It may seem odd to start with this book, rather than one of the manifestos about Emergent Churches, but this one is overdue at the library. Of such mundane concerns are schedules made . . .
The subtitle is creating christian community in postmodern cultures. And that, I think, explains the purpose rather nicely. The interviewees, on the whole, seem to be trying to create either missions among the “Generation X” or Christian communities among the “Gen X.” The research methodology is biased towards finding these kinds of “churches” (Appendix B), but I’ll assume that their approach gives an accurate picture.
The authors interviewed dozens of leaders of such groups, trying to find out where they came from, what needs they were trying to meet, whether evangelism is important, the role of creativity, and what leadership is like—among other questions.
The results are all over the map. Some are in love with spontaneity and creative worship while others found the hard way that some order and accountability are critical. Some have “club scene” churches and others try to make room for quiet and meditation. Some have happy links to denominations and others are so bitter against the organized church that you can taste it. Rachelle goes so far as to say “I came to realize that artists ought to function as the main leaders of the gathering, setting the tone for worship. Artists intuit the truth through their art.” And the Greek poets were the spokesmen of the gods.
Spokesmen for the “movement” have said that our culture is changing from a “modernist” philosophy to a “postmodernist” philosophy, and that this is a big change. I’ll not go into all that just now (check the references: you’ll be little wiser than you were before). The gist of their point is that churches accommodated themselves to “modernism” and aren’t equipped to deal with the new “postmodern” culture, which deals more with stories and images than teacher/student relationships. (The whole “postmodernist” cult is afflicted with worry about hierarchy and sources of power.)
Let’s stipulate that the groups described in the book are representative, or maybe even definitive, of the emergent movement. It saves time, and I’m in no position to say for sure. They are, on the whole, trying to address two rather grave problems:
- The usual evangelistic approaches aren’t coming close to where a huge fraction of the lost actually are. The culture has carefully trained the young to find common expressions of Christianity silly or stupid; only a novel or obscure Christianity (Celtic or Greek Orthodox) is “authentic.” Most people in Britain apparently can’t imagine entering a church to worship.
- Churches are often boxed-in affairs: Sunday-only and with only a restricted amount of community. This shows up dramatically in what happens to youth: they get involved in youth groups, but not in the life of the church. When they go to college, “goodbye youth group” and since they’re not used to community with the rest of the church, most fall away from active participation.
The problem with creating a mission to “clubbers,” for example, is that they represent a particular age group, and with time members age out of the target group; and the group winds up as “boxed-in” as the church they tried to extend. Quite a number of the mission groups in the book have this problem; most admit it. I’ve not got any good solutions either, but at least the gospel is getting out there.
Some groups have been trying to create holy community by working to become part of each other’s lives, meeting frequently, praying together when they meet, and so on. The obvious problem is that there are only 24 hours in the day, and the number of brothers and sisters we can become deeply involved with is relatively small. The not-so obvious problem is that when we try to make every part of our lives sacred, we wind up with everything partly secular. We don’t seem to have enough attention to God to make every moment sacred, so the best of a bad situation is rhythm: sacred times and non-sacred times.
And, of course, when you try outreach by welcoming nonbelievers into this community, it can lose distinctiveness and become a “group of friends” rather than a holy community. What is Holy Communion/Lord’s Supper if half the participants aren’t Christian?
Still, the problem of unredeemed time is big enough that some experimentation is worthwhile.
Another big feature of these groups is “creativity.” Some use DJs in clubs, some create special artwork for the service, some experiment with liturgies: all sorts of things.
We sat each week surrounded by some of the brightest talents in film, TV, art, social work, and politics who were made to watch in virtual silence because they did not play guitar or preach. . . . We saw that if worship is about gift, then what we bring to worship has to be integral to us, something meaningful from who we are.
I’m talented in mathematics, but I haven’t found that bringing mathematical operations into the service enhances the worship of others, no matter how integral my gift may be to me. pun intended
Several groups found that they had to temper the enthusiasms of their artists—the services were supposed to be about God, not about novelty.
This isn’t a book to read for fun; it feels scattershot and the prose isn’t scintillating. But it is useful. And I haven’t touched on half the things the authors cover.
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