Emerging/Emergent/Emergence - What Is It?
by Susan Andrews
Desire.
Longing.
Come as you are.
Connection.
Do it yourself.
Strip it down.
Bare Bones.
Take away all the fluff and the hype.
This ethos heavily shaped my understandings of what a church should be like: strip everything away and get down to the most basic elements. A group of people desperate to experience God.
- from Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
It is the new “buzz” word. It embraces both “transformation” and “missional” – those other buzz words so prevalent in the past decades. But it is deeper, wider, fuller than either of those ideas – and defies any easy definition. The Emerging Church. The Emergent Church. What is it? And why are so many of you/us talking about it?
Rob Bell is the 30 something pastor of Mars Hill – a non-denominational, 10,000 member congregation that meets in a renovated shopping mall in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But this group of spiritual pilgrims – many of them young, most of them in blue jeans – does not fit the mold of the mega-churches that burst onto the scene in the late 80’s and 90’s. Neither the ancient/future liturgical style nor the eclectic music nor the resurrection theology of mars Hill can be easily pegged – in fact the most amazing characteristic of this spiritual community is that it closes the great divide between “evangelicals” and “progressives.” Passionate for Jesus – passionate for justice – Rob and friends are simply hungry – “desperate to experience God” as he clearly explains in his provocative book, Velvet Elvis.
I am still learning about the “emerging church.” And it is difficult, because the definitive definition of this contemporary phenomenon cannot be definitively defined. That which is “emerging” is different than it was yesterday – and will be different tomorrow from what it is today. Organic, flexible, creative, imaginative, questioning, growing, blossoming – a church and a faith that is “emerging” anticipates and desires change – and believe that God’s resurrection reality continues to make all things new.
There are many people writing good things about the Emerging Church ( Brian McLaren, and Diana Butler Bass among them) – but Rob Bell captures much of the mystery and dynamism of younger “emergent” Christians. His theology is a combination of Rick Warren and Marcus Borg – completely rooted and grounded in the evangelical foundation of Jesus, but passionate about the radical grace and compassion that Jesus demands from those of us who call him Lord (Jesus is God’s way of refusing to give up his dream for the world….We want our friends to know up front that the costs are high, which is what is so appealing about Jesus – his vision for life takes everything we have. Velvet Elvis).The spiritual journey is deeply personal and inward – but also radically communal and missional – transforming the world into God’s vision of shalom. And worship is a multi-sensory, heart/head, highly participatory, dramatic and relational experience – with visual images, eclectic and creative music, and preaching that is conversational and gutsy and real.
I am hopeful about the new ideas and visions and creative experiences unfolding in “emerging” congregations across this nation – congregations filled with spiritually hungry, imaginative, people who instinctively know that loving God and loving neighbor are inextricably bound – and that being joyful, Jesus, justice people in the world is the privilege and responsibility for those baptized into the Body of Christ.
May it be so.
PS. Check out www.presbymergent.org – a particular web site for Presbyterians imagining and practicing emergent church ideas.