Faith Revolution

This is the last of the articles that explain why I consider myself doctrinally fundamental, spiritually pentecostal and missionally emerging. 

The consideration of myself as part of the Emerging Christian movement is not something that I sought, rather, it came to me.  I realized that I was part of the emerging movement before I knew that there was an emerging movement!  I think by the time you come to the end of this particular post, you may find that you, also, are at least part “emerging” in your Christian “philosophy”. 

I am going to provide a general definition of what the emerging church movement is toward the end of this post.  First, will you allow me to be rather brusque in how I came to the realization that I have an developed an emerging philosophy?

Some years ago now, I became somewhat disillusioned with certain aspects of the manner in which we (Americans in particular) “did” church.  I couldn’t figure out why or how we came to become these little clubhouses of people who said they loved Jesus and were becoming more like Him every day when, in fact, they (we) didn’t act like Him at all.  Part of it was the fact that the people loved to fight with each other over the stupidest things and they loved to destroy each other with gossip and harsh critcizm.  But more than that, they (we) seemed to engage in selective Christ-likeness.  They liked the warm fuzzies that Jesus brought.  They liked that they were saved from Hell and could live good lives.  They loved to study the Word.  They loved to do Christian stuff, but they avoided sinners and the places they went (forgetting the we, too, were sinners, albeit saved by grace).  We talked about growing our (?) church by inviting people and seeing people saved, but we never did anything except wait for people to get mad at their churches and come to ours and then rejoice about how God was answering our prayers in such a wonderful way.  We cared about poor people as long as they didn’t need anything from us. 

As I talked to more and more people, I realized that people aren’t rejecting Jesus.  They are rejecting the way we do church.  I then realized that I, too, had rejected the way we do church, which leads me too why I am emerging.

I am not a big Wikipedia fan, but if you look up Emerging Church you will find the article starting with these words:

The emerging church (also known as the emerging church movement) is a controversial 21st-century Protestant Christian movement whose participants seek to engage postmodern people, especially the unchurched and post-churched.

Engaging postmodern people, especially the unchurched and the post-churched (those who have walked away from the traditional church).  Isn’t that what the church is supposed to be doing?  Why is that controversial?  Maybe because institutionalized church people say it is?  Here’s the next line from Wikipedia:

To accomplish this, “emerging Christians” (also known as “emergents”) deconstruct and reconstruct Christian beliefs, standards, and methods in ways which will accommodate postmodern culture.

This is where I may depart from some of my emerging brothers and sisters (see my post entitled Fundamental), nevertheless, there are certain Christian beliefs, standards and methods to which the institutionalized church holds that should be deconstructed and reconstructed because they simply are not biblical; such as how the mission of Jesus should be carried out in 21st century America.  In other words, churches (the people, not the building) who say they are committed to Christ and becoming more like Him ought to show their committment by being accused of hanging out with sinners just like Jesus was because He did.  That is precisely one of the arguments against the emerging church.  That and they don’t speak Christianese.

I identify with the emerging movement because they say that they want to reach people who need Jesus and they want to engage the world they live in and they actually do something about it.  Will you?