Long-Winded Thoughts About The Emerging Church

In the past I've written about my family attending a local Assembly of God church, and also about some of the wild-and-wooly goings on that take place there. Last fall some friends and aquaintances from our former church (that we went to for approx. 9 years before we moved too far away to comfortably attend) started a new church plant that is about 25 minutes away from us. It was described as very different from the typical church experience, very kid and family oriented, and specifically working to reach young families that are currently not attending church, possibly because they don't feel that the typical church experience is something they want in their life. It sounded both interesting and questionable to us. The thing that allowed us to give it a chance was the fact that we knew and respected so many of the core people involved in the project. The lead pastor for this new church is the former assistant pastor of our former church. This was considered a church plant, so it was a project being done with full support and endorsement of our former church. We felt that we could trust the heart of the endeavor since we knew that so many of the people were sold-out followers of Christ who were not interested in a watered-down version of what the Christian life is all about.

So, we visited, and we liked it. And the kids liked it. And we visited some more. And our 12 year old son liked it and would say to us that he had really appreciated the sermon (always very down to earth). He had always hated the AG church, and the kids there had been some of the rudest and nastiest kids we have ever encountered, so who can blame him? (all those spirit-filled, speaking-in-tongues parents with all those bratty rotten children!) We started going twice a month. Eventually we kind of stopped wanting to spend time at the AG, and have switched over to this new place. My husband and I joined a small group (something the AG does not offer) and we are making connections that we appreciate.

About 2 Sundays ago it was the day to celebrate communion. Our pastor talked about the Lord's Prayer, and about how so often in the Christian life we get stuck on modalities and forget about the relationship. For instance, thinking that if we read our Bible and pray each morning, that we can then kind of check GOD off of our To DO list for the day, and move on. He pointed out that we (hopefully) don't spend a few minutes with our children or spouse each day and then think to ourselves, "Phew! Got that out of the way. Check!" He talked about the Lord's Prayer, about saying it,and how sometimes we get so rote with it that we forget about what it means in terms of how we should be living. It was a great reminder about our utter dependence on God, our need to forgive others as a part of receiving forgiveness ourselves, God's holiness, God as our father, and so on.

After the sermon, we were invited to go around to 4 different "stations." These were situated around the room and had us all very curious, I think. There were various props, flickering candles, and such. I had been enjoying the beauty of it all during the service, and was eager to see what it was all about.

The first station I went to was entitled Letting Go. The station had some votive candles, some smooth, palm-sized garden rocks, and 2 buckets of water. The information at the station asked us to take a few moments to breathe deeply, feeling the oxygen going into our body, carbon dioxide going out, and to think about how God has created us as an integral part of his creation. We need oxygen, but expel carbon dioxide. Plants need the carbon dioxide, but expel the oxygen. Basically, an appreciation for the interrelatedness of God's creation and His design.

Then we were to choose a rock and think about our fears, about what God can do about them, and to take some time to pray about letting these fears go and trusting God with them. When we felt ready to release our fears, we could drop our rock into a pool of water.



The next station was entitled Self. There was a full-length mirror, some candles, an ink pad, a medium sized poster board, and some wet wipes. One of the first things written was the verse about us being fearfully and wonderfully made. Then it asks,

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Do you see something fearfully made and wonderful? Or do you cringe or want to look away?

What do you think Jesus meants when He told us to love others like we love ourselves?

What is the you or you? Who are you are the core of your being?

Find your pulse. Life is moving through you. Life is a gift from God.

Feel your fingertips. You are a unique creation. God only made one of you. You are precious to Him.

Use the ink pad to make a fingerprint on the posterboard and look at all the different, unique prints.

Ask God to show you the real you, without image, the you that He sees.



The next station was Hurts. There was a table with 2 piles of blank paper, some colored pencils and markers, and a large metal garbage can to the side. We are asked:

What hurts have been said or done to you?

You can take some time to draw or write about your hurts.

Then we are asked if we want to take our hurts along with us, or would we like to let them go?

We are directed to think about the need for confessing our sins so that God will forgive us. Also, about forgiving others trespasses. We are encouraged to let go of the hurts done to us, and to confess the hurts we have inflicted upon others. We can then choose to throw our paper with our hurts on it away in the garbage can. The sign at the stations tells us:

You are loved.

You are free.

You are forgiven.

The last station was the communion table, and it was entitled Here. We are asked:

Do you ever feel alone?

Afraid?

Do you wonder where God is?

Then we are reminded that God promised to never leave us or forsake us.

We are encouraged to know that communion is a way for us to have a tangible experience of God being with us and within us.

We then can take communion and pray for however long we want to.



I LOVED this church service. I loved having something experiential to remind me about God's love and power and promises. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. It was unhurried. It required me to slow down and really think about some things rather than just hurry up and take communion because it was now time to do so. I've never had communion mean so much to me.

