Emerging Wednesday- Jason Clark's polar views

Jason Clark is one of the links I permanently keep on the blog for his insight and wisdom in the emerging conversation. He was one of the first blogs I ran into when searching out emerging resources and read him daily.

Plug complete.

Jason posted back in January about 2 "poles" of emerging ideas that exist. I will not recap the whole thing here, but go check it out because it is worth a read. His basic presentation is that there are 2 kinds of emerging Christians; the "post/anti-church" crowd, who is ready to abandon the traditional brick-and-mortar institution, because it is so far gone it is not worth saving. That's the "a" side. The "b" side is more reconciliatory, and willing to labor within the church to foster change. Jason talks about finding a middle ground between the two, as both have their advantages and flaws. Again, I'll let Jason's blog (and the great comments on the entry) speak for itself.

I'll soon be writing about my "emerging polarity" and where I might be heading.

That's a catchy jingle...

I've been doing a TON of reading this last week, and a couple of thoughts are bouncing around:

1. Unity or uniformity? Which one is more true to the way the evangelical community operates? Does uniformity get construed as unity? The latter is definitely easier to achieve...

2. We have many leaders who serve.. what we need are servants who lead. It's one thing to claim to be a servant of the people but later invoke that if they cross you you will fall out from under their "covering" (more on that later).

3. Compliance instead of commitment.

I'm still digesting these, so you'll see more on them later.....once I get off the cough medicine that's keeping me functional. Please pray I get over this before my wife goes into labor.

Missional Church Test

I found this on JR Woodward's blog, Dream Awakener. The quote is from a missional theologian named Lesslie Newbigin:

"How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified Savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: a congregation which believes it." - Lesslie Newbigin

My emerging journey

My friends (see the Blogs of our Lives on the right) and I have formed a house church, or simple church if you prefer. This is a radical departure from church as I know it, and a 180 degree flip from most of my ministerial training.

So I am starting an in-depth search of what church is becoming in what is called the "emerging" or "Emergent Church" movements. Some of the big names that have weighed in are people like Brian McLaren (his book A Generous Orthodoxy has generated alot of buzz), George Barna, and others.

I have caught myself wanting to constantly link over to several blogs that I am finding to be very helpful in my search, but I don't want to get redundant in the link posting. So I have a link list to the right called the "faith/emergent conversation", listing several blogs I am regularly reading. They are all worth checking out, but I especially would like to mention Jason Clark's blog, it has been very informative and clear.

More on this as it develops....

What is the Emerging Church?

Vanguard Church: What is the Emerging Church?

I struggled with linking a particular post from this site, because every post that I have seen so far is very well done. This is a great place to look at some of the theology of "emerging church", a term I am still trying to understand myself. There are also a ton of posts about social action, politics, and more. My friend Jason is correct in that I have become Google Reader crazy, it's this site that has really been clicked on the most.