When we stop emerging

I was just wondering . . . what happens when those of us in the emerging church stop emerging. I mean, we are always changing and keeping up with the Spirit, but when our new church structures actually settle down, and stop evolving, then we will no longer be able to call ourselves emerging church and we will just have to settle for "church". Maybe thats not a bad thing. It has happened before.
In the 80's, we were youth church or "contemporary church". But we either grew up, or the "contemporary" word got stuck and no longer defined us.
In the early 90's, we were "Gen X Church", but the name came to be associated with slackers and go-tees and some of us moved on from being boxed up by the boomers into a tidy marketable package.
In the late nineties, we were "postmodern church" but the pomo argument became very abstract and locked into philosophies of the 70's, and we were more holistic than that so we dropped the name. (Although others still call us "pomo")

Also in the nineties was the concept of "rave church" and and "club church" which was somewhat helpful, sometimes. But many of us now are post-club and too old to stay up really late. And having kids changes everything.
"Emerging church" was a good option - bigger than philosophy, not locked into age-specific ministry, non-reactive, and highlighted because of its evolution and constant change - the new thing on the horizon, taking shape, not yet formed, quasi-modo. But the fact is that many of us have already taken shape and we are not actually changing enough to be accurately defined as "emerging". We have done house church, celtic spirituality, moved into monastic structures, done rave worship, tapped into ancient liturgies, utilized internet technologies, and now we are settling down into a new way of being church - a new way that is not necessarily changing or emerging.
So, what happens when it is dishonest to use the word "emerging"? Will we be the emerged church? No. Because there will be another wave of emergence happening in the margins, quite possibly ignored by us as well as the mainstream. What goes around . . .

Comments

[marc shaw]

:-)

[bobbie]

exactly - unfortunately at some point we must leave off change to those coming behind us - i just pray we'll be more receptive to it than the generation before us was/is. that's why i love to work with and inspire youth. i tell them frequently they are potential personified. i can't wait to see what they make church into.

[darren]

i went to a church the other day who'd told me they were using contempory songs.

the songs were from 1978.

perhaps we'll just keep the word emerging and the next group of people will look upon us as old and out of touch.

i hope thats not the case

[Pat Loughery]

I think Darren's right. My daughter and her peers will look at us as hopelessly out of date, invent new forms of worship and discussion and expression, and they will contextualize the Gospel for their friends.

I hope that's what happens. And that I realize it's the natural order of things. And that I'm still out in the street, seeking the lost and helping the poor in whatever form that takes.

[davidt]

The emerging process will continue for another 5-6 years as the rest of us catch up and as emergent becomes transferable (oh, no!, or ist that good after all?). A move of the Spirit must be able to move to and fro, from postmodern to modern, to boomer and buster, to Latino and African American, from Europe and Asia, through current emergent, post-emergent and barely-emergent. To those of you ahead of the curve, don't get bored, keep learning, keep growing, but realize that there are many of us still emerging.

[yellowdogjack]

glad you said this . . . I think it could be the start of something very good

[dan hughes]

if the emerging church is of value at all it is as a presuppositional critique leveled at our convenient stories of triumphal self-centeredness (aka our happily dominating little metanarratives that presume an object divine view that just so happens to coincide with our own and the blunt historical minimalism that presupposes a direct line of continuity between Jesus and our hip, new, insufferable pretenses in his name).

perhaps the future of emergence is divergence: allowing the marginal a seat at the table in the kingdom that we are beginning to realize was never ours in the first place.

Divergence: A Generative Friendship of Otherness

[brad]

i'm looking forward to the eventual systems approach to discipleship and, as a result, to more intentional and indigenous developments of ministry/church strategies and structures. i believe that in this next shift beyond emergent, we'll have developed a far more comprehensive set of criteria for thinking about life biblically, and critiqued ourselves and our church expressions accordingly. our system will account for abstract principles and concrete realities, being and doing, continuity and discontinuity, identity-destiny-and-trajectory. our system will offer us precepts for developing elegant local structures to go beyond the existing imports from other cultures that would actually colonize our culture. our system will allow for both bold intuitive leaps in strategies and structures and methods, as well as incremental experimentation. our system will get rid of non-biblical (legalistic) requirements that we be monocultural or multicultural, simple or mega, purpose-driven or seeker-sensitive ... and get us back to the radix of "thinking for ourselves" individually and collectively, and back to developing a thoughtful and intentional and Spirit-trusting expression of discipleship where we're at, not where others wish we were.

i'll turn 50 next summer. i've lived in and through the shift in mainline liturgical churches to irrelevant social gospel, the incremental church renewal movement, and the radical Jesus People movement. as a born-again believer i've lived in and through various iterations of "the next big thing" concepts in evangelicalism: boomer contempo church, ancient-future church, church growth movement, GenX church, pomo church, emerging church, tribal church. i've worked at a seminary, helped plant six churches and pioneer three far-edge intergenerational/intercultural youth ministries, served in parachurch and recovery ministries, lived in three residential Christian communities. i've worked with people doing spiritual mapping, city reaching, and probably just about any other '-ing thing' you can imagine.

