The Emergent Church Movement

Jacob4707 said:

That sounds Orthodox to me!

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LOL. in certain areas here, it sure is! Thank God not all! LOL

Jacob4707 said:

Well, I think that praying with Lava Lamps is just a few small steps away from using candles and incense, so there's hope!

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Even the Lutherans use candles.

cygne said:

I keep hearing about this movement, and wonder what really is so different about it from Martin Luther's attempts - and failure. Because the splitering of the church after that has resulted in multiple ideas, rather than making the church unified. Then this movement comes along, and seems (to me) doomed to the same failure. Hopefully, some of those members will find Orthodoxy through that attempt, and come back home.

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Like I said before, before I was introduced to Orthodoxy I was really into the whole Emergent thing, but I find Orthodoxy to be mostly everything I've been looking for, when I didn't even know I was searching (if you get what I'm saying). I can definitely see many people from the movement converting to Orthodoxy. The youth group I attend is run by a pastor who is into the movement, and even last Sunday his message was about prayer and a lot of the methods he mentioned were things I've learned from Orthodoxy.

So yeah, I can see it happening. :]

As per a request by an individual on this forum, I will semi-briefly discuss my journey from the emergent church to Holy Orthodoxy.

To start..I have always had a strong “Hippie” flare in me mainly because I used to be extremely utopian in every sense of the word. This utopian mindset eventually led me from being a Southern Baptist to seeking out my own spirituality and truth. Through a series of negative experiences at various churches (which really burned me out), I began to doubt the “absoluteness” of the Christian church and the inability of the gospel to truly transform the heart. Therefore, I looked into spiritual thought and practice in other faiths, specifically Hinduism, to find a path to walk that would bring me closer to God. About this time I encountered an ‘emergent’ group who were meeting in a house close to where I lived. I was drawn to their community because of their lack of absolutes, their freedom of thought and interpretation and their focus on community (not to mention they were very hippyish in their thinking and more liberal so I felt at home.) After attending there for a while, I began to realize that this free-thinking, lackadaisical spirituality was nothing more than cognitive exercises aimed at soothing the religious conscience, but had no power to heal and transform the heart.
After letting myself become confused by erroneous interpretations of scripture, false teachings from other religious traditions and an ultra-liberal worldview I naturally became very confused and jaded about issues of faith. I began to question if there was one truth, one gospel, one path to walk. The gospels did say that the path is straight and the gate is narrow! So…
I decided that I would drop everything I had known and start from scratch. I came to the conclusion that I wanted truth and salvation even if it went against everything I believed, but I was willing to give up all of my beliefs for the sake of truth. I started reading St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius, St. Justin Martyr, etc. I observed that their teachings of the faith, descriptions of the early Christian church, etc. was NOTHING like what I had thought and believed. So I started doing my research to find the church that followed the tradition of the apostles and fathers, and found Orthodoxy. I had a lot of unlearning and relearning to do, but by God’s grace I am getting there.

Sorry for the length. However, this is a VERY abbreviated version of my journey! But, I will be glad to answer anyones questions.

I found some podcasts by emergent church people a couple of weeks ago. I found that these people loved Jesus and wanted to introduce others to Jesus. I've never been involved in an emergent church, but I'd not have a problem from what I heard being apart of them.

here's that site - http://www.emergentvillage.org/podcast/
dayhiker

dayhiker said:

I found some podcasts by emergent church people a couple of weeks ago. I found that these people loved Jesus and wanted to introduce others to Jesus. I've never been involved in an emergent church, but I'd not have a problem from what I heard being apart of them.

here's that site - http://www.emergentvillage.org/podcast/
dayhiker

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We love our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and want to introduce people to his Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to the best of our ability. Peace be to all.