Adventures in Rediscovering The Point

Comments on the Emergent Church
and the Ever-Emerging Gospel

Alden Swan
Revised January 28, 2005

I am starting to get tired of the word emergent and references to the whole emerging church movement. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate various individuals and groups under the emergent banner; I have been quite blessed and encouraged by many of these folks, and for that matter, probably fall within that class myself. However, as I read various articles and postings on some of the  emergent websites, I sense an increasing self-consciousness within the movement, and more recently, even paranoia. I fear that many of us are in danger of missing the point.

Emergent, by the way, is simply a cool way of referring to patterns and structures that emerge naturally in groups, when the individuals in these groups are simply allowed to do what they do (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent).  It’s essentially what I have referred to in years past as organic. Emergence, by the way, is not a bad thing, by any means. It is simply what happens when a culture is allowed some freedom to change from within. And, for the record, I am all for freedom and organic change and have been promoting this in church groups for years.

In looking at these emergent church ideas and structures, I think we have to consider the factors behind the emergence and recognize that not all of these factors are positive and that all of what is emerging isn’t necessarily good. I suspect that the preoccupation with the failures and problems of the established (non-emergent) church – including the relative inability to relate to the emergent unchurched culture – has put a negative spin on what is emerging. I further suspect that as a result there is way too much emphasis on being relevant, or for that matter, simply being emergent.

Negative attitudes toward existing structures are not abnormal, by any means, and not that different from feelings that existed in the early days of the Charismatic Renewal, as well as other “break-away” movements. It seems to be part of a standard pattern, not unlike adolescence in an individual, with the need to break away, find new ways of self-definition, spending way too much time in front of the mirror, and so on.

That’s what I mean about being self-conscious. I see way too many people reveling in their emergent status (as an antithesis of the “old” church), as if being emergent is some sort of goal to be attained. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Been there, done that, more than once.

I just think it’s time for us (and yes, I include myself here) to get over ourselves.

In my not-so-always-humble opinion, there has been an inordinate amount of time spent focusing on making church relevant to the postmodern or emergent culture (yeah, I’m tired of postmodern, too), or relevant to boomers, or just relevant to those who really don’t want to be challenged with anything. As with the “seeker-sensitive” movement, I fear that this attempt to adapt the Gospel to various cultures can “dumb it down” or actually de-gospelize (yeah, I just made that one up) it. (By the way, if you de-gospelize the Gospel, you’ve got nothing left).

The Relevance Myth

Let’s face it: there are numerous defects in the emerging culture, just as there was in prior emerging cultures (believe it or not, the post-war, pre-rock 50’s that much of the denominational church emulates was at one time the emerging culture). We’ve got to ask ourselves just how relevant we have to become, and for that matter, relevant to whom?

Maybe we just need to start letting the Gospel be relevant to us.

Maybe we have been fooled into thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, the medium really is the message. Does the way in which we present the gospel, or our style of worship, or how we arrange our folding chairs, or our multimedia presentations, actually have the power to strengthen or weaken the good news? Perhaps by being so focused on the medium – on how we “do church” – we are really sending the message that the “program” is what’s important. (And isn’t that often why we fault the “old” church? At least I do.)

I am not saying that thinking through these issues is a complete waste of time when they put into their proper perspective. I spend a lot of time thinking about them. I am, however, saying that these issues of form and structure are at best second-tier issues, and I am also going to say that today’s concept of the emerging church is, to some extent, a myth. If we agree that there is, and has always been, a growing edge to the Church, we have to conclude that what is the emergent church of today will not be the emergent church of next week.

In other words, some part of the church is always emergent, and our structure is always passé. As soon as we establish something, it’s no longer emerging; it is obsolete, at least as far as the new emergent culture is concerned. That’s not a criticism; it’s just a fact of life on Earth that we need to learn to accept.

The Medium is Not the Message

I have seen various emergent or post-modern fellowships continue to struggle with identity and form, falling into disarray over what it really means to be a church, what it means to be community, or whatever, only to become discouraged when they can’t find the prefect church expression, or structure, or even the perfect name. It seems like there is a constant question of how we define ourselves to the world, and also (and sometimes more importantly) how we define ourselves in relation to the rest of the Church. In other words, it seems really important to us to define ourselves in a way that distinguishes us from other Christians. What’s the point in that (except to create division)?

Authenticity – in other words, focusing on “being” – seems much more important than focusing on “doing.” If we focus on being who God says that we are, then who we are will naturally emerge. It doesn’t work the other way around. If you presume that it is the Holy Spirit who draws people, then no matter who they are, modern, postmodern or post-postmodern, they will be attracted to authenticity and (hopefully) run screaming from hypocrisy. There will always be cultural differences; however, our culture can never be put in the place of our message.