after all that, i've concluded that while all these movements and models have some constructive things to offer, when they become "the thing," they become destructive. they are too narrow ... even when they seem far roomier than what came before.

my best piece of advice to those who consider themselves in the emerging church framework is this: i believe a systems approach beyond all the emergent stuff will help any of us who've been exhausted by the challenges and inherent toxicities of various too-narrow forms of churchdom and kingdom. so, keep developing that system!

i'm really Really REALLY looking forward to finding systems theoreticians who are also theologians who are also practitioners. i suspect such men and women are the next wave of intercultural apostolic disciples who can, through great intentionality and humility and personal sacrifice, be able to help others discover genuine discipleship ways beyond any too-narrow model or system or approach to Christian life. what the emerging movement contributes to that eventuality is a stretching of the system to include more categories and concepts. keep going! even if you find church/ministry structures that fit your local cultural context, never stop learning and adapting!

go beyond emergent. there is far, far more room to maneuver around in, without going outside the boundaries of Scripture.

[will]

I like "emerging" because it has the same sociological value as "reformation." This separates from so many of the movements in the past that were purely practical in nature (i.e. "seeker sensitive"). Taken apart from its context as a movement, emerging speaks to a posture which should always be true if we are seeking to live out God's story in fresh, new ways as the culture around us changes. I am sure that the church will latch on to some new word given time. I hope that many of the concepts driving the emerging church survive.

[riddle]

dan hughes

i love it!

Divergence.

[Darren Davenport]

Ultimately, the emergent church cannot be the way out of our dilemma in this rapidly changing cultural landscape. It exists only as an initial attempt at reframing of the Gospel within the current moment. Culture is an ever-changing web of influences and values. In time, the churches emergent form and expression will alienate future generations just as we have felt alienated in the past. We cannot escape the grip of cultural change. We must be open to the continual transformation of the church and not become fixed in any one area of emergence.

We often try to build things that last forever. Nature is not like that. The life cycle applies to movements as well as people. Like other movements, the “emergent church” will eventually wither and die. If the emergent church becomes intentionally transformational, we may be elastic enough act as midwife to the continuing emergence of the church in the future. I would hope that our legacy will continue to transform the world around us long after we have drifted from the cultural scene.

[Eric]

Curious to know how the emerging church defines discipleship? What does it look like for you guys personally? Can't seem to see, hear, or find any talk of discipleship among the emerging church conversations.

[brad]

I think Darren has given one of the most insightful comments on culture and structures I've seen in quite some time. Here's one of my favorite quotes that offers more perspective on the same theme, from the world of music. "From what has been told to me by elders, I’m not here to continue to try to be them, but I’m here to know their story which is the ancient oral tradition, the history of how I came to be here as a person of culture. My responsibility is to define myself based on that knowledge, and to include the experiences that I have in the world now as part of that history." -- R. Carlos Nakai, member of the Ute and Navajo tribes, in the world music compilation, Planet Soup --

[andrew]

Eric, you said:
"What does it look like for you guys personally? Can't seem to see, hear, or find any talk of discipleship among the emerging church conversations."

Eric, you will find that we also talk less about worship, community, evangelism, and other great topics for conversation. But that may be because we are generally more experiential than philosophical . . . or in other words, we learn by doing it. Abstract discussion takes a back seat to walking it out.

Tell you what it has looked like for me. Almost 20 years ago i obeyed the call to follow Jesus into the areas of the world where people had not yet heard. I sold my car, said goodbye to my family, and gave up the idea of a career. Now i am 40. I dont own any property , dont have a career, dont have any savings, no retirement . . BUT . i know the joy and pain of following Jesus and being his "Disciple", somthing i would not trade for all those things that i gave up.

And Eric, if you would like to learn discipleship from me, then sell your car, give up your small ambitions, say goodbye to your friends and come over to Europe to spend a day with me, before you head off on your pilgrimage. I would be honored to send you out into some difficult places where God has been calling believers unsuccessully to go for many years. I am sure your need to discuss discipleship will be met over and above your expectations.

[richard]

I like 'emerging' not so much as something that we are doing but as something to go on being.

Someone said that biblically we are not so much human 'beings' as human 'becomings', we are still in the creation process, we are still work in progress.

In fact I wonder whether we need to have a more 'emerging' image of heaven rather than seeing it as a static, final destination?

[Toni]

I've come to the conclusion that the concept of an emergent church is just..... a man made myth. To me, the Church seems to be divided into 2 halves - those that want to go on with God and those that don't. The labels people apply to themselves aren't really important, so much as their heart toward God.

It's taken a long time, but I think I'm losing the idea that it matters how you worship (it matters how I worship, but that's different). The 'why', not the 'way' is the key.

