistic definition of some of the breakdowns of it http://www.allelon.org/articles/article.cfm?id=182, but I still think McLaren and others espousing of a “conversation” is the best language we have to describe it at the moment. You’re a smart guy and probably already know all of this, so show me grace if I am spouting stuff you already know/have read/understand.
I think you defined one group of people who might be drawn to emergent, which is the excluded, but I don’t think that’s the only group. I know several people (and am personally one) who is drawn to the emergent movememnt not because of exclusion or even having horrible things happen to them in the church, but rather because of an unspoken feeling that the life lived in the early church and spoken of in the Bible is so radically different than what most of the conservative evangelical institutions of our day. That being said, there is plenty to still maintain and glean from our modern church experience, even if it’s a lesson in how not to do things.
Regarding your questions:
1. The Church, as sanctioned by Jesus, is still the vehicle he chooses to use to try and fix/heal/help this broken world. While some may espouse ideas that seem to throw out the baby with the bathwater, I think the tone and tenor of the movement that needs to be followed is that of helping and fixing the Church, which may take many forms in little “c” churches.
2. See above, but reality is that God hasn’t given up on the Church, even in its battered, broken, and confused state. Some may need a break from the institutions, but the people that make up the Church are just as much the neighbor we are to love as the “lost” outside the church.
3. I’m interested to hear more dialogue on this question…while I agree with your observation, I wondered what prompted it. Did you feel you were hearing a message that seemed to imply that contemporary worship was a cure-all to bad churchiness? Please explain what drove this observation.
4. Couldn’t agree more on this point…the church that takes the peripheral themes, terms, and ideas of emergent (candles, coffee, community, “new church”, etc.) and still applies the approach of modern, business-model driven marketing methods and formulas is doing a disservice to some of the key themes of emergent/postmodern approaches.
Hope this has been somewhat coherent and if I have just spouted stuff that you’ve already heard, please forgive.