This is a topic that I find very interesting lately. I have been engrossed in this emergent conversation and am learning alot. I would like to share some of what I am learning. I will post alot about this in coming weeks, months etc, but I will start with this: God moves by His divine will and is working in this world as I type this. We should find where God is working and get involved. God by the Holy Spirit will lead us.
There are Christian ministers who have a deep passion to minister Christ to the lives of all men and women, yet they don't want to come out of their modern organisatioal structure. The reality is that we now live in a post-modern world and to be effecitve ministers in this post-modern world, we must be willing to let go of our "sacred cows" and engross ourselves in culture. God is working in culture. There is no better example of that then the incarnation. God in Christ. The spiritual meeting the physical. God meets man. Christ was born into a Jewish culture and did the will of God in that culture to establish the kindom of heaven.
So we also, if we are to be faithfull to that calling, must imerse ourselves in our culture to bring the kingdom of heaven to this culture.
Please note the difference - we are not to be of the world, but we are to be in the world. To be a light.
It is not strange that people don't want to attend our modern church services. In many ways it is so foreign to our western culture. It is also not surprising to note that most average Aussies have a favourable view of Jesus. Jesus is not the problem. It is the church that they have an unfavourable view of.
The church as we know it was formed in response to the modern era which was characterised by the sacred / secular divide. The church was put in charge of spiritual matters while the rest of the world tried to create a realm without God.
The post-modern world is seeing the sacred come back into being. Before modernity, one couldn't differentiate between a religous practise and a secular practise. for every practise was deemed to be religous. The post-modern world is now seeing people in all sub-cultures attempting to find truth through all sorts of experimentation. Drugs, sex, music, black magic. Meanwhile the Church is in a corner asking its members to bring people into their community so that they can be cleaned.
I believe that Jesus wants to minister to people in every culture. The goth sub-culture, the rave sub-culture, the clubbing sub-culture, every sub-culture. Jesus wants to bring redemption and healing to all people. The fact is that all people live in culture. That requires disciples of Jesus to imerse themselves in a particular culture and identify with Jesus and transform secular space. We are to be Christ in our cultures.
This is the Church. "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." (Matthew 18:20). I believe that community is the key. I will close with this, the one line that I have read which I believe can best summarise the emerging church conversation - "Building christian community in post-modern cultures".
I will post more about this topic. It has captured my mind and challenged me about alot of what I thought I knew about christian ministry. We are deeply loved by God and we have been given a mission - "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20)
