Giving the Emertional Church Its Due

Having just finished Gibbs and Bolger’s newest book, Emerging Churches, I came away with this strange mixture of being both turned on and turned off. I left the traditional church years ago (at least philosophically) for many of the same reasons my brothers and sisters in emerging churches have left. But gaining a clearer picture of this “conversation,” I am unwilling to go where many of them are going. I am somewhere in what sometimes feels as no-man’s land; not ready to embrace the whole of what is referred to as Emergent, nor interested in going back to what is typically the traditional, institutional church. I agree with Gibbs that the church must embody its message and life within postmodern culture or it will become increasingly marginalized. I’m just not sure that what he describes is the kind of body I believe God has called us to live in. Could it be I belong to something like the emertional church (for lack of a better term, which sounds strangely baptistic but is not), a church that is somewhere in the middle?

It is tempting to set up contrasting models of Traditional and Emergent, and appear positively as something between the extremes. But I want to avoid this. Working in pastoral theology, as well as being a pastor, I find that many love to set up straw men they can easily confute. Behind this is a subtle, and not so subtle, expression of pride, which suggests some of us have found the way. We are God’s instruments to seize this runaway train called the church and bring it back to its biblical tracks. I hope this is not the tenor of this blog.

I both hear and read the distinctions between traditional and emerging. The list is long, and what follows is only illustrative:

• Ordered / Organic

• Church as place / Church as a way of life

• Building / Community

• Homogenous/ Diverse

• Constructed / Deconstruction

• Worship planned for the consumer / Worship arising out of the community

• Propositions to be known/ Narrative to be experienced

• Print & Ear / Image & Eye

• Reaching those turned on to church/ Reaching those turned off to church

• Modern / Postmodern

• Epistles, church / Gospels, kingdom

• Counter cultural through exclusion / Counter cultural through inclusion

• Attractional / Incarnational

• Monologue / Dialogue

These have sometimes been used to define the differences. The only problem is that they are simplistic and reductionistic (if that is a term); more imagined than real. Here’s what I know for sure. The following is a church I want to be a part of: Intimately large (not necessarily an oxymoron), a community devoted to one another, yet expanding in its capacity in order to create a movement; increasing its capacity to be global, doing the kind of cross cultural ministry that greater resources enable it to do.

This is a ministry that has not been done so well by traditional churches that assumed a Constantinian cultural context, nor is it discussed much by emerging churches. The Emertional Church is intent upon sending teams abroad with such collective energy that they partner with existing ministries to make incredible impact. It is a church that views size as an opportunity to gather momentum that, joining with other sizeable churches, can dissuade corrupt powers from attacking believers (standing with others to influence events in Darfur or Damascus). Size that creates the organizational expertise to establish specialized ministries that are then able to reach special needs (like Katrina disasters).

Critical to the Emertional Church is radical connections, where people are challenged at both a gathered and small group level to be community. A group of people that cannot know everyone, but challenged to powerfully engage with someone. Some will question the possibility of community in a larger church. I’m not convinced of its impossibility, but I also realize it will take great intentionality, using such passages as Colossians 3 as a guide.

It is a church that respects both ordered and organism, knowing that it is impossible to have sustained life without developed form. But suspicious enough of form to know it easily turns rigid. The Emertional Church, while unapologetically committed to structures and policies and facilities and staff, is also dedicated to maintaining function over form. Structures are servants that lose usefulness when they become so inflexible they can no longer contain the fermenting Jesus. This requires that the Emertional Church also be deconstructionist, calling for the tearing down of structures, ways, habits that inhibit ministry, while continually constructing what is necessary to thrive in the world of today and tomorrow.

Here are a few more descriptions of this church. Modern, yet postmodern. Many of us come from a modernistic context, but live in a postmodern context. It’s up to us to figure out how to minister in light of this. There has to be the respect for foundations, things that are certain, things that are linear, things that are distinct. There is an unapologetic commitment to the authority of Word. Not all things are sacred. Spiritual can be cheapened to define things that are not. True spirituality cannot be experienced apart from the church. On the other hand, the Emertional Church rejects many of the modernistic claims. Modernity and rationalism have not necessarily led to a better world. There are mysteries that cannot be easily systematized, explained. Not everything fits in neat systems. Truth that really matters is not so much proven by arguments as verified by changed lives.

The Emertional Church values both incarnational and attractional. There is a place to gather. In fact, a body that reflects the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ can be a greater influence on the community than believers simply scattered. There are occasions when the church attracts, and the community responds. Easter, Christmas serve as immediate examples. But people in this model must come largely through people; not through events, programs, celebrities, slick advertising.

The Emertional Church places great value on monologue and dialogue. Preaching is not an option, but a mandate. But there is also room for dialogue, for community involvement in constructing worship, orienting the direction of a sermon, setting in motion creativity and the arts. There is a need to reach both ear and eye, and all the senses for that matter. The Word of God proclaimed with clarity, its message delivered by one with the posture of a preacher, amidst a community that values poetry as it values prose, silence as it values sound, sacraments as it values revealed Word. Counter cultural, both by being holy, unique, separate, and being engaged, involved, immersed in culture.

It may sound like a dream. It’s actually the vision we have for our church at Village. We have committed ourselves as a people to it.

Comments

[rick thompson]

I love your vison John. Pastors like me in churces like ours are pulling for this kind of vision and looking to people like you to lead the way. May we all become more "emertional"

[Bud]

John,

This is a great analysis of the kind of church that I, too, want. I am not certain that I know how to do the dialogue thing as well as the monologue, but I know that the concept of our new building will definitely lend itself to more dialogue/relationship/connecting than we have now. I pray that God will give us, as a group, the courage to step out with our resources and get this thing done.

[blind beggar]

This is a wonderful vision and I'd love to see more of our churches in the Portland area move towards it. Still, I see a need not to just transform form and practice, but the people. We must become a missional people in all respects. This is a much more complex and involved task than moving to the Emertional model.

[Scott Gassoway]

I really enjoyed what you had to say. Your thoughts on pride were especially poignent and thought-provoking.
One thing you wrote,
"Here are a few more descriptions of this church. Modern, yet postmodern." As you read this again, would you agree with Mark Driscoll's assessment that we don't want to be Modern or Postmodern; we want to be Christians who minister within a Modern/Postmodern context? Hopefully, this isn't too naive or simplistic. For me it serves as a warning to not confuse the Gospel with Culture. I believe that the vision that you are presenting has a lot of hope for letting the Gospel change Culture/cultures. Sounds exciting!

[rameytime]

good thoughts, john!

i do think that list reads very reductionistic and simplistic. I am wrestling, however, with what you said about size: "It is a church that views size as an opportunity to gather momentum that, joining with other sizeable churches, can dissuade corrupt powers from attacking believers (standing with others to influence events in Darfur or Damascus). Size that creates the organizational expertise to establish specialized ministries that are then able to reach special needs (like Katrina disasters)."

I would be interested in throwing this around with you a bit to find out more of what you mean.

all in all, though, it seems like you're simply advocating balance rather than watching the church, yet again, swing from extreme to extreme.

i pray that village continues to become a church transformed into a sherpherding, missional culture.

[agentolivia]

Hey Pastor John,
My comments were getting too long, so I've posted a response over on my blog. But in a nutshell, I'm encouraged, even though when I first heard you mention that term months ago, I had to chuckle. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.