This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend a conference on what is alternately called Emergent Christianity or Emergence Christianity. Basically, the question is, what will the church look like 10, 20, 50 or 100 years from now?
There is no question that we are in the midst of an upheaval. This generation's gap is greater than ever, it seems. It has to do with technology, and communication, as well as goals and values. Look at the last presidential election. The great mantra was "change". No one, or very few, stopped to ask, "Change to what?" because change, it was deemed, was enough.
So what is happening and will happen in the church? Young people aged 18-35 are staying away from the church in droves. In some cases it means they have abandoned their parent's religious values, but in other cases not. Its not that they don't believe in God, and polls tell us that most do. Rather, its that the old wineskins are inadequate for their expressions and beliefs.
The conference I went to was outstanding in terms of the speakers and their areas of expertise and qualifications to speak on this topic. Richard Rohr, Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Phyllis Tickle. If you look them up on Google or Amazon, you will see that they are some of the top writers and thinkers on this subject.
There was a lot of speculation about what the emerging church will look like, and I think its important to state that many have thoughts and opinions, but nobody knows exactly what it is that is emerging, except to say that it won't be your Grandma's church. Musical tastes are different. Communication is different, now we have blogs, texts, and tweets, and social networks like FaceBook and MySpace that are much more immediate and frequently used by this age group.
A couple of things I thought were interesting about the conference. First, most of the people there were middle aged, 50+ and from mainline denominations. Which means they were not from this emerging generation, nor did they go to one of these emergent churches. There are probably not a handful in the D/FW metroplex. Its not just contemporary worship songs. Its a complete change in the way these folks approach church. Second, the pastors of emergent churches that were there, and especially those who spoke, tended to be, in some ways, more traditional than some of the more traditional congregations I know. For example, these folks walk Labyrinths and the Stations of the Cross, they fast during Lent and pray the Psalms. Many of their practices are hundreds of years old, but they are being packaged in new ways. One pastor talked about a theme they are exploring during Advent (yes, they observe Advent). It is that nothing is wasted by God. What seemed like a backward hick town was the birthplace of the Messiah. In practice, they have one of those rolling drum composters at the church, maybe in the sanctuary, where people can "recycle bad theology". For those who have been hurt by the church they can write their pain on recycled newsprint, put it in the composter and give it a turn. When its done, they will plant something and all this pain will cause something good to grow. Kind of a cool idea and VERY memorable.
Many of these new Christians are much more politically liberal than their parents. So what else is new? I think that is reflective rather than definitive. This generation is generally more liberal.
I still have a lot of reading to do on the subject, but the main point is that emerging means just that: its not finished or complete. We don't really know what it will become, except that it will be different. What is it they say, "The only thing that doesn't change is that there will be change"? I think the biggest issue is, Will the church be ready and willing to embrace the change, or will it be swept away and dismissed as obsolete? Time will tell.
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