Labels: Church, Emerging Church, Worship
I didn't know whether to post this here or with "Motivation or Ridicule," so I am posting it both places. I hope that's OK.
Thanks, Mike and Julie, for clarifying things. And I'm glad a lot of the emerging folks aren't embracing the error I thought we had made back in the late 1970s. Before we moved and left our former church, but after I was beginning to have doubts about things, a lay leader told us he and his wife were moving to a large Midwestern city (not Chicago) to start a ministry for gen-Xers. At the time I thought, how sad. If the church is the family of God, I reasoned, ought it not look like an extended family, with people of all ages?
I read Diana Butler Bass' Christianity for the Rest of Us and was very encouraged. I talked to our pastor a few weeks ago about starting a "centering prayer" group in our congregation, but I haven't followed up on it yet. I hope there will be interest. A seminary intern had introduced the topic to one of our adult classes.
Regarding leadership, I personally am glad that there's a leadership structure where we are now. To me it's a check and balance thing. I can understand why some are suspicious of "hierarchies," but after being burned by overbearing "elders," I think we need that structure ourselves. At least, as imperfect as it may be, there's a place we can go if we have a disagreement and can't get it resolved. And our relationship with God won't be called into question if we disagree with the leadership (something that happened to us before).
God's peace to both of you!
Don
At 8/07/2007 09:17:00 AM, Julie
Leadership is a tricky thing. In every church situation I have been a part of leadership was a power trip - a way to have one's way and control people. And when often youth and women are excluded from leadership, the needs of the majority of the church are ignored. It wasn't about being a family, it was about a small group playing control games.
You are so right, Julie, especially your comment about excluding women. In our former church, women were not allowed to have leadership roles. I got called out because I allowed my wife to dare and approach an elder directly on her own. Never mind that the reason she approached him was because of the way she thought he had mistreated me.
They would have vehemently denied that they were playing control games, but that is exactly what they were doing.
Thanks for a great post Julie
I've found that the American emerging church seems to have been rooted much more in GenX churches than here in the UK. Here in England, most of the emerging church came from post-Charismatic disillusionment - which meant that it wasn't so generational.
Whilst it is inevitably true that you see a lot of 20's and 30's in emerging church / events, there will often be a much wider age spread - which is great! It sounds like your church has grasped that, and is able to blend together all sorts of ancient and modern stuff in a kind of 'church remix'. God bless you!
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It could be even bigger than that...
I just finished listening to 'the nick and josh' podcast with Phylis Tickle, in which she frames the whole emerging movement in the context of a much larger reformation that is happening in our churches; something that happens about once every 500 years or so. She may be overstating her case, but its something worth considering...