Its scathing I know! ...emergent?

Now I gonna have to show my wonder at the new course which urges Christians to 're-imagine' the church . Maybe I'm wrong, but why do I get the idea that the mainstream, traditional church has missed the point of what is 'emergent'? I think its an important step for the church to start realising that its presence in society is not what it once was....that its membership is declining rather rapidily etc etc. For some churches it has reacted by building more boutique Christian schools in an attempt to address the declines. One thing the Baby Boomer church does well though is copy.

Take this rather hefty appraisal :

The Baby boomers, in their narcissism, prefer a touchy-feely, emotional, entertaining, self-aggrandizing approach to everything from education to the workplace, including church…. Most churches today have been taken over by the Baby Boomer mentality, exhibiting the values of mass-market commercialism, the rejection of the past and hedonistic individualism.

This mentality, this characteristic for gimmicks which birthed TV marketing gimmicks such as the 30 min abdomen machine commercials is very much part of the church. If they see something work, they will copy....it will be their model, because they work with 'models'. The success of Hillsong has encouraged many churches to follow try to look like Hillsong, because its seen to work.

This is my worry with attempts at cafe churches etc when they are simply a disguised program of the church to renew their numbers. The ‘Crucible’ course is only an example but it looks at the principles and practicalities of starting new churches in contemporary cultures...so far so good. My thoughts aren't necessarily directed at the Crucible, rather its comments have precipitated long lived convictions so my apologies if it doesn't apply to them specifically. Its just this programmed attempt at re-creating what emergents seem to be doing already. For emergents it is creating something out of who we already are and you simply can't program an emergent approach. Its not something you intellectually learn from a course (modernist), its something you intuitively create (post-modernist). The first job for the church (should they want a spiffy cafe church) would be to become a cafe person themself. Its like saying "I'll fly that plane, ...never done it before, ....know nothing about it, but I'll get the hang of it"!

They speak of designing churches for the socially excluded, obviously seeing themselves as being mainstream in society. I would argue the opposite, that church and Christians are living lives socially excluded from the secular world and this being one of the primary reasons for its decline. The course would then better be directed at showing Christians simply how to live in their time and culture, in their world. Christians could do better with a challenge to their modernist worldview. Its all about communication, and to be an effective communicator in the post-Christendom environment, a change is required. I do retain a worry that traditional church attempts remain 'attractional' in mode, and ultimately encourage and expect people they encounter to 'become like us'. Maybe to live in this world more effectively, Christians need to become more like 'them'. The call then is not to become worldly, but certainly less churchy...."to be in the world but not of it". And once in the world we will communicate without the need for programs. It will simply be what Christians do....how they live their lives.