Answering Anthony
I keep coming back to Anthony’s questions on the Emerging church. Waiting for the time to give them justice. Sometimes the best responses are the most candid. So here goes.
Anthony: Am I right to say that there seems to be a disproportionate amount of interest or concern in the Emerging church movement? Why should we be so interested in it?
Steve: Disproportionate interest? Hard to say. The Emerging church is definitely setting the agenda out there on the blogosphere, in the publishing world, and at conferences. Emerging church is hot. Important questions are being asked—What is the church? What is mission? What is the gospel?
No one planned this. It just happened.
Too much interest? Depends. All this interest in the Emerging church is wood hay and straw unless the foundation is Jesus Christ. Paul says one Day our work will be tested by fire. The rubbish will burn and what is built on Christ will endure.
The Emerging church is a mixture. Just like every other Christian movement. Movements are the stuff of church history. You can’t ignore them.
Anthony: Why does a little group (sometimes as little as 20 people in some Emerging churches) receive such focus when they have borne relatively little fruit? Shouldn’t we treat them more in keeping with their size and accomplishments?
Steve: Hey I’ve been a church planter! Nothing wrong with having ‘only’ twenty people. Most people in the world today can and will be reached by churches of less than forty. The best megachurches are networks of disciple-making groups. The challenge is to multiply them everywhere.
But where are the Emerging churches with a passion for evangelism and disciple-making and a track record to go with it? Neil Cole is the exception not the rule. BTW: I wonder why he was left out of the Gibbs/Bolger study of the Emerging church? Curious.
As I read their book I sensed a malaise when it came to evangelism: a loss of confidence in the gospel, a blurring of the distinction between the church and world and a redefining of mission away from evangelism towards social and political agendas.
If that malaise sets in, the Emerging church will stay small and be comprised mainly of secularized second generation Christians with a chip on their shoulder.
I’ll answer the rest of your questions in my next post.
