It is Friday morning and I hope yours is going as well as mine thus far! My job with the bus company has me up early each day and gets me started, and then I move to a coffee shop or my living room to research and write. As I’ve been perusing my blog reader this morning I’ve found a few items I think that are of note.
First, Dan Kimball writes about how the meaning of the term “emerging church” has changed in the 5 years since he published his book The Emerging Church. I tend to agree with many of his observations. For anyone tired of the term, I would strongly recommend checking out Kimball’s analysis and clicking through his links to other bloggers and thinkers who have dropped the term all together. The “emerging church” that I was attracted to around 6 years ago has evolved into something else–now I’m striving to practice historic, orthodox Christian faith. Admittedly I have a Protestant/Baptist predisposition, but am learning a great deal from the Church Fathers, the Monastics, and Reformers. I’m currently in a Methodist context, and have been for a few years. Anyway, here is an excerpt from Kimball’s post:
So…. the first thing that has changed in the 5 years since the book The Emerging Church came out is that in my opinion, the definition has changed. I am not wedded to any term and I don’t think most people are. I, like most others, are wedded to the gospel and to Jesus’ command of making new disciples – not a term to describe it. I have gone through the disiullusionment stage about church, and been hurt by the church and the whole deconstruction phase and questioning phase.
So I understand that very deeply. But the urgency of eternity here and the here-after and the people who are not yet Christians who need to hear about experience in this life the saving gospel of Jesus is what enabled me to rise me out of that. I want to focus time, prayer and energy on healthy evangelism and new disciples of Jesus being made who weren’t Christians before in our new cultures and new generations. That may involve all varieties of conversations including anything from music and art to justice to leadership to all types of thing. But underneath it is evangelism and the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8 and mission driving it all. So in moving ahead, I don’t think using the term “emerging church” as it is generally defined today, describes this like it used to.
Next, I thought this post from Accidental Creative was quite good, entitled “Identity vs. Masks.” The quote from Thomas Merton drew me in. I’m all for creativity in ministry–in fact, I think it is critical in efforts to contextualize the gospel. If we take a missionary approach to our culture, our communities, our cities, our ministries will express diversity reflective of the true nature of the Kingdom of God. In order to contextualize our ministries effectively we’ll have to be bold in implementing our own creativity. Here’s a portion of this post from Accidental Creative:
Many of us move through life wearing someone else’s clothes. We produce someone else’s art. We make someone else’s music. We write someone else’s words. We replay someone else’s arguments. We don’t have the courage and the conviction to stand on our own and speak our own thoughts and craft our own work. We don’t have the courage to say “I don’t know” and to make it up as we go. We are wearing a mask…
The best antidote for all of this is – wait for it – unnecessary creating time. It’s critical that we have time to create for ourselves (and no one else) in which we can take on projects that fuel us, give us life and the opportunity to explore new means of expression. We discover ourselves and our unique “voice” as we act. We need to build intentional, structured time into our lives to express ourselves in new ways and to take creative risks where there’s a safety net.
Lastly, for anyone out there exploring the possibilities of launching an internet campus, here’s a great link from Tim Stevens. A United Methodist Church decided to baptize someone over the web. Check it out.
