Defninition of the emerging church
I saw this on Andrew Jones' blog. I like this.
Emerging Church
"Wherever there are a few individuals willing and ready to be Christ's people in their own situation and place, there the emerging Church is coming into its own. "Do you not perceive it?""
Larson, Osborne, The Emerging Church (1970). From OurDailyBlog.
posted by dan at 7:34 AM
4 Comments:
Thanks for the helpful quote!
Is that quote really from 1970?
Yes, it IS from 1970. Dan Kimball has a rather lengthy post about the book at: http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2005/09/the_emerging_ch.html
I didn't check if there are any copies left at amazon.
Kimball had this to say about it:
With all this recent "emerging church" talk and books and conferences and blogs etc. all happening, it is good to remember that 35 years ago there were others thinking about "the emerging church" of 1970. There will always be emerging churches throughout history, until Jesus one day returns. We are simply in yet another "emerging" time period - and the same Spirit moves in people to lead and develop and discover what church looks like as culture changes. What's weird is even as I write "what church looks like as culture changes", I immediately think of those who bristle and say "church never changes - you don't cater to culture, sola scriptura! blah blah blah (I am not criticizing sola scriptura, I am criticizing how so many who use that as a rally cry against anything that is at all "emerging church" and condemns most changes in church, and what they really mean is "sola-the-way-I-interpet-Scriptura -and-there-is-no-room-for-anything-else-but-my-way-of -thinking-about-what-church-is-supposed-to-be-a").
I am always amazed at those who react like that to that, as looking at the New Testament church it was constantly changing and emerging due to cultural issues in what they did. It seems like some think the Reformation locked in the final point for when churches stopped emerging - and then it was over and the church was finalized and shouldn't emerge anymore. I am getting off track, but I never understand why some get so angry and freaked out about admitting each emerging culture does in fact change how we go about church, as it did in the New Testament church itself.
Good stuff.
I like what he says about what most people mean by "sola scriptura". I see that a lot in evangelical circles. I think the problem is that most people don't realize that they are interpreting scripture, that their way of understanding the Bible is through a certain set of lenses, and therefore they can't see that there might be other ways of being faithful to the Bible that don't match their own theology. Hence all the people who will accuse you of not taking the Bible seriously or not believing it to be true just because you're not a six-day Creationist, or a dispensationalist, or whatever.
-Mike
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