emerging wider

One of the things I've been musing on of late is what the whole vibe of "emerging" means if you take a step back and allow for the fact that what is happening in some of the exciting and buzzy little urban-monastic churches in pubs or living rooms is also happening in the larger context of Church. I don't agree with some of the more radical proponents of emerging that "church is dead" - it shows a profound lack of grip on Church history, say nothing of a touch of arrogance, to suggest that anything we Emergers are doing is really so "new" that is ordained to be the replacement for Church as we knew it. Sure, it has an element of "new" about it, in the sense that our culture and our generation is new. But in truth there is nothing new under the sun, as someone said more than 2,000 years back. And the Church has a history, like it or not.

The really interesting questions that surround the Emerging conversation have less to do with the how and why of a deliberate strategy to re-create the shape of Church, and more to do with how the concerns of Emerging are, in fact, emerging in different settings all over the place - messily, imperfectly and in unexpected places - which, in fact, is more faithful to the concept of emergence.  For many Emergers, the least expected place of all to find an emerging congregation would be slap in the middle of a suburban Parish church. But that's what is going on in quite a lot of places. Like this one, for instance.

Edit: "E~mergent kiwi" Steve Taylor, whose work I have long been interested in, blogs from another such congregation, this time in New Zealand, and picks up the conversation here. 

St Lukes Hollingway in London is one; Big Bulky Anglican has plenty to say on the subject; there are lots and lots of examples of this "emerging" phenomenon occurring in traditional-shaped settings (including my own Chapel). I guess they get less attention because they are not so noticeable. But make no mistake, the Church as we know it is far from dead - unless, as Bob C notes in the comments below, you allow for those recurring degrees of death that are part of the process towards resurrection.

Comments

[Tony B]

I do wonder what will happen to village/ small town churches that are currently attended almost exclusively by people over the age of 60, and where almost nothing bar Sunday services seems to happen.

[maggi]

I suspect, Tony, that they will either morph into something different, or gradually close down. I think the reduction in number of small ageing communities meeting in large expensive buildings is simply impossible to support. All the same, the feeling of passion for the local parish church is sometimes underestimated. A small and poorly attended village Church I worked in near here was threatened with closure only a few years ago. Those who attended leafleted the village explaining the situation; the entire village got involved in fundraising to save their church, and through that project the attendance at Church, baptisms etc., rose over several years to see a thriving multi-generational community inside the Church as well as a repaired building with a sense of ownership by the entire village. So you never know...

[Tony B]

Food for thought. It seems a strange situation at the moment - the Rector is still very much at the centre of village life and involved in things that go on, but most of the things that go on are not really connected to the Church, and the Church is only attended by a small fraction of villagers. I think an awful lot of people have got "the wrong idea" about the Church - just like I had until recently.

[bob c]

Hi Maggie - before I push back a little on part of what I sense you saying, let me say my own experience strongly connects with this proposition:

how the concerns of Emerging are, in fact, emerging in different settings all over the place - messily, imperfectly and inunexpected places - which, in fact, is more faithful to the concept of emergence

For people outside the em church or church bubble, emergence refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. These are messy, random, indigenous - even counter-intuitive.

Now, my push back. I do not consider myself radical in any way (hell, I drive a mini-van), but I have lived my 44 years in a time when Church as we knew it has been in many cases decaying or dying. By Church, I do not mean local 'ekklesia' or "gathering" or the global organism to which Paul calls it in 1 Corinthians 12 "the body of Christ". I mean much of the scaffolding and institutions that arise & fall around these bodies.

And by dying, I do not mean the scientific construct of the end of the life of a biological organism. Instead, I sense hope in the new life emerging, in the rising again, as from decay or disuse. Certainly some of what has always been part of Jesus followers' story is renewal, to restore or replenish. But I do know from my own studies and (more powerfully) the web of experiences I move in, that revival -- revīvere to live again --, the messy transformative power that walks thru Via Dolores, sits in a tomb and surprises those walking on a road - well revival is a cornerstone of the story we re-member.

As a person whose very DNA swims in currents of the liturgical seaons, my sense is that the Church (or the church) finds itself in some manifestations at a Holy Saturday moment, what the Dutch move thru as Silent Saturday. Those of us (like me) invested in the legacy momentum yearn to fast-forward the tape to Easter morn. There is no fast forward - our Liberating King has been executed. We know that, as y Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote, death has no dominion.

The body of Christ is dying, dead & reviving - that is just the nature of that body.

[Tim Mathis]

Hi Maggi Dawn,

Great stuff here and in the most recent two posts. Thanks again for the link.

I talked to Dave last night, and I'll look forward to getting together over the summer when you're here in the Seattle area.

Tim