There are warnings and criticisms around about the emergent church / sometimes 'emerging church' is confused with this - and so I looked up on google 'emergent church heresy' and saw several interviews about it. (see for yourself)
I am concerned for both the emerging church 'organisers' and the critics of the 'movement'.
As far as I knew, 'emerging church' meant the groups who are branching out into 'fresh expressions' - making creative and relaxed Christian communities where 'spirituality can be explored' without having to endure long formal predictable hymn-sermon sandwich services with old-fashioned obscure language that the under 40s (or is it under-55s?) struggle to connect with.
I think it's great that churches find ways to reach all kinds of people by adapting styles and approaches that seem to be more appealing to people from a certain generation or culture, but the aesthetic style (sensory stimulation), and methods are just the 'packaging'. That's not as important as the 'content'. In some ways I think the packaging can be a distraction from the reality, and it never suits everyone. Perhaps the Quakers have reduced the packaging the most, by having silent services, stripping away tradition, dogma, liturgy and dated songs - but perhaps in doing that a lot of the content has been lost. I think church has got too full of 'packaging' and could do with stripping a few layers. We want to get the heart of the message however it is dressed up in cultural expressions.
I think if people of my generation (25-45's?) and younger are anything like me, we're looking for authentic Christianity. We need space to grapple with the different messages different churches are promoting and come closer to the truth. Church is ideally a caring, praying, worshipping community that allows us to be ourselves, draws us closer to the reality of God's love and his holiness, and demonstrates the life of God's kingdom and teaches us how to live as citizens of Heaven on the Earth not just how to get to Heaven when we die.
I think we have a sort of love-hate relationship with what we think of as authentic biblical Christianity because we long for the reality of God's kingdom, the presence of God and the passionate fire of his heart for righteousness and for the lost, but we're afraid of self-sacrifice, disciplined prayer and fasting, persecution and giving up material comforts and familiar surroundings. We're afraid of speaking out with what we see as the truth for fear of offending someone's feelings or seeming arrogant. I don't want to be like those who only stand up for the truth when it's about the wrongness of some immorality in the world and the warning of judgment of sin.
As for the critics of the emergent church, they go on and on about doctrines that emerging church leaders seem to have thrown out, like hell and the uniqueness of Jesus, picking holes in the young church leaders. They talk as if church tradition is 'unchangeable truth' that the modern/postmodern Christians are wandering away from in favour of seeking or inducing mysitcal experiences. But I wonder how much of traditional church traditions are really based on biblical Truth and how many come from the dark ages when Christianity had become a state-organised religion that put ordinary 'ignorant' people in their place. Actually probably not many these days, but they certainly seem ancient to our generation. I reckon church service tradition comes from a mixture of biblical ideas, Jewish traditions, dark-ages church rituals, reformation modifications, 18th/19th-century theology and hymns and twentieth century translations of all the above into modern English.
I agree with the critics that the Bible is not known, loved and believed as much as it should be and some are not valuing it as God's truth, but those who teach that the Bible is completely literally true and is all God's Word need to remember why it is difficult for people to accept that - what kind of God would tell 'his people' to completely wipe out villages and towns including all the innocents and animals? There are some gory and shocking things in the Bible that do not seem to fit with the Heavenly Father of love and compassion we find in the New Testament. Don't get me wrong, I do believe the Bible is God's Word - but it's also a story of God's people and all the mistakes they made. They could have heard God wrongly at times. I believe in the NT when the OT is referred to, they talk of all God said in 'the law and the prophets' not 'the law and the prophets and the history books'. As you see I have trouble with some parts of the Bible - from 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles - whereas other might want to throw out commands they don't want to obey, prophecies that warn of terrible times or supernatural miracles that they see as impossible, or incomprehensible passages with strange imagery.
What I'm really trying to say is the emerging church might have noble aims but is it standing firm in biblical faith and truly following the Holy Spirit's guidance or is it just following 'good ideas' for comfortable exploration of spiritual experience? Are the critics just trying to push the traditional approach and label anything that deviates from it as heresy? Even if everything they say is true, they don't come across as loving in the way they talk about truth. If they are genuinely in love with the Truth, who is Jesus first then the Bible that speaks of him, they will love the emerging church leaders like a father loves his son.
I pray that instead of arguing and splitting the church, this whole 'movement' would be seeking God's way forward in partnership with the 'established' churches. We need to pray for the whole church that no one would be tempted or deceieved into either wandering from the truth or getting stuck in a rut. We shouldn't be too eager to dismiss anything as heresy in case God is in it, neither should we become too set in our ways that we get complacent, narrow-minded or inflexible.
Just a little picture to finish.
I think we're like plants growing - if we're flexible the storms will bend us bit not break us, whereas if we are too stiff, we'll just snap. If we have strong, deep and well-watered roots, we'll stand firm in the truth whatever winds of teaching or cultural styles come along, whereas if we have weak, shallow roots, we'll get blown around so much we'll get uprooted altogether and fly around like a free spirit, which might seem thrilling, but without roots and nourishment we'll shrivel up and die.
Jesus said we need to remain in him, the true vine!
I pray that every branch of the church and every person in them (the twigs!) will remain in the true vine and not get cut off and burnt when pruning time comes!
Please God let us all be rooted and established in you, not in our culture, preferences, familiarity with tradition or anything else! Forgive us for dividing over minor issues, treating other believers with suspicion or contempt or thinking that our methods make your presence tangible. Only You can build your church and only your life in us can make us produce fruit!
