Sector or Reformation?

2 comments | Aug 15, 09:58 AM | emergent | by Earl Creps

The notion of an “emerging church” has been around for a long time. This makes sense, given that the Church is a living, growing entity that should morph the way living things do.

A book called The Emergent Church by Johan Baptist Metz and dates from 1981. Amazon says it is has 4 copies still available, with a sales rank today of 1,648,340, and a price tag of $29.68. A paperback version appears in 1986 for just 9 bucks and a sales rank of 1, 068,751.

Another one, by Larson and Osborne, dating from the 1970 is refusing to upload right now. Amazon will sell you one of its 15 copies for a dollar achieving a sales rank today of 621,696.

A more recent installment is not a book cover, but a depixelated magazine cover from an issue of Christianity Today that I believe appeared last year.

The focus of the article was the “Emergent Mystique.” Somehow it seems that the dialogue moved from a general discussion of the Church’s biology to specific questions of its anatomy like, “if all the coolest people in town are going emergent, does it still make sense to be part of my denomination, or plan video clips for my seeker sermons, or read Chuck Colson?)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the evolution in the emerging church conversation since I stumbled into it 6 years ago. Conversation itself is a living thing, so we can and should expect it to change as time passes. If it doesn’t—that’s trouble—and that’s another blog.

For me, one of the biggest shifts I perceive (and I’m looking at it through a soda straw, or a coffee sipper, I should say) is the relative decline in the use of the word “reformation” in much of the contemporary self-talk of the EmChurch. Ever since I walked into Spencer Burke’s garage in Newport Beach years ago and began asking him and Matt Palmer question after question about the future of the Church, I’ve been on a path of discovery, trying to sort out what’s going on and why, so just maybe the Church can learn things that bring us more into alignment with our mission. I understand the mission as cooperating with everything Jesus came to do. Part of this journey has been wondering what every happened to the reformation that lots of EmChurch insiders were talking about half decade ago?

In this connection, bradandgeo posted here a couple days ago siting Brian Mclaren’s hope that the EmChurch would not end up being just another slice of the pie, but become more like a ring around it influencing the whole.

So there’s the question: is the EmChurch adding up to a “reformation” or evolving into just another “sector”—or (and here’s the coward’s way out) both, depending on where you live.

Let’s skip the coward’s way out, and I’ll spot you the fact that “reformation” is a breathtaking term if we use it in the context of Church history, so if we set the bar that high, we’ve answered the question before it has been asked.

However, keep in mind that what Protestants refer to as THE Reformation was, for many years, really influential only in limited areas of northern Europe. So the fact that something starts small doesn’t necessarily disqualify it from historical importance (e.g., Pentecostal roots in a converted horse barn at Azusa Street). This is the “Bethlehem effect” that we celebrate at Christmas. And it’s one of the great aspects of the Church’s biology: just when everything looks bleak, God will show up in some wildly unlikely and even annoying way and change everything.

What I’m referencing here might be way off. I’ve done no content analysis of EmChurch media to discern an actual decline in the use of words like “reformation” when describing the movement. And a change in word use can sometimes mean it no longer needs to be said, among other things. So my sense of this is completely subjective, but feels like reformationspeak may be in eclipse for reasons like this:

1. The arrival of mid-life: Core leaders were 5 years younger when this started for most of them. As mid-life approaches, I just don’t pick up as much of the sort of brave talk about reforming the whole church that I heard of over coffee not that long ago. Older could mean wiser, or more conservative, or mounting concern for family, or worried about how I’m going to send my kids to college pastoring 65 mid-town loft dwellers.

2. The evolution of the movement: The players I know don’t seem as excited as they once did, perhaps not displaying quite as much of the energy that comes from feeling that you’re part of something momentous. This could be the psychology of the post-start up phase of the movement bringing a more “realistic” attitude, or at least deflating the early-adopter type optimism of the salad days.

3. The pain of taking some hits: EmChurch has suffered some relatively high-profile moral failures, some freak accidents, and some theological crash-and-burns, answering any questions about whether the movement lives on a higher plane than polo shirt seeker pastors. And then there was Stan’s death. What a terrible loss.

4. The necessity of self-defense: A lot of the early energy of EmChurch now seems to be devoted to self-defense, debates with the Colson/McDowell tribe, and endless explanations of why it’s OK to be involved. I’m not saying this is wasted energy, just that movement apologetics uses energy that used to go into other things, like new ideas and new venues.

5. The advent of postpostmodernism: This was all more fun when we were talking about postmodernism—the ultimate conversation starter/stopper. I sense a steep decline, and almost a contempt for the subject in a lot of quarters, accompanied by a “we’re beyond all that” attitude. Frankly, as a modern, I miss those days. But that’s probably a personal thing.

6. The drag of the practical: Now that EmChurch congregations dot most postmodern urban centers, we’ve had to get down to the practical issues of how to actually make these shops work. Pragmatic concerns are demanding attention. To be honest, figuring out what to do with children during a small group meeting is a lot less interesting than facilitating spiritual dialogue from the teacher’s chair, I mean stool.

So, for now, EmChurch seems to be a sectoral ministry for young adults, with broader reformational potential in at least two forms:

1. Leaders/Venues: Although one CBS report put the number of people involved at 20 million, I find this estimate absurd. (I have contacted the reported involved to learn the source of this number, but have received no reply.) To the eye at least, I don’t think a case could be made that EmChurch congregational venues are having more than a limited influence on mainstream church. Their impact seems much greater among younger leaders in church plants, and therein lies part of their reformational potential.

2. Authors/Media: Unlike modernist church which was most influenced by the practices of high-profile leaders and congregational models (Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Church is simply the most influential book on ecclesiology written in our lifetime) the reformational potential of EmChurch may be more in the hands of its authors than its pastors.

Looking back in 50 years, we may point to a reformation on some scale sparked by EmChurchers who wrote the books that changed everything. (Catalyzed by the internet and other technologies, what if reformations that used to take hundreds of years could actually happen now in handfuls of years, or even months?)

Of course, whether an EmChurch reformation is a good thing or a bad thing, depends on your perspective on the EmChurch to start with, and assumes that the movement can be treated as a generality, which it cannot. Also, it’s unfair to use “reformation,” however defined, as the only standard of evaluation here. Influencing the Church can take place in lots of important ways that would fall far short of the “R” word.

It’s sobering to remember the book covers up at the top. No matter how reformational we think we’re being, any of us can end up on Amazon for a buck.

Next blog: Reformational Pathways for the EmChurch

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