I also really appreciated that these stations included our bodies, minds, and spirits to engage with the process. So often churches get stuck only wanting expression and experiences that are carefully measured and scientifically proven. Specifically, I appreciated the deep breathing and the appreciation for the interconnectedness of creation. Especially since I started my natural health professional classes, I have a deeper appreciation for how God made our bodies to work. So many times a church situation would frown on even mentioning deep breathing, for fear that it would somehow sound "new age-y" or something. This was the first time that I felt that my beliefs about the wonder of how our bodies and minds work, thanks to God's design, being acknowledged hand-in-hand with anything church related. It was so refreshing to be in a place that was not scared off by the body-mind-spirit package that God gave us.

Interestingly, a few days later, I got one of my regular encouragement emails for mothers, and in it was a reference to how Eastern Mysticism is sneaking into the Christian church. Immediately my little antenna went up, wondering if perhaps what I had loved so much about communion Sunday was what they were talking about. As I checked into it, sure enough, it was (in part). I found all sorts of articles that were concerned about deep breathing being encouraged, because it is used in yoga and transcendental meditation! Apparently, the yoga and TM people came up with the threatening concept of deep breathing. Somehow I had been duped into believing that it was GOD who designed our bodies to work well when we breathe deeply. Huh.

Another concern was the use of candles! Yes, candles are now a sign that something is going wrong at your church. I bet this is news to my Orthodox friends... (I wonder what they think about insense??) If your church dims the lights, it's even worse. Gotta watch out for that mood lighting, I tell ya. I wonder what this information will do to all those Christmas Eve candlelight services that everybody loves so much? Is mood lighting only ok at Christmastime?

Other surprising concerns were the use of hospitality! Coffee! Couches! Multi-media presentations!

There was also a lot of concern about something called Contemplative Prayer, which I have yet to hear discussed at my church and will admit that I know very little about it at this point, so it may indeed be a bad thing, I'm just not sure yet. Apparently the worry is that if people don't do all the talking during their prayers, and spend some time quietly listening for God, they might hear something that *isn't* God. Indeed, it's not a new problem that plenty of times people think they hear from God, but really they hear from their own imaginations or wishes or whatever, and I would even say that it is possible that someone could get some thoughts from some spiritual force that was not God and not good. So, I can understand the concern. But I don't see how deciding that meditating and spending time quietly before the Lord should be vilified because we cannot carefully control these things.

I think that what is a threat to so many Christians is that we are afraid of that which we cannot measure. A church service that does not have to stop at noon? Well, then, when will we know when to end?!

Not just 3 hymns and the offering, but instead a more open-ended, Spirit-directed worship experience? How will we know whether or not God wanted us to sing through that chorus 5 times rather than 3? What if we sing too long? Or the wrong song?

Someone having some sort of charismatic experience? Well, how do we know what's going on with that?! How do we know it's God and not something else?!

There is so much mystery to God that we cannot know or measure. Many people have simply cut the Holy Spirit right out of their church and life because they are afraid of what will happen and whether or not they will be in charge of it, and how they will know if it is God or not. These are normal things for humans to be concerned about, I think. But it does not seem to me that God works within our desires for secure rules and boundaries in all things.

One example is that the Bible doesn't tell us how often to have communion. It says, "as often as you do it." We're left to figure out the logistics ourselves. We're given tons of principles, with the particulars of how to apply principles being left up to us. Some feel that this leaves us all kind of floundering around in a space where nothing is clearly right or wrong. Maybe. But God did that. He choose not to tell us every little thing about how we have to apply His principles.

One question we may ask is WHY?

One reason that jumps out at me is that by leaving the application of His principles up to us, God knows that we will need to be in a relationship with Him, constantly open to His leading, examining our own hearts and motivations. "What do you want me to do, Lord? How best can I live this out in this situation?" With a list of rules, who needs a relationship? Do this! Don't do that! Easy enough, since all you have to do then is read the sign.

In a relationship, we often need or enjoy something fresh. We like to go on vacation to get a break from our regular life, and this hopefully rejuvenates us. We take our kids to the park or children's museum for something special and different to do. Marriages often benefit from going on a retreat or taking up a hobby together or trying out something new in the relationship. We like to shake things up a bit in our life, don't we? It's not that what we've got is bad, it's just that we benefit from getting a different perspective, trying something new, and infusing some excitement into our everyday life. We don't need to beat ourselves up saying, "We've done just fine with the furniture in this arrangement for 20 years! Why change it now?!" It makes sense to me that our relationship with God and Jesus Christ works the same way. We like our retreats. We like to read a new book that helps us learn and grow in our spiritual walk. We enjoy reading a different version of the Bible every now and then, where God's word makes a fresh impression on us. We may go through seasons where we are deeply fed by liturgy or tradition or charismatic worship or simplicity or whatever. I think this is not only ok, but good. It shows that we're growing and changing! I think that to expect ourselves to forever be feeling a vitality in our relationship with God and our spiritual walk by only doing worship one certain way is just not realistic nor consistent with how God made us.