Any comments?
I am concerned for both the emerging church 'organisers' and the critics of the 'movement'.
As far as I knew, 'emerging church' meant the groups who are branching out into 'fresh expressions' - making creative and relaxed Christian communities where 'spirituality can be explored' without having to endure long formal predictable hymn-sermon sandwich services with old-fashioned obscure language that the under 40s (or is it under-55s?) struggle to connect with.
I think it's great that churches find ways to reach all kinds of people by adapting styles and approaches that seem to be more appealing to people from a certain generation or culture, but the aesthetic style (sensory stimulation), and methods are just the 'packaging'. That's not as important as the 'content'. In some ways I think the packaging can be a distraction from the reality, and it never suits everyone. Perhaps the Quakers have reduced the packaging the most, by having silent services, stripping away tradition, dogma, liturgy and dated songs - but perhaps in doing that a lot of the content has been lost. I think church has got too full of 'packaging' and could do with stripping a few layers. We want to get the heart of the message however it is dressed up in cultural expressions.
I think if people of my generation (25-45's?) and younger are anything like me, we're looking for authentic Christianity. We need space to grapple with the different messages different churches are promoting and come closer to the truth. Church is ideally a caring, praying, worshipping community that allows us to be ourselves, draws us closer to the reality of God's love and his holiness, and demonstrates the life of God's kingdom and teaches us how to live as citizens of Heaven on the Earth not just how to get to Heaven when we die.
I think we have a sort of love-hate relationship with what we think of as authentic biblical Christianity because we long for the reality of God's kingdom, the presence of God and the passionate fire of his heart for righteousness and for the lost, but we're afraid of self-sacrifice, disciplined prayer and fasting, persecution and giving up material comforts and familiar surroundings. We're afraid of speaking out with what we see as the truth for fear of offending someone's feelings or seeming arrogant. I don't want to be like those who only stand up for the truth when it's about the wrongness of some immorality in the world and the warning of judgment of sin.
As for the critics of the emergent church, they go on and on about doctrines that emerging church leaders seem to have thrown out, like hell and the uniqueness of Jesus, picking holes in the young church leaders. They talk as if church tradition is 'unchangeable truth' that the modern/postmodern Christians are wandering away from in favour of seeking or inducing mysitcal experiences. But I wonder how much of traditional church traditions are really based on biblical Truth and how many come from the dark ages when Christianity had become a state-organised religion that put ordinary 'ignorant' people in their place. Actually probably not many these days, but they certainly seem ancient to our generation. I reckon church service tradition comes from a mixture of biblical ideas, Jewish traditions, dark-ages church rituals, reformation modifications, 18th/19th-century theology and hymns and twentieth century translations of all the above into modern English.
I agree with the critics that the Bible is not known, loved and believed as much as it should be and some are not valuing it as God's truth, but those who teach that the Bible is completely literally true and is all God's Word need to remember why it is difficult for people to accept that - what kind of God would tell 'his people' to completely wipe out villages and towns including all the innocents and animals? There are some gory and shocking things in the Bible that do not seem to fit with the Heavenly Father of love and compassion we find in the New Testament. Don't get me wrong, I do believe the Bible is God's Word - but it's also a story of God's people and all the mistakes they made. They could have heard God wrongly at times. I believe in the NT when the OT is referred to, they talk of all God said in 'the law and the prophets' not 'the law and the prophets and the history books'. As you see I have trouble with some parts of the Bible - from 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles - whereas other might want to throw out commands they don't want to obey, prophecies that warn of terrible times or supernatural miracles that they see as impossible, or incomprehensible passages with strange imagery.
What I'm really trying to say is the emerging church might have noble aims but is it standing firm in biblical faith and truly following the Holy Spirit's guidance or is it just following 'good ideas' for comfortable exploration of spiritual experience? Are the critics just trying to push the traditional approach and label anything that deviates from it as heresy? Even if everything they say is true, they don't come across as loving in the way they talk about truth. If they are genuinely in love with the Truth, who is Jesus first then the Bible that speaks of him, they will love the emerging church leaders like a father loves his son.
I pray that instead of arguing and splitting the church, this whole 'movement' would be seeking God's way forward in partnership with the 'established' churches. We need to pray for the whole church that no one would be tempted or deceieved into either wandering from the truth or getting stuck in a rut. We shouldn't be too eager to dismiss anything as heresy in case God is in it, neither should we become too set in our ways that we get complacent, narrow-minded or inflexible.
Just a little picture to finish.
I think we're like plants growing - if we're flexible the storms will bend us bit not break us, whereas if we are too stiff, we'll just snap. If we have strong, deep and well-watered roots, we'll stand firm in the truth whatever winds of teaching or cultural styles come along, whereas if we have weak, shallow roots, we'll get blown around so much we'll get uprooted altogether and fly around like a free spirit, which might seem thrilling, but without roots and nourishment we'll shrivel up and die.
Jesus said we need to remain in him, the true vine!
I pray that every branch of the church and every person in them (the twigs!) will remain in the true vine and not get cut off and burnt when pruning time comes!
Please God let us all be rooted and established in you, not in our culture, preferences, familiarity with tradition or anything else! Forgive us for dividing over minor issues, treating other believers with suspicion or contempt or thinking that our methods make your presence tangible. Only You can build your church and only your life in us can make us produce fruit!
Any comments?
