My Paper on the Emerging Church

I have been writing a paper on the critisicm of the Emerging Church for my writing class and this Thursday I have to send in my final draft. As I got a chance to share with the students in my class on this idea, it was suprising to me to see how many people haven't heard of this movement (although the people who have brought this idea call it a "conversation") I get the sense that people don't care or there is no interest. For me, I find this conversation extremely important to notice.

After doing much research on this broad topic I have found some very interesting thoughts, ideas and opinions on this idea. I have read Brian McLaren's thoughts behind the start of this conversation and have read conservative christians back fire with their own thoughts and opinions on this rather controversial concept. Wikipedia gives a well definition that says, "The emerging church is a controversial 21st-century Protestant movement whose participants seek to engage postmodern people, especially the unchurched and the post-churched. To accomplish this, "emerging Christians" seek to deconstruct and resonstruct Christian beliefs, standards, and methods to accomodate postmodern culture." When I first read this my first thought was, "deconstruct and reconstruct Christian beliefs?" I believe there is some truth to that statement and yet I also believe there is a part of that statement where we need to be careful with how far deconstruct certain things.

It's such an interesting topic to talk about and discuss and those who I have had the priveledge to distect this idea, it has been encouraging in many ways. I believe Brian McLaren who is one of the participants in this movement has some good ideas such as bringing more of a love and openess for people in this culture, where Christianity is well known for its judgments, rather than its loving kindness. But I am also astonished by how certain christians who are speaking against this conversation in harsh words and it causes division instead of unity. Erwin McManus who is the founding pastor of Mosaic in Los Angeles states, "Is it possible that the greatest enemy to what God is doing in the world is the church? The established church is supposed to be the womb of the emerging church. Emerging is not a noun it is a verb. It is not a kind of church but the promise that the church will always prevail." I just love that statement.

Writing this paper has caused me to re-evaluate my own life as a Christian and how am I using my life to glorify the Lord in unity. It's so easy to point the finger and critize till you are blue in the face and yet truly where does it lead? Do we speak, just to be right, or do we speak to truly edify and encourage? I am not saying that we shouldn't share truth in love, but how do we go about it and does it cause us to look at another person in a judgemental way or does it help us to also look at ourselves? I think many times we pass judgment on the way churches to do things because they might differ from us, but if they are speaking truth then what does it matter? If the Emerging Church is "a group of people who are talking about the Gospel and church and mission, especially in terms of changes going on in our culture that some people call a shift from modern to postmoden culture," (participant Brian McLaren) and in this shift is speaking truth out in a way that defines truly what Jesus did here 2,000 years ago, shouldn't we also re-evaluate truly what it means to spread the gospel? Should we not also take into account how we have made that possible?

These are intersting questions that I find myself thinking about. I am not saying that I am fully for the "Emerging Church" or fully against it, I am just saying that God causes us to check our own motives in how we are living out the gospel in our daily lives and could it be the "Emerging Church" is helping us to do?