Emergent Brethren

I’ve really enjoyed this blogging experience.  I have wanted to do one for a while now, but never thought I could keep up the discipline… then Jeff Glass asked if I would contribute to this one and I said yes.  Obviously, you can see that I enjoy this and can keep the discipline up.  I stumbled upon a book The Blogging Church and discovered LOTS of helpful hints about how to do this and encouragement to do it as a way to connect with my community.  So that this blog doesn’t become solely mine…!  I started a blog of my own today.  Check it out at www.martinhutchison.blogspot.com . 

 Here’s an interesting blog on the topic of why pastors should be blogging…. http://www.ifjesushadawebsite.net/index.cfm/module/story/story/01102007-Why-Your-Pastor-Needs-To-Blog

I was at one of my favorite third places today… Barnes and Nobel, and was reading the epilogue to Marcus Borg’s new book Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary and was struck by something he said. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a piece of paper to write the quote on… so as best I remember I will summarize what he said. He was talking about how the decline of the mainline Christian church in USAmerica gives him cause to celebrate because the remnant that is left will be intentional not conventional in their approach to ministry and mission. Which then led him to high praise for the emergent church and where we are leading those who follow Jesus.

And I thought wow… what a perspective. To be intentional and not conventional is a great concept/reality. But never thought about the remnant factor and what that will do or cause the church to do to make course corrections. Thoughts?

As I suggested in a previous post concerning small groups — a response to Kate Spire’s request for resources, I find myself wondering if we will soon see the re-emergence of Sunday School (or whatever you want to call it). Not so much in an effort to “grow” the church numerically, like Wendy McFadden suggests in the latest Messenger Editorial. But as a part of the disciple-making process.

Here’s why I am wondering about this re-emergence… the demands on our time are ever increasing and the small group model mostly expects that participants gather together a second time each week. One time being for worship and one time for small group… ofcourse this is in the more traditional church approach…not the house church approach. I believe that small groups facilitate spiritual growth and are vital for maturing Christ followers…however, I am finding that it often becomes hard to get people to give that extra time to gather together on another day/night each week. So, I am wondering if this will push us to bring back something like Sunday School in conjunction with worship. I should say here, that our church doesn’t do Sunday School but has cell groups that meet during the week. Others who have sunday school may re-visit it’s purpose and enhance it’s role in disciple-making.

Along with re-visiting Sunday School’s purpose or seeing it re-emerge as a part of the process of making disciples of Jesus, would be creating an outflow of sharing Christ’s love in the community and inviting others to join the journey of following Jesus and being his hands and feet in the world.

Any thoughts?…

I’ve been giving lots of thought to the state of the church these days…it’s effectiveness in living out the mission it’s been given and the impact of that mission on the state of the world.

From my vantage point, I confess, that we haven’t been too effective in living out the mission and that mission has not drastically impacted the world. In other words the state of the world is getting worse instead of better. And the church has become a social club and/or service agency and not the living body of Jesus on mission to bring God’s kingdom into reality in the here and now.

And for a while now, I’ve been aware that one of the many challenges we face is that the church has become too complex. And in that complexity has become a club that you join where membership has priveledges. We are very busy in our churches. There is worship, small group, Sunday school, fellowship activities, fund-raisers, mission trips, game nights, classes, conferences, bible-studies, etc… you get the point. And all of this comes at a time in history when most of us are burning the candle at both ends and from the side too! Our busyness is part of a complexity that seems to be keeping us from fruitful mission in the world and may even hinder our personal spiritual growth. Which I think contributes to the “label” mentality that is present in USAmerica’s christian churches…ie., we are “Christian” by description, but not by way of life!

Recently, a parishoner returned from a library conference and handed me a book by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger, called “Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples”. In the book they push us to return to Jesus’ conversation with the lawyer concerning eternal life and Jesus’s response about the greatest commands being loving God and loving others and then saying that “all of the law and prophets hang on these two.” Simple isn’t it?!

Then they put forth the following definition of a simple church: “A simple church is designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth. The leadership and the church are clear about the process and are committed to executing it. The process flows logically and is implemented in each area of the church. The church abandons everything that is not in the process.”

I like that concept and want to work at becoming a simple church! A simple church where disciplemaking is the central mission and the fruit of that simplicity is seen in transformed lives that love God and love others and in so doing transforms the character of the community and world. But I realize that the process of becoming a simple church will not be easy and it will require CONSTANT course adjustments.

What are your thoughts?

While we are at this emergent definition phase, what about defining “emergent brethren”.

In many ways, I think, we (The Church of the Brethren -now) were emergent from the begining! Alexander Mack and his wife Anna and the other 6 — the original 8 – the original small group… were very emergent as they rejected their state church mentality and devoted themselves to studying the bible and devoted themselves to following Jesus first and foremost! The definitely stood at odds with the state church culture of the day…

I’ve been saying for some time now, that we need to get back to that emergent posture that rejects the USAmerican Christian model of church that is more of a social club and corporation than a mission arm of Jesus in the world. And in some ways for the Church of the Brethren it is a BIG jump and in other ways that counter culture force is one of the gifts we have to offer the world and the church, especially in USAmerica. For instance in serving the poor and marginalized… being peacemakers…living in the blessing (and curse) of community… working for justice for all God’s children. It is these very “core” values of the Church of the Brethren that make us emergent, I think. What about you? What do you think?