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).