Adrian's 2000th and the Emerging Church

Just before I went away I did my 1000th post and while I was away my good buddy Adrian Warnock did his 2000th post.  Even though I am two weeks late on this I wanted to congratulate Adrian on his long and prolific blogging career and wish him all the best as he continues to blog on.  I am greatly indebted to Adrian as he pretty much introduced me to the blogosphere and am glad to see him still going strong.

While I was catching up on posts he had written while I was gone I found one where he pointed to a very good article by Ed Stetzer on the Emerging Church.  Stetzer's article is one of the best short articles i have seen on the Emerging church, showing that it has many varieties. Stetzer speaks largely out of his own Southern Baptist context, but his words are helpful to anyone from any tradition in understanding the differing strands of the emerging church.  Here's his summary:

I believe that some are taking the same Gospel in the historic form of church but seeking to make it understandable to emerging culture; some are taking the same Gospel but questioning and reconstructing much of the form of church; some are questioning and revising the Gospel and the church.

I think he is spot on in his descriptions and critques and commend the article to you highly.

Related Tags: Blogs, Weblogs, Religion, Theology, Church, Christian, Christianity, Emerging Church, Adrian Warnock, Ed Stetzer

Comments

[cavman]

Driscoll would be one of the guys who is clearly trying to preserve the theological heritage given to us by our fathers in the faith.
In the midst of his apology to McLaren & Pagitt, he briefly gives his history with them, and break from them. If you don't have the address to his blog (Resurgence), Between Two Worlds has a link.

[bill]

There is another part of the church emerging that goes unnoticed, but is in some ways more important than organized efforts to take the Gospel to the growing post-modern, post-enlightenment, post-Christendom culture. This part consists of those who've left church-as-usual to grow their faith beyond the limitations of modern church.

Recently, George Barna wrote about these “revolutionaries” in his book “Revolution.” Other books on these “church leavers,” “unchurched” and “dechurched” include Mary Tuomi Hammond's book “The Church and the Dechurched: Mending a Damaged Faith” and Alan Jamieson's “A Churchless Faith.” At faithCommons.org, we refer to it as a “Church Without Walls” (not to be confused with an organization by that name).

There is, or will eventually be, a church or assembly (of some sort) made up of those who are leaving organized religion by the train load. In 2000, Dr. Peter Brierley concluded from his own study of church attendance trends that the British churches he studied were “one generation away from extinction.” This is organization falling into chaos. And out of chaos emerges new patterns. This “emergence” from chaos is what the scientific study referred to as “complexity” and “emergence” is concerned with.

Therefore, “Emergence,” in the scientific sense, is the salvation of Christianity—not a challenge to it. I think that over the next century or so, there will emerge some variation of an ecclesiastical equivalent to the Diaspora that occurred after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. Out of the ruins of third Temple Judaism rose Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Similarly, out of the ruins of Reformed Catholicism and Protestantism, will emerge something new and just a bit closer to what God wants us to be.

Meanwhile, many leaders of institutional Christianity argue and struggle for the shrinking remains of what once was, but decreasingly is. The statistics speak for themselves. Whether Mark Driscoll is closer to truth than Brian McLaren matters none. Because, they are only two. Beyond these two men, tens of millions of others worldwide have been, and will be, making their way to a spirituality that bypasses the current status quo. Don't blame me. I'm just the messenger.

In John 4 Jesus told the Samaritan woman “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” We are still working toward this ideal. Organized religion is great for getting us started, but people need to move on, to continue to grow spiritually. James Fowler wrote in his book “Stages of Faith” that most Christians are stuck in Stage 3 out of the 6 stages he described. Stage 3 is “conventional” and based upon group membership. It is team spirit. But we need to move beyond this into a faith of our own. Organized religion can certainly help us with this. But it's not. It hasn't been. And it is now just getting in the way. We need to move from group faith to “Spirit and Truth” faith.

Anyway, sorry for dumping on your blog. I just wanted to get your opinion, and those of your readers, to these ideas. I really think that the debate over “Emergent church” is going in the wrong direction. In my opinion, church leaders—like yourself—who understand the Internet are the most likely to intuitively understand true emergence. McLaren and Driscoll don't even get the Internet yet. They may read the culture, but until they experience something like the 'net, they're unlikely to understand “emergence.”

[b]

Please don't forget that his "break" with them is merely his side of the story. Many people seem to remember it going down a bit more like them breaking with him (deciding that when they were moving from Young Leaders to "Emergent" not to invite Mark along) because of his overly caustic manner, which he now seems to be addressing due to some loving correction from friends/brothers.

The fact that mark continues to reiterate "I broke with them because of their bad theology" over and over and over is disturbing when it is a very one-sided and incomplete take on the events.

But now we're into some iffy areas of hearsay and who said what when...

I guess I would just ask people to take Mark's (and everyone's in fact) stories with a grain of salt. Sometimes our minds have ways of de-emphisizing the painful bits and playing up the bits that make us look good...