Index to The Emerging Church     OR     Section 10A The Contemporary Church

Also See The 2004 Emergent Convention (Below)
 

MINNEAPOLIS It was "alt.worship" night at Bluer on a recent Saturday, and as a crowd of about 50 people, mostly in their 20's and 30's, milled around an open loft space filled with couches and candles, John Musick, the pastor, sat behind a drum set, accompanied by three other members of the musical "ministry team." Light fixtures dangled from exposed pipes; slides and videos of old stone crosses or statues flashed on two screens.

Mr. Musick, 37, wore a faded T-shirt and blue jeans and had mussed hair and a soul patch beneath his lower lip. Instead of his weekly sermon, he directed the congregants to make their way among three makeshift altars, each with a stack of cards carrying a prayer and a list of topics to think about.

"You're going to be put in a position where you have to think about your relationship with God," Mr. Musick said.

Bluer, which began four years ago as a young adult ministry at a more conventional church, is one of several hundred small evangelical congregations that have formed around the country in recent years to pursue an alternative idea of how to do church.

Called "emerging" or "postmodern" churches, they are diverse in theology and method, linked loosely by Internet sites, Web logs, conferences and a growing stack of hip-looking paperbacks. Some religious historians believe the churches represent the next wave of evangelical worship, after the boom in mega churches in the 1980's and 1990's. [Also See Section on Postmodernism]

The label "emerging church" refers to the emergence of a generation with little or no formal attachment to church. The congregations vary in denomination, but most are from the evangelical side of Protestantism and some are sponsored by traditional churches. Brian McLaren, 48, pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Md., and one of the architects of the fledgling movement, compared the churches to foreign missions, using the local language and culture, only directed at the vast unchurched population of young America.

The ministries are diverse in their practices. At Ecclesia in Houston and Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, Calif., artists in the congregation paint during services, in part to bring mystical or non-rational elements to worship, said Chris Seay, 32, pastor of the four-year-old Ecclesia, which draws 400 to 500 people on most Sundays.

At Spirit Garage in Minneapolis, in a small theater, congregants can pick up earplugs at the door in case the Spirit Garage Band is too loud. At Solomon's Porch across town, a crowd of about 300 takes weekly communion "house party"-style, chatting with plastic cups of wine and pieces of pastry before one announces, "Take and eat the body of Christ."

In Denver, a gathering called Scum of the Earth, started by a Christian rock band and named after a passage in I Corinthians, features pizza and a D.J.

Many emerging churches, including Bluer, have revived medieval liturgies or practices, including prayer labyrinths and lectio divina, or sacred reading, a process of intense meditation and prayer over a short biblical passage. Some borrow Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox rituals that pre-date the Enlightenment.

"The Orthodox practices represent stability," Mr. Musick said. "Marriage you can't rely upon. With the dot-com failures, having mad computer skills doesn't guarantee you a good job. That stability isn't there."

Since the churches are diverse, their numbers are elusive, but the Web site www.ginkworld.net, lists more than 300 emerging or postmodern churches.

Like discussion groups on the Internet, the churches are nonhierarchal and open to multiple points of view, which has drawn criticism from some leaders of established churches who say the emerging churches undercut absolute truths for the vagaries of multiple interpretations. Other leaders have embraced emerging churches as a way to reach young people.

Robert E. Webber, a professor of ministry at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Ill., and author of "The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World," likened the emerging churches to the growth of fundamentalism in the middle of the last century, which took root in small community churches.

"The same thing is happening now," Mr. Webber said. "Lots of people are starting neighborhood groups or house churches. The emerging church is being birthed underground. Give it a few years, and it's going to explode."

The churches are a reaction to the highly polished services at mega churches, said Dan Kimball, 42, pastor at Vintage Faith Church and author of "Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations."

