Imperishable Inheritance

I find that there is a sub-section of Chris­tians, par­tic­u­larly reformed Chris­tians, that love to blast the emerg­ing church move­ment; but most of the time they don’t even know the wide array of opin­ions on the issue and the ben­e­fits of it. I recently lis­tened to a series of ser­mons where a reformed bap­tist pas­tor does acknowl­edge good things in his cri­tique. The emerg­ing move­ment is not above crit­i­cism from the Scrip­tures, but we must be sure to rec­og­nize pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions it has made.

Rec­og­niz­ing the Need For Post­mod­ern Contextualization

The truth is that post­moder­nity brings with it new chal­lenges to the church and her mis­sion to spread the king­dom of God. Post­moder­nity, with its rel­a­tivis­tic, skep­ti­cal epis­te­mol­ogy chal­lenges the very foun­da­tions of the absolute claims of the Chris­t­ian faith. The emerg­ing move­ment calls the church at large to rec­og­nize the dif­fi­cul­ties present in this age of post­moder­nity, and the adher­ents strive hard to meet these peo­ple where they’re at.

There are cer­tainly peo­ple in the move­ment that take con­tex­tu­al­iza­tion to far often by com­pro­mis­ing core Bib­li­cal teach­ings, but we must not shy away from con­tex­tu­al­iza­tion because some have done so irre­spon­si­bly. Jesus in John 4, Paul in Acts 17 and 1 Cor 9:20–21 are a few exam­ples of the use of con­tex­tu­al­iza­tion in the first cen­tury. It is not a new idea for­eign to the great commission.

The Call For Mis­sional Living

Chris­tians all-to-often live in a world that really doesn’t exist. We must remem­ber that “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Jesus, the God-man, con­de­scended from heaven to dwell amongst sin­ners. God comes to us’not us to him. We must remem­ber this when we strive to live like Christ.

We must remem­ber that our lives as mis­sion­ar­ies is not reserved for a spe­cial out­reach time, but it is a lifestyle, a joy, and a com­mand from our Lord. Engag­ing the sick, poor, wid­owed, and post­mod­ern peo­ple hap­pens by liv­ing life next to them and show­ing them Christ in our words and actions. Jesus him­self said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glo­rify your Father who is in heaven” (Mat 5:16). But we must remem­ber that social action must not be the ends in and of itself, because we must ensure that the Gospel is the under-pinning and moti­va­tion for our actions.

Chal­leng­ing the Clery/Laity Distinction

Chris­tians often don’t real­ize how Catholic ecclessi­ol­ogy con­tin­ues to have a tremen­dous influ­ence even in Protes­tant churches. The model of a sharp clergy/laity dis­tinc­tion finds its roots in Catholi­cism, and it was an error per­pet­u­ated by the reform­ers. The New Tes­ta­ment speaks of elders and dea­cons who are charged by God to teach, lead, and exem­plify God­li­ness; but the idea of pro­fes­sional clergy is an aber­rant con­cept to New Tes­ta­ment churches.

The Protes­tant Reform­ers as well as most Reformed churches today, have been unable to break with the strict cler­i­cal­ism which they have inher­ited from both Rome and Con­stan­tine. The Reform­ers were right in their sote­ri­ol­ogy (doc­trine of sal­va­tion), but wrong in their eccle­si­ol­ogy (doc­trine of the church). They redis­cov­ered the Gospel, but were unable to fully recover the eccle­si­ol­ogy of the New Tes­ta­ment. Thus, in many respects, the Ref­or­ma­tion was only a par­tial ref­or­ma­tion. (Source)

Effec­tively Uti­liz­ing Technology

As a web designer I am in a spe­cial way appre­cia­tive of this last point. Mem­bers have found much suc­cess in influ­enc­ing many, because they have seen the value in new tech­nolo­gies and democ­ra­ti­za­tion of infor­ma­tion. Tra­di­tional church lead­ers often don’t real­ize the incred­i­ble power that a strong web pres­ence can have, and it is becom­ing a strate­gic way to reach those who oth­er­wise would not be reached.

Con­clu­sion

There are cer­tainly things that trou­ble me about the emerg­ing move­ment, but I feel it’s impor­tant to out­line con­tri­bu­tions that the move­ment has made that the church at large should lis­ten to. We must not shrug off some­thing, because we see it as “new” espe­cially when the ideas present within are as old as the Gospel itself. We must con­tinue to remem­ber that “we are no longer to be chil­dren, tossed here and there by waves and car­ried about by every wind of doc­trine, by the trick­ery of men, by crafti­ness in deceit­ful schem­ing; but speak­ing the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fit­ted and held together by what every joint sup­plies, accord­ing to the proper work­ing of each indi­vid­ual part, causes the growth of the body for the build­ing up of itself in love” (Eph 4:14–16).