[Eric]

Already in the middle of the pilgrimage friend. Perhaps one day I will take you up on the invitation to come to Europe and continue along the path He is leading. "Abstract discussions" are a part of living it out for some as we follow Jesus in being his Disciples. I hope my "need" to discuss is not confused with my desire to take some along with me in abstract discussions and living out discipleship with Jesus.

[brad]

I think the exchanges between you two, Eric and Andrew, are a great illustration of what could go wrong with the emerging church movement as a flip-flop of the traditional church movement. The emerging learning focus tends to be concrete, experiential first, associative (multitasked). The traditional learning focus tends to be abstract, theoretical first, and linear. The learning focus in the "beyond all of the above" movement needs to be both/and, not either/or. That ties in Dan Hughes' excellent comments about divergence and drawing in the marginalized to a seat at table that was never ours in the first place. There simply are some of us who are "wired" by God to be more abstract in our learning styles, others more concrete. Some more "big picture," others more detailed. Etc. etc.

Some of us "lucky" people (myself included, and perhaps Eric as well, from his comments) have such even combinations of all styles that it drives us nuts. And discipleship for us looks, I think, far more holistic, more integrative. And we hold more supposedly opposite items in tension with each other than most other people do. We bridge between divergent learning styles, which affect the kinds of strategies, structures, and methods we create. Personally, I don't appreciate when people who are on opposite sides of the learning style approaches marginalizing those of us who are providentially in the paradoxical middle. We could hold some keys to the holding together of old and new, this and that, abstract and concrete - - just as most of the apostolic types in the Scripture are at least bicultural. (Check that one out, eh?!)

[brad]

I think the exchanges between you two, Eric and Andrew, are a great illustration of what could go wrong with the emerging church movement as a flip-flop of the traditional church movement. The emerging learning focus tends to be concrete, experiential first, associative (multitasked). The traditional learning focus tends to be abstract, theoretical first, and linear. The learning focus in the "beyond all of the above" movement needs to be both/and, not either/or. That ties in Dan Hughes' excellent comments about divergence and drawing in the marginalized to a seat at table that was never ours in the first place. There simply are some of us who are "wired" by God to be more abstract in our learning styles, others more concrete. Some more "big picture," others more detailed. Etc. etc.

Some of us "lucky" people (myself included, and perhaps Eric as well, from his comments) have such even combinations of all styles that it drives us nuts. And discipleship for us looks, I think, far more holistic, more integrative. And we hold more supposedly opposite items in tension with each other than most other people do. We bridge between divergent learning styles, which affect the kinds of strategies, structures, and methods we create. Personally, I don't appreciate when people who are on opposite sides of the learning style approaches marginalizing those of us who are providentially in the paradoxical middle. We could hold some keys to the holding together of old and new, this and that, abstract and concrete - - just as most of the apostolic types in the Scripture are at least bicultural. (Check that one out, eh?!)

[Simply - A Christian]

I've always found it odd to label churches. Why must they be Gen-X or Postmodern or whatever. It seems like a lot of people invest too much time trying to describe what church they want to be than actually just being a part of the body (church) as God intended.

Let's skip the labelling and focus on the being.

[Chris]

I have thought about this quite a bit. Since "emerging" supposes momentum, it also suggests a destination. It's natural to wonder where are we going with this. With the whole future-antient thing, are we headed towards pre modernism (that would be PreMo)? I don't think there's any harm in labeling eras. It helps us keep context in discussion. There is a challenge to sidestep any label and "be" a disciple. My prayer is that "emergence" will at the very least transform our faith beyond the bumper sticker and into souls rubbed raw by the presence of God.

[Toby]

I like the thought of the convergent church. A place where tradition, be it 1000 yrs old or 20 yrs old, meets innovation. Maybe we have to completely emerge at some point, but there is always room for innovation. Convergence in our spiritual life is continual.

[saint]

I'll be honest. I enjoy reading this blog - and lots of other em-church blogs as well. But this post - which asks a good question - and all the comments below, thoughtful as they are - scare me.

[Andrew]

Eric
thanks for coming back from my harsh and naughty reply - good rebound, dude! This puts us on an even keel and we can now talk.
Sometimes i do rant on the subject of discipleship - yes, there is a place for discussion - and this is my contribution. I teach on a pattern for discipleship from the Scriptures that i inherited from my mentor Bro.Thom Wolf. It is a movement called "A Tree by the River" and it uses 5 key teachings on discipleship from the Bible. Here is it in its most aliterated form:
1. Renew Everything - put off old and put on new
2. Remain Enthused - let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly and be filled with the Spirit
3. Respect Everyone - Support those responsible for you and nourish those under your care.
4. Resist Evil- watch (defensive) and pray (proactive)
5. Release Energy - let God's life flow out through leaves (medicinal) and fruit (nutritional).

There you go, Eric. I am guessing you have a unique contribution regarding discipleship and the emerging church, otherwise you would not have persevered through my harsh answer. Go ahead and shoot . . .

[Eric]

More on this "tree by a river" discipleship movment please. Where is it talked about a bit more?