Mr. Kimball, a former drummer in a punk rockabilly band, ran a youth group for a mega church in the 1990's when he noticed that the church's services were out of touch with his charges' popular culture. Like punk rock fans, he said, many young people wanted not an easier involvement with faith but a more interactive, demanding one.

InPlainSite.org Note: Unfortunately Kimball does not seem to have progressed much from his rockabilly days. Details

Expanding his ministry, Mr. Kimball brought in candles and crosses from garage sales, and began reading long passages from the Bible, inviting people to talk back to him or discuss what the stories meant to them as a group. In contrast to the bright and cheerful big churches, he said, "younger people want it like a dusty cathedral."

"They want a sense of mystery and transcendence," he said. "Anything that sniffs of performance turns them off."

Though the churches are often small, most break down into even smaller groups throughout the week and set a premium on eating together. Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois, said this interest in small groups, in which everyone knows each other, marked a generational shift from baby boomers, who found strength in numbers, whether at Woodstock or in mega churches.

On a Tuesday morning in Minneapolis, eight members of Solomon's Porch gathered at a Peruvian cafe for their weekly men's breakfast. They were in their 20's to mid-40's, and most were musicians or artists; only one wore a tie. Though the group did not discuss religious matters, such meetings are just as important to the church as Sunday services, said Doug Pagitt, 37, the pastor, who started the church four years ago.

"It's about us finding our way as a community," Mr. Pagitt said.

Laura Bates, 25, a member of the church, said it was the sense of community that drew her to Solomon's Porch.

"I'm not saying the Bible is watered down here," Ms. Bates said. "It's the opposite. We're figuring it out together."

Many emerging churches preach the same message as their sponsoring churches, but use different methods. In Basking Ridge, N.J., Peter L. Pendell, 59, preaches a conservative Baptist sermon on Sunday mornings, and Tim Lucas, 32, who is not ordained, leads a looser gathering called Liquid in the evenings.

"We both preached about baptism recently," Mr. Pendell said. "Tim used a film clip from `Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?' I'll say, `This is what the Bible says about baptism.' He'll talk about people's lives and why they get baptized, then get around to telling what the Bible says about baptism. I'm speaking to people who know what the Bible says, so I don't need to win them into it as much as he does."

Mr. Lucas said that the dialogue gave him leeway to discuss topics like homosexuality and pornography in ways that might be divisive in a conventional sermon.

"If anything," he said, "we talk about sin more because we're more forthcoming about our own lapses."

At the same time, Mr. Lucas said, unlike some traditional churches, "we don't pretend there's an invisible hierarchy of sins."

"As we live in community, someone living a homosexual lifestyle doesn't have any more issues before God than I do as a heterosexual man," he said.

At an Irish bar in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday, 10 members of Spirit Garage met for the weekly Theology Pub, a mix of biblical discussion and other spirits. The discussion quickly moved through the history of St. Valentine and the personal life of Martin Luther to the question of how to be a Christian in the world. Most said they were put off by political declarations of faith.

"I always feel like I have to qualify it, like, `I'm not that kind of Christian, I go to a cool church,' " said Lindsey Gice, 26, a graphic designer who had given up church after high school.

The church and small groups provided a different kind of community, Ms. Gice said.

"I'd go to churches that were way too judgmental or too ambiguous," she said. "At Spirit Garage, there is no question what we're doing. We're talking about Jesus. We're taking communion. We're just doing it together, as a journey.

 [See Judge Not? Contrary to popular beliefs.. the Bible makes some very straight forward statements about ‘judging’]

The 2004 Emergent Convention
Extracts from The Emergent matrix: a new kind of church? by Scott Bader-Saye  Nov 30, 2004

“LAST SPRING the Nashville Convention Center played host to both the National Pastors Convention and the Emergent Convention. While the former was largely geared toward evangelical baby boomers, the latter catered to Gen X and Millennial evangelicals (and "postevangelicals") who are trying to come to grips with postmodernity. Though the two conventions intentionally overlapped, that proximity suggests a closer kinship than may actually exist. Indeed, the professed goal of many in the "Emerging Church" is to embody an alternative to the model of the Willow Creek, seeker-driven church that blankets the contemporary evangelical landscape like kudzu on a southern hillside.

