In the book of Acts, when Paul is getting ready to leave Asia Minor and head back to Jerusalem, he gathers the church leaders and here is part of what he says:
And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
Acts 20:25-27
I’m just wondering what it would look like if all Christians had this kind of devotion to the word of God and to the people around them. How would our lives be different if we really believed that our families, friends and neighbors blood was in our hands?
Faith Authenticity, Church, Missional
I’ve had more conversations and read more blog posts from people who aren’t quite sure whether they want to become involved or stay involved with the emergent church, especially after the latest interviews of Tony Jones and Brian McLaren in Relevant Magazine (after reading those articles one friend even asked Adam if those guys were Christian). Meanwhile, I’ve noticed some new books coming out from Christian publishers that are asking questions and tackling topics that emergents were going over a few years ago.
I may be stating the obvious with all this, but here’s my thoughts:
I think this may be the beginning of the end of Emergent in the US as we know it. I think we may see, and are seeing less of an emphasis on the grass-roots cross-denominational conversation that has been going on the past few years. I think that Emergent will continue to develop their own doctrine (like it or not) by things like the Relevant articles, and some folks will start to distance themselves from the Emergent church. Because of this, I think we’re going to see more of a distinction between Emergent and the Emerging church movement/conversation. Emergent will most likely always be part of emerging, but just because you’re emerging won’t necessarily mean you’re Emergent (while we’re at it can we maybe get some new terms to clear things up?). Confused? Just remember your middle school geometry; it’s kind of like how a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t always a square.
While this distinction is becoming more defined I think the emerging conversation will move and explode as people start to bring it back to their home churches and denominations. I look at the work done at the now defunct Missional Baptist Blog as a prototype of what we may see in the future. For those who missed it, the Missional Baptist group was looking at how the southern Baptist denomination could effectively engage the emerging culture in a way that is faithful to their Baptist history and theology (I know that’s a gross oversimplification of what went on over there, but that’s a post for another time and by another blogger). I know this has already been going on to a small extent over the past few years, but I think it’s going to blow up in the near future. I’ve even received some e-mails from friends in Presbyterian churches (PCA and PCUSA) who have told me that they are having the same sort of conversations going on there in churches that I never thought would even consider these things.
It’s exciting times. Emergent has clearly sparked something big in US Christianity. I just hope and pray that as it happens we can be patient and humble with each other, that we can be authentic to our faith backgrounds (denominational or otherwise) relevant to the culture and most importantly, faithful to the Bible.
Just my $.02
Faith Emergent, Missional
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