You may not be able to make your church bigger, so try to make your people bigger. (Calvin Miller)
November 2005 Archives
Critics often say the emerging church knows what it's against more than what it's for. This just may be true, although perhaps it's just a sign that many are still early in the process, and are still closer to where the journey began than where it will end (if it ever does end).
But the days of the emerging church being against rather than for may be numbered, if they were ever here. I am encountering more people and resources that are moving toward living the Gospel in community and on mission - in short, moving toward rediscovering what it means to be the church.
Maybe I'm just encouraged because I sat in a room with hundreds of church planters yesterday and sensed that there is new life out there.
One of the books that is giving me hope is David E. Fitch's The Great Giveaway.
Fitch writes:
The task of this book then is twofold: (1) to examine the ways we have "given away" being the church to modernity by allowing its influence to individualize, universalize, syncretize, and commodify the tasks, truths, and even the very salvation we have been given as people of God through Jesus Christ, and (2) to offer practices to evangelicals by which we may receive back being the church, the people of God ruled by Jesus as Lord in resistance to such modern influences.
In other words, this book is both diagnosis and prescription. It works toward reinvigorating "an ecclesiology for our times," and a robust one at that. I like what I've read so far.
There are signs of life out there, and all kinds of thinking practitioners are getting in on the action. Just maybe we're starting to see signs of the life that comes on the other side of death, a moving toward something rather than away. I am encouraged and I'm glad to be alive to see this happening.
From Seth Godin:
I'm not sure why the mass market insists we dumb down stuff that's already dumb, but it seems to be true.
Read the whole post. It's almost a metaphor for what's happened in the church:
Step one: Give the market what it wants and make it polished.
Step two: Discover that what we're offering isn't as authentic as we would like.
Step three: Become more authentic.
Step four: Discover that the world craves authenticity more than polish.
Like the tourist who thought Epcot was as good as going to Spain, there's always the danger of churches trying to create something that's almost as good as the Kingdom - but it's not the real thing.
At Monday Morning Insight Weblog:
Aside from the obvious reasons pastors leave the ministry (sexual impropriety, financial mismanagement, and marital dissolution) here are the top ten reasons why young pastors call it quits:
1. The discontinuity between what they imagined ministry to be and what it actually is is too great.
2. A life without weekends sucks.
3. The pay is too low (most pastors in my denomination make less money than a school teacher with five years experience).
4. They are tired of driving ten year old cars while their congregations trade in their cars every two years.
5. Many young pastors are called into difficult congregations that chew pastors up and spit them out because experienced pastors know better.
6. Even though the search committee told them they wanted to reach young people, they didn’t really mean it.
7. When the pastor asked the search committee if they were an “emergent church”, the members of the search committee thought he said “divergent church” and agreed.
8. Nobody told the young pastor that cleaning the toilets was part of the job description.
9. The young pastor’s student loans came due and the amount of money he/she owes on a monthly basis exceeds his/her income.
10. Working at McDonalds has alot less stress.
Over 180 comments so far in response.
Mike Frost on rediscovering the stories of Jesus:
Jesus would not qualify for a member in many of our churches. Even if he was admitted, it wouldn’t be long before he would be kicked out for subverting the church.
If this is true, why are we doing church this way? Why are we putting up with this? We can be part of a revolution...
He knows the rules and is prepared to subvert them. He hung out with sinners. How do prostitutes, homosexuals feel about us? They hate us. They didn’t just put up with Jesus, they loved him. How is it that we have become repulsive to the people who loved Jesus?
I've posted a summary and links to my notes here. I've also ordered the CDs. More to come.