At first glance the differences between the two conventions seemed to be primarily stylistic: the Emergent music was hipper, the videos faster, the clothes trendier, the technology more sophisticated. But for many of the Emergent leaders, the convention's flashiness did more to confuse than to clarify the nature of the emerging church.

"For the most part, the general sessions just look like an extension of the mega-church movement and the 'rah-rah' youth movement--feelings and loudness," complained Robert Webber, one of the main speakers--as if "the louder you can be, the more direct relationship you have with God." Adds Webber, professor of ministry at Northern Baptist Seminary: "There's nothing here in file public face that lifts you theologically or lifts you into liturgy or anything that has historic connection or depth or substance."”

“More than 1,400 people met for the Emergent Conventions in San Diego and Nashville this past spring. The list of main speakers reflected the growing theological diversity of the conversation: writer and poet Kathleen Norris, social activist Jim Wallis, Episcopal writer Phyllis Tickle, postmodern (and Roman Catholic) philosopher John Caputo--hardly the "usual suspects" at an evangelical conference. And though the majority of the participants were from conservative denominations, Vineyard churches or nondenonminational churches, there was no shortage of representation from the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Episcopal Church”

“... at a breakfast conversation sponsored by the Emerging Women Leaders Initiative, women from main line churches shared powerful words of hope and encouragement with evangelical women who struggle to have a voice in their traditions. On the other side, the creative and lively worship at the convention struck a chord with many mainliners, whose worship has often lacked such energy and passion. The trading continued as evangelicals, many of whom dismissed the techno-savvy worship with a "been there, done that," plied the mainliners for ideas about renewing worship through liturgy. The cross-pollination was intense and enriching”.

“As Important as the mainline-evangelical conversation is, McLaren sees something else going on. "I think the real story is both evangelicals and the mainline learning from Catholics."

The emerging church is not shy about raiding the storehouses of the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox and the Anglicans for richer liturgies as well as prayer beads, icons, spiritual direction, lectio divina and a deeper sacramentality. The return to ancient faith and practice is increasingly seen as a way forward in churches polarized by worship wars and theological intransigence. See Revival or Return To Darkness

Thus, emerging churches often characterize themselves as "ancient-future," a phrase that comes from a series of books authored by Webber (Ancient-Future Faith, Ancient-Future Evangelism, Ancient-Future Time). This return to the past should not be confused with a nostalgia for 1950s Protestantism or with a circling of the wagons around a purer Reformation theology. The return is deeper, looking to the treasures of the medieval and patristic theologies and to practices that have long been ignored by evangelicals.”

“The convention tipped its hat to the ancient by constructing a portal to the past in the form of a prayer labyrinth. Convention goers passed from the fluorescent daytime of the convention hallway into the darkness of the sacred space, dimly lit by candles. The labyrinth filled the room. One by one participants filed in to walk the path of prayer. But unlike the ancients, these postmodern pilgrims carried portable CD players which guided them through the journey and provided ambient music. Along the way, walkers paused at stations to engage in spiritual exercises. A stone and a bucket of water, a map and a compass, bread and wine all became instruments of prayer and meditation.

Despite the undeniable power of these retrieved practices, one must wonder if the incense, candles, labyrinths and all the rest are being retrieved simply because they've become cool Tangible, multisensory worship has a currency among younger generations, and this is all to the good. But if this recovery is linked only to generation and style, what will happen when styles change?

"I think the major problem is that you may be rediscovering the ancient as a new gimmick," comments Webben "If you don't do the theological thinking that stands behind liturgy and sacrament and all the kinds of things that are part and parcel of the classical tradition, this will just fade out. It will have no staying power. The next generation is going to come along and do something different.'"

The Emerging Church

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