The Message is the Medium

There really is a point, and I think it’s often missed, or at least shoved into a corner, without even realizing it. If we focus too much on what we do, or how we do what we do, we have probably missed it. The difference between the Church and any other organization is that we do have a point; behind all of the stuff, there exists a reality, the reason why we exist in the first place. The point is simply a radical, timeless Gospel that stands apart from any cultural trapping and unchanged by time, philosophy or culture.

OK, so I’m being overly simplistic. The message must be made culturally relevant, right?

How’s this for a thought: your culture, whatever it is, is not only irrelevant to the Gospel, it is likely contrary to the Gospel in any number of aspects. When Jesus referred to “the world,” I don’t think He was only referring to the existing Jewish, Greek or Roman cultures; I think He was referring to all cultures of the world, current emergent cultures included. The problem is not so much making the gospel relevant to any particular culture; rather, it is living out the gospel, no matter what it may mean for you in your culture.

Here is the Point

Paul, in Chapter 3, verses 3-5 of his letter to the Galatians, states:

Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing--if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

I think Paul would be even more incensed today, where many of us have – like the Galatians in many ways – begun our Christian lives by the Spirit only to fall into the trap of living our lives by the laws of our cultural ideals, whether they be seeker-sensitive, postmodern or what have you. Many of us, granted, have come from traditions where living “by the Spirit” (which for Paul means expecting and experiencing the personal, powerful, ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit in all areas of life) is not the norm. In these cases, people have merely replaced the laws of some old traditions with laws of new traditions.

There are also those of us who come from charismatic or third-wave type churches (an older emergent element of the church) who have forgotten what drew us to these churches in the first place, and are now instead focused on cultural relevancy and creating missional communities (not that being a missional community is wrong, provided you haven’t lost your mission).

You Want to be Relevant?

I don’t think our first priority is to be culturally relevant. I think our first priority is to be personally relevant and do what Jesus expected us to do: heal the sick, cast out demons, set the oppressed free, preach the Good News to the poor. You want to be relevant? Heal someone. Feed the poor. Love your neighbor as yourself. Buy me a cup of coffee. That’s relevance, in any cultural context.

If you don’t believe in the power of God, if you don’t believe laying hands on anyone will do any good, then possibly your best option is to become culturally relevant. If you believe that the Christian life is rule-based or essentially a sin-management program, then of course that needs to be updated to relate to the emerging postmodern culture. But you know what you’ve got? I don’t – but I do know that it isn’t Christianity the way the Bible teaches it. Whether you look like Mr. Rogers or Bono, the point is the same: It is the power of the real Gospel and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in your life that makes you truly relevant.

I still think we need to spend time evaluating what we do and how we do it – not necessarily because there is a right way and a wrong way, but because so much of what we do is superfluous and energy-sapping, not to mention that it’s often downright boring. However, my focus needs to stay on point. The point is not to “do” church; the point is to “be” the Church, to do the stuff that Jesus did. The point is to seek the Father to find out what He is doing, and to do just that. 

The Great Commission      

In Matthew 28:18-20 we have Jesus’ final instructions to the Disciples, what we know as the Great Commission. Let’s take a look and see if we can find the point:

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

In order for us to understand the Great Commission, we have to look back in the Gospels to see what it was that Jesus taught and modeled to his disciples, because that is precisely what they were to pass along to others. It is simply this: Jesus taught and demonstrated the Good News of the Kingdom of God (Luke 8:1). This Good News of the Kingdom is not bound to any one culture; it’s a challenge, an affront to any culture. It is therefore relevant to all cultures. Again, feed someone or heal someone – you’ll be surprised how relevant that is.

The thing is, we don’t need a church calendar to do these things. The basics of living out the Gospel is to 1) hang with other believers and use what God gave us to encourage each other, and 2) go into the world, making disciples (i.e. inviting them to hang with us) and "doin’ the stuff" that Jesus did.

True Emergence

This Good News we speak of, that Jesus is Lord, that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and that we’re justified by faith through grace, is what is truly emergent. It can be perverted by false teachers, hidden by religion, buried under a ton of rules and regulations, colored by culture, and the true Gospel will still emerge. Likewise, the Church who trusts in that Gospel will always be emerging, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

If we can hang on to the Gospel, get over ourselves, stop trying to make up new theologies (that’s a topic for another time) and allow ourselves to be confronted, challenged and converted by the Gospel (see Concerning Conversion), then something good will truly emerge, but chances are we will be too busy to analyze it.