It's not about the emerging church

This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"

It's tempting sometimes to be cynical about the established church and to grasp for another ready-made solution as the answer. As some of us have raised questions about the established church and its priorities, it's been exciting to see new forms of church arise, and to hear other people asking questions that need to be asked about what we've been doing. It's also exciting for me to hear questions being raised about the emerging church, and to be reminded that it really isn't a unified movement as much as it is a diverse collection of people around the world trying to rethink how we can live the Gospel without all the trappings of modernism. They don't all agree and they aren't always right. As much as I'm in favor of new forms of church (and I really am), I think there is a deeper issue at work. The emerging church, whatever that means, isn't the answer. The emerging church is still going to make mistakes. It still has people in it. It still gets it wrong. It can still be into self-preservation and the wheels can still come off. We're seeing this already. At the same time I'm reading books like mission-shaped church, I remind myself: this blog is not called The Emerging Church. It's called The Dying Church. It's about all types of churches, emerging, established, whatever, hearing the call to die to themselves and to take up the cross of Christ. It's what someone said so beautifully to me last week: it's about becoming to submissive to Jesus Christ that we're dead. That's what The Dying Church is about. And dying yesterday wasn't enough. It's a daily thing, and any church that walks with Jesus has to make the decision to die every single day. That's what it is all about.

Comments

[LT]

Ay-Hay-Hay-amen!

[ed]

Awesome! This is exactly my internal fight, one moment wanting to be part of something new, the next moment wanting desperately, for people to get what you just described, right where we are. So, the question, as leaders put right in the middle of it, how do we "help" them discover it? What will it take?

[Jacob]

On a kinda separate but related topic. My research of "the emerging church" is that it's not just a way of doing church but comes with a theology as well. Seems to me that they seem to be drawn towards a more relative understanding of truth. Dr. Mohler addressed a movement called Post-Evangelicalism in his blog today. I see a lot of similarities between this movement and the theology of the emerging church movement. You can read the article here. http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/" rel="nofollow">http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/ Jacob.

[Jacob]

Great post Darryl. Very refreshing. Are you changing again? Man, you're hard to keep up with... Jacob.

[George]

Blessed post, here I was thinking I would have my ear tickled! :-) Lord Bless G