:: Emerging... from the past? ::

Emerging...

Seems to me, as blind as I can be, that the emergent movement (ouch! I know... don't throw rocks, please... note I didn't put quotes around the word...I use movement to say 'something's moving') we witness right now, is steering away from the whole explosive prophetic/apostolic scene on the one end, with the "mega-heaven-coming-down-end-times-Bridal-destiny" conferences circuits (what worship levels they reach!), and from the lethargical evangelical churches that have refused the waters of renewal for whatever reasons they found, although they can't deny the divine call to more that's embedded in all the new songs they've been singing during their services for the past 10 years.

Reminds me of the Vineyard movement: their songs reached us and expressed the deeper thirst of our hearts for more. Years later, many mainstream churches defected from their denominations to be a new church. Running on the success of the freshness, many still failed to maintain a constancy, and those who did, did so by "reinventing" themselves as need arose.

... from the past?

I was just thinking that this emerging movement has been happening for centuries, in little pockets maybe, but often resulting in big waves of change, called awakenings.

The main power source of most of those awakenings, seems to always have been an extreme refocus on the foundational still point of grace: Christ, through genuine devotion, excavating truth from the wallpaper of contemporary religious culture, a deliberate lifestyle of godliness, and heartfelt intercession.

Reading emergent conversations, many have been about dissatisfaction, and a sense that many leaders don't know where they're going, being more or less employed at maintaining the course for a church format that many find archaic. Many blogs and posts have also been about excitment that they found other people feeling the same way about the church perpetuating professional/business models, and those people are eager to meet and openly discuss the path before us for which we have probably no prior models, except a short historical account in the New Testament.

We're searching for an external community-based organic form that would be a direct reflection of our internal passion for the purity of the Gospel in its simplicity, and that's a great start. But I'm wondering this morning, "in what way can the Gospel be culturally relevant?" A danger is always there to perpetuate the error that the form is enough to draw people, while in the end, its the presence of drinkable water that makes a well a life-giving place of meeting.

Christ is building His church. We are co-workers. Where can we glimpse on the model and get our orders from, so we know what to do? How well do we feel the foundations have been laid, how far has the construction progressed, can anyone make sense of what Christ has built at this point?

To be continued...