I might consider this a coming out of sorts. Certainly, many people close to me know of my involvement with Emerging Desert. This post is for the rest of you, but it's mostly for my own ability to write things out and have an explanation for my thoughts.
A few years ago I was a part of what many would consider a megachurch. I was on staff there, I worked there, and I was deeply involved. But there came a point when I couldn't be involved as much as I might have liked, due to college and work. When this happened, I noticed my access to community dried up. Many people I considered myself close to began to stop calling. I was out of the club.
I attempted to get involved again, but I couldn't find a way back in. One day, I went in and wrote on a "Get Involved" card that I wanted to help with anything that was needed. With 30 different ministries, I figured there was someplace I could get involved.
I didn't get a single call. Nor, when I left, did I hear anything either. A friend of mine helped me connect with some other people that were planting a church in Phoenix. I went with them and helped plant this church for a couple years. I though that getting out of a large church would change everything. It didn't.
My entrance into the emergent church conversation was through house churches. I learned that I really wanted to be a part of, and plant, small churches where every person was empowered to serve one another. I got to experience a bit of this through the church we planted in Phoenix, and I wanted to do more. After leaving the church in Phoenix, I started meeting with some friends in their house, very informally, and exploring options.
At this same time, I was reading a lot of books and talking with people online and offline. Frank Viola's books on the organic nature of the church were immensely helpful, as were books by Rob Bell, Donald Miller, and books from Jossey-Bass and Emersion Books (publishers).
I met up with Emerging Desert earlier this year, and they are an amazing community of people who love people and love God. I'm glad that they exist here in Phoenix.
That's the background... now on to why I am emergent...
To explain this, I'm going to use the framework of Tony Jones' "Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier":
Dispatch 1: Emergents practice a generous orthodoxy that appreciates the contributions of all Christian movements.
While I was involved with my reformed, Calvinistic tradition, I came to know many people who were not a part of my tradition. People who were charismatic Calvinists, Armenians, orthodox, and many other segments of the Christian faith. In those days, these people were the enemies. Even though we both loved God, they believed wrongly - or imperfectly - and thus it was my job to tell them how they were wrong. Little time was spent telling people who don't know that God wants to know them about his love. But this nagging thing kept happening. Every time I tried to attack others inside my own faith, the more they loved me! Drat!
It was because of this that I realized that they were the same as me. I was given the opportunity to get to know them as friends, not enemies.
Dispatch 2: Emergents reject the politics & theologies of left versus right — they anticipate a more complex reality.
I was a hardcore right wing Christian. But inevitably, following one party means that you abhor the sins of others while accepting the sins of your own. I believed that abortion and gay marriage were wrong, but wars, executions, torture, and isolation was acceptable. Even the solutions that we had for the things we thought were wrong didn't really solve the problem, they just legislated our morality.
This doesn't mean I swing to the other side and become a hardcore left-winger, but I see the good and the bad in both and live outside them - a third way.
Dispatch 3: The gospel is like lava: no matter how much crust has formed over it, it will find a way to burst through.
Dispatch 4: The emergent phenomenon began when a group began talking about how postmodernism was affecting the faith.
This is the world we live in, and the emergent conversation is talking about it. This is why I want to talk about it.
Dispatch 5: The emergent movement is not exclusively North American; it is growing around the globe.
One of my first introductions to emergent was through Andrew Jones (tallskinnykiwi), a New Zealander. Many in the UK would say it started there, and they're probably right. but the interesting thing is that these conversations started separately from each other.
Dispatch 6: Emergents see God’s activity in all aspects of culture and reject the sacred-secular divide.
My first experience with this was with a group of people who went to Four Peaks Brewery every week and just spent time with people there. Normally, there would be a divide between the religious piety, and the secular beer-drinking culture. These people did not ascribe to that, and the sacred infiltrated the secular through them.
Dispatch 7: Emergents think that an envelope of friendship and reconciliation must surround all debates about doctrine.
How many times have you changed your opinion based on someone yelling at you from a street corner, shoving papers into your face, and telling you you're wrong? For me, never. Even when I look back at my own faith, every time I've had a change of opinion it's been based on a loving experience. But my own practice, in the past, has not been the same. The way I was taught to speak to others is to evangelize them. Usually this involved tracts, a bullhorn, and debate forums - none of which have ever convinced me to change my mind, and were rarely, if ever, effective on others. It is my belief now that any discussion must be surrounded by a mutual humility, friendship, and love. Each conversation must end with more concern for the other than for yourself.
