Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Comments (2)

  • I can't tell if I fall within the 4th team or not. I've never considered myself part of the "emerging" movement, and would still shy away from the term. He is either referring to churches of predominant reformed theology who are focused on evangelistic mission work externally or he is saying that there are reformed-minded Christians who are turning their churches into missions. This is to say that in the first, internal church programs are geared to building the church body and in the second internal church programs are geared to evangelism. I just can't tell which he's talking about. I would say that the church should be internally geared to equipping Christians to externally be evangelical and mission-minded.

    As for the second, he's on the money. Cultures communicate in ways other than mere verbal language. Similar expressions of sounds, colors, shapes, functions, relationships, etc mean different things in different cultures. One must be careful not to confuse mere cultural attractiveness as a means for a successful church service. However, one is a fool not to learn and use the cultural language in order to express the truth.

    For example, you don't turn a church in the United States into a coffee house just because more people will come. Being a coffee house communicates self-indulgence in the US. That doesn't mean that you can't have a kitchenette out in the hallway with a coffee pot on, but it's not a cultural expression worthy of inclusion in corporate worship. However, if cultural Jews in a Messianic church value dance as a means of community worship of God, they should dance.
  • Did you see the "Bubble Suit" he offered at the start of his Dating sermon? :-p

    I think he's right in terms of trying to organize an outreach response based on generation (GenX as he said). When a person is born actually determines very little of personal viewpoint simply because as time changes, viewpoint changes with it. E.g., you have someone who is part of Generation Jones (born between 1954-1964). While they may be brought up under the conservatism of the preceding Baby boomers, during their teenage years, GenJones will experience the opposite through the 70s: rock music, sexual experimentation, political protest against "the man" etc. During the 80s, these people would have married and began families, nurturing GenX and Generation Y. Truth is that today as the GenJoneses reach their fifties, they're no longer the liberals seen in the 70s, but are now the 21st centuries new conservatives in light on GenY's postmodern outlook.

    Regarding the Reformed stream of the emerging church, it would be interesting to see how and where it will lead. Young people today want experiential spirituality, which is why postmodernism is so easily fueled by pluralism and the equating of personal experience with truth. What effect would that have on the reformed churches when their young people start to want more than just "text-book calvinism", but start to approach their pastors saying "I desire to know tangibly if I'm elect or not!"

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