Do you think? I actually don’t, but lately phil and I have reflected on that there sometimes seems to be an undercurrent of real hostility towards the idea or the ethos of traditional churches.

Over the last couple of days steve has been reflecting on the different funding models for church planters and those involved in the emerging church. He asks:

Should the emerging church really rely on loads of outside help? Will we evolve as dependent on outside help? I’m thinking of the famous missionary thinker Roland Allen, who wanted to cut the umbilical cord of outside help. Self-sustaining, self-theologising, self-funding, he argued. Or does that mean self-struggling, and so self-absorbed and self-limiting?

In doing so, he has unwittingly wandered into view of one of phil’s and my particular soap-boxes. Take a look at what steve has to say because I have hijacked his comments to talk about a related but different topic.

Where does the emerging church emerge from? Is it the traditional church? And once it emerges, does it retain any links, or does it need to step out on its own? John O’Keefe writes on the ooze” about corded and stand-alone churches, where corded churches are connected in some way to a “mother church” or a denominational structure. He says:

Generally speaking, corded communities of faith (corded at any level) can never be “fully postmodern” because of their relationship with, and to, the modern mother church… With few exceptions, these corded communities of faith seem to be designed to keep the “college age” members of the church happy and to let their parents think they are doing something cool for their kids. In short, the modern mother church sees a “postmodern outreach” as simply another program.

Added to that we find a stereotype of the established church amongst the emerging churches. It seems to be reflected in comments like these, from Alan Hirsch at stinky convoluted past:

Among the group though, were some Established Church bods who found it a little too much to cope with. I must say that I have a hard time with those happy-positive pastor-tacher types who are so much into control….you know, the passive-aggresive variety. All kind and smiley, but behind it all they want to close you down.

I am not disagreeing with any of this (and apologies to those that I have quoted for pulling out aspects of their comments that I have issue with - go and read the full articles or posts and make up your own mind). This movement is great at developing autonomous, authentic communities, and is great at inspiring the hearts and minds of our best young leaders. However, I can’t help but think and wonder (as many of the older people at our church do), where does that leave the established church?

If the emerging church movement creates communities which are stand-alone, and much of the exciting new innovation in the church is happening in those models, and if many of the talented leaders of the generation are moving into this area, and if the movement is appealing to young people, new people, different people, doesn’t that leave the “established church” without leadership, without people and without innovation?

The traditional church has historically not provided options for those uncomfortable in worshipping in that way, and now the emerging church is in danger of shutting out those that want to worship traditionally. Yes, that style of worship is well catered for, but some established churchers are happy being established churchers but also want to support, be inspired by and have ownership of the new and exciting things that are happening at our churches.

Like the guy at our church who has devoted a lot of his life to the temperance movement and been anti-drinking, anti-gambling etc etc etc. But before our church had even started exploring new models, he told us that he dreamt of having a church in a pub. He didn’t want it in his worship service, didn’t even agree with it, but he wanted to be a part of a movement that was embracing that sort of mission.

Our church northern community is in the position of doing just this, birthing new congregations with new models from an existing “established church”. And the truth is, each tradition can learn from the other. On the flip side, each can irritate, annoy and grieve the other. Each has the opportunity to say “forget this, we will stick with what we know”. And some established churches have done this, and a lot of emerging churches have done this. But I hope and pray that some people will remain inspired to be a hinge generation, linking the old to the new, so that each would be richer for it.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2003 at 11:25 am by dan and is filed under challenges for the church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.