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While I am sympathetic to the aims of the emerging church movement, and firmly in tune with the rationale which drives it, I continue to ponder the paradox of it all. The rubric under which it organises itself "Emerging Church" suggests that it is the new institution growing up to replace the old, which seems strange when it is the institutional aspect of church which is its greatest impetus. There is also an implicit suggestion that there is one model.
Have we placed the cart before the horse? Is our goal to design a new institutional framework for church in the 21st century? Or is the framework something which grows up to support an existing dynamic? Ought we be aiming at community first and structure second?
Which prompts the question: how do we build community? Do we build it by setting an agenda and asking people to respond, or by seeking to add vitality to something which is already present? Community is not some vacuous notion or expression - it always grows within a context.
When I read the gospels through these lenses, I see Jesus adding vitality to images of life which were already exigent. "A sower goes out to sow" is a depiction of life for a first century Jew. Jesus gives the action symbolic meaning in relation to God and His kingdom. It is not an isolated incident.
And while Jesus intentionally called a small number to be with him, there was a much larger community which gathered. It almost appears as a byproduct. People were intrigued and entranced by what they heard and saw. (I know the gospels comment on people's response to his teaching, but also look at how much they respond to what they were seeing: was community part of this also?)
Christian faith is a communal expression, so it follows that the better sense of community that emerges, the better expression of christian spirituality.
The question then becomes, not how do we do "emerging church" but how do we build better christian community?
Or am I making an artificial distinction?
Posted by gary at February 5, 2005 09:22 AM
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