Another thing that I believe is that God created us all unique, and He understands and celebrates the many differences in personality, culture, and place in history. What delivers a message to tribal people in Papua New Guinea is probably going to be different than what gets a message across to the ultra wealthy in southern California. What gets through to inner-city drug addicts is probably going to be different than what inspires the elderly in a Florida retirement community. With liberty in Christ, we don't have to force one exact plan for all people. The message is the same, but the vehicle for delivering needn't be.

Some people seem to feel like diversity among Christians is a bad thing. Why can't everything be just like the Early Church? or, the Catholic Church? Or, the catholic church (little c)? Orthodox? Baptist? Presbyterian? Methodist? Charismatic? Apostalic? You name it, there is somebody out there that thinks that we should all be doing that one thing. I just can't imagine how that could be so. With the billions of people in the world, all with varying personalities, needs, cultures, and points of entry, how could we possibly think that there would be just one way for all of these people to worship and understand God. How could the God who created so much diverse beauty and intricacy in His creation want only one style of worship directed to Him? How could it be that God expects all peoples in all cultures at all times in history to all experience His message and to worship Him in only one way? How could this make sense?

We even see diverse styles of worship within the Bible, changing over time and from people group to people group. We've got people that build altars and burn sacrifices, people that dance exuberantly before the Lord and play a wide variety of instruments in praise to God, we have house churches and outdoor down-to-earth storytelling to get the truths of Christianity across to people. We have radical healings and deliverances. We have small groups and large groups. We have communal living. We have people who do full-time ministry, and people who have regular jobs but do what they can to further the message.

So, why would we expect that since the Bible was written nothing in the church can or should evolve, adapt, or change?

Please know that I am in no way saying that "all paths lead to God" or that the message of Christ itself needs to be altered. The message is the same as always. It's the vehicle for delivering it that should adapt.

Getting back to the point of the objections I learned about the wonderful communion service I attended, the concern is that something New Age or from Eastern Mysticism or otherwise evil is infiltrating the church. I think that this is something worthy of checking into and being on guard against, especially since we live in a very relativistic society, and new age thinking is very prominent, but I think that oftentimes people are getting hung up on lingo and feel alarmed about things that maybe aren't so alarming after all.

For instance, a New Age-oriented person might claim that they got "bad vibes" from someone, whereas a charmismatic Christian-oriented person might claim that they had discernment of spirits and could feel that there was something evil about a person due to their spiritual gift. Basically, these two people are talking about the same thing, although they may attribute the source of their intuition differently. But, if a Christian person says that they feel bad vibes from someone, does it automatically mean that they are attributing their ability to feel this thing to someone or something other than God? No! It's just the lingo they used.

When reading the articles in objection to the Emerging Church movement (our church would fall into this category, I think) it seems that anything that is seen as somehow borrowed or adapted from anything that any other religion has ever done is therefore a bad thing. So, deep breathing is solely seen as smacking of Eastern Mysticism, rather than God's creation design at the root. Eastern Mysticism got it from GOD, folks! Experiential opportunities to more greatly understand God and Bible concepts are simply tapping into the ways God made our minds, bodies, and spirits to function. We're multi-faceted creatures, made by a multi-faceted God. It should come as no surprise that we appreciate a different way of understanding something every now and then. If some other religion has made use of this concept, then it is because they, too, have observed and understood how we have been made. They may not understand or acknowledge God as creator, but they see the truth of the design nonetheless. Issues like peace, joy, forgiveness, and love are also not solely appreciated by Christians. There are plenty of valid illustrations and experiences to help us grow in these areas, regardless of who thought them up first.

I look at these supposedly mystic practices being accepted by some churches today and I feel that Christians are reclaiming what is rightfully theirs: respect and appreciation for God's creation of nature, our bodies, our minds, our spirits, and a hunger to know, love, and experience God with all of us rather than only the rational, scientific, and measurable.

I think it's important for ALL denominations and styles of churches to be watchful that their practices and applications of Biblical principles are not in any way doing something we should not. We need to be careful not to water down the Bible in order to make the message "less offensive" or somehow more palatable to our wishy-washy world. But we also have to be watchful that we don't exalt tradition or personal comfort over being open to a new way to get across the same ancient message.

My husband and I will continue to beware of possible pitfalls at our new church. I realize that we may get farther into this and see a different side of it than what we are seeing right now. It may be that my church isn't all that "emergent" and maybe we aren't going quite so far in that direction as is described in some of these articles. If my opinion changes, I'll fess up. :) I know that we definitely DON'T want to be in a church that teaches people that everything goes, that there is more than one way to be saved, or any of that. I really don't think that our particular place will do that, based on our experience with the majority of the members.

Some links that may be of interest if you want to look into this issue further:

Pro-Emerging Church Resources--
Vintage Faith
Sacrementis
Something cool going on in Lexington, KY, where Christians are choosing to live in urban areas in order to reach those that are so often left out of the Christian loop.

Anti-Emerging Church Resources--
Emergent No
Lighthouse Trails Research