Dispatch 8: Emergents find the biblical call to community more compelling than the democratic call to individual rights.
Dispatch 9: Emergent is robustly theological; the conviction is that theology and practice are inextricably related.
This is described as "orthopraxy": Our practice of our faith is more important than our beliefs about it. Emergents are likely to engage in deep theological discussions, but we hold these discussions at arm's length. We're more worried with how these ideologies lead us to engaging people, loving God, serving others, and living life.
Dispatch 10: Emergents believe that theology is local, conversational, and temporary.
Dispatch 11: Awareness of our relative position—to God & one another—breeds biblical humility, not relativistic apathy.
This is best said in Tony's book:
That theology is local, conversational, and temporary does not mean that we must hold our beliefs without conviction. This is a charge often thrown at emergent Christians, but it’s false. As a society, we’ve been wrong about all sorts of things in the past, like slavery….Our forebears held positions on these issues with deep conviction, but they were wrong. And I can say that unequivocally. At least I can say that from my vantage point – as one who came after them –they were wrong. What I cannot say is which side of those issues I would have been on a century or two ago. Nor can I say which issues I’m mistaken on today.
I am not relativistic. I do believe in things earnestly. But I know there are many things which I am wrong on, and that I will be wrong on in the future, so I must hold things with a humility. The things I curse a friend on today my be the things I am force to reject tomorrow, creating a terrible experience of seeking forgiveness from the person I cursed.
Dispatch 12: Emergents embrace the whole Bible, the glory and the pathos.
Dispatch 13: Emergents believe that truth, like God, cannot be definitively articulated by finite human beings.
My dad used to give us an example of our dog. Our dog was a particularly stupid animal, convinced that every falling leaf was an attack on our property and deserving of a five-minute round of barking. Our dog had no greater understanding of us than we do of God. She understood certain things. She knew what time of day we came home, she knew that going outside equated to receiving a slice of bread. But she did not know what we did when we left for the day, or why we wore clothes. Her understanding was limited to the information she had available. It's the same with us and God. We can understand to a point, but we will always fail to understand in whole.
Dispatch 14: Emergents embrace paradox, especially those that are core components of the Christian story.
Our God has a son born of a virgin. He's three people, but also one. He turns water into wine and walks on water and loves people that we hate.
Paradoxes.
Dispatch 15: Emergents have a hope-filled eschatology: it was good news when Jesus came & it will be when he returns.
I hated "Left Behind". It was a threat to get kids to turn to Jesus so they could disappear instead of dealing with the world. It will be a good day for the whole world.
Dispatch 16: Emergents believe that church should function more like an open-source network and less like a hierarchy.
Recently, someone said they wanted to speak to the pastor of our "house church" I asked, "Which one?" We are made up of many people who have the gifts of pastoring. Several of the people who come are pastors at other churches. So when it came to someone wanting to talk to a pastor, there were several people who were empowered and capable of doing this, because they had been freed to.
Dispatch 17: Emergents start new churches to save their own faith, not necessarily to make new converts.
It starts this way, but it grows from there. In order to create a garden, you have to lay down a lot of dung.
Dispatch 18: Emergents believe that God’s Spirit is responsible for all good. Our task is to cooperate with God.
I used to feel that I had to curse the good taking place in others. If they weren't Christians, if they weren't my form of christian, then anything good they did was suspect. I don't see it this way anymore. I know that God is the author of all good, and if there's something good happening in or through someone else, then I want to be a part of it.
Dispatch 19: Emergents downplay—or outright reject—the differences between clergy and laity.
See above. Neither were meant to exist.
Dispatch 20: Emergents believe that church should be just as beautiful and messy as life.
And it is. Our community is messy, unorganized, over-involved, and unwieldy at times. And it's beautiful. Things develop on their own. Encouragement and challenges come as they will. And it's fun. It's been a while since I could say that faith is fun.
This post will continue to grow as I develop my thoughts more. Writing these things is like a decompression.
I’ve been doing some programming recently which has reminded me how black or white computer code is. When it’s correctly written it always works. If it’s just one character off it will (maddeningly) entirely fail to run. And yes, I’ve been reminded of the latter this week!
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