Rodney Shaw's article: emergent church & the UPC

[Charnock]

http://rodneyshaw.wordpress.com

[Charnock]

Vocabulary and templates

All of this has generated a new religious vocabulary, and for some, a template for doing church. Popular postmodern influences on the church include Catalyst leadership conference (www.catalystconference.com), Church Planters conference (www.churchplanters.com), Worship Facilities Expo (www.wfx.org), and authors like Leonard Sweet, George Barna, M. Rex Miller, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and many others. Although all these may not be as extreme as the emergent church (Bell and McLaren are clearly emergent), they all are postmodern influences. And this is not to say that all these influences are negative.

Those who follow such influences tend to work from a similar template. Churches are named after a street or neighborhood, preferably with a reference to nature, websites tend to be minimalist, black and white is vogue, the “What we believe” statements are generic and use language like journey and authentic, senior pastors use the title “lead pastor,” most staff members have the title “pastor,” casual attire is preferred in worship, blogs are prevalent (with a black-and-white picture of the lead pastor with his shirttail out), music tends to be guitar driven, drama and various forms of media are incorporated into worship and preaching, preaching is typically done in series, preaching is more often oriented around life issues than theological propositions, preaching is conversational in style, pulpits are less common, “connections” and “community” are pursued through small groups, and there is a sense of wanting to be edgy.

There is certainly nothing wrong with this template if it works to reach people. The danger of this template is that many new church plants become indistinguishable from all the other new churches in a community with little regard for doctrine. It essentially becomes a war of images between churches. Without a clear Pentecostal distinctive of the power of the Holy Spirit, one could easily be just another church in town, competing for the same generic audience on the basis of programs and music.

Another danger is that bait-and-switch techniques do not work with churches. De-emphasizing doctrinal distincitves to get people in the door is not a sustainable model. Either the people will eventually leave once they discover what you really believe, or you will be forced to continually de-emphasize what you believe in order to maintain traffic. Experience shows that the latter usually prevails.

The vocabulary in postmodern churches includes words like incarnational, missional, community, journey, ancient, authentic, real. These words often originate in protest of a dysfunctional church or system. For example, missional emerged a few years ago in response to churches that do not live out their faith or witness. (See The Missional Church, Darrell Guder, editor.) Missional was conceived as a model for doing church over against the traditional attractional model. Protestant churches of all stripes have used the attractional model for years. The seeker-sensitive megachurches of the 1980s and 1990s revamped their formats but also had an attractional model. In both cases, people were attracted to what was happening on stage on Sundays. Faith was defined by attending church and believing a set of propositions.

Missional theory says that instead of constructing a building and expecting sinners to come to that building, Christians should take their faith to the streets. Christians should live out their faith every day. Christians should be light and salt in the world, i.e., Christians should be missional.

Although we could debate what exactly it is Christians ought to be doing between Sundays, the idea of being missional is inherent in Pentecostal theology. Our strong sense of evangelism and holiness provides the theological framework to be missional. As pointed out above, early Pentecostals were involved in social outreach primarily for theological reasons. First, they believed it was an opportunity to share the gospel. Second, they believed this was part of holiness. They believed they were empowered to go and do good works. Holiness was not merely personal piety or outward appearance; it included doing good works.

Accordingly, Pentecostals have a theological basis to be both missional and incarnational. But since we typically do not use this language, and because we have largely abandoned social outreach, it is easy for young Apostolics to feel an attraction to these ideas when they are articulated elsewhere.

Here is the rub

This is not to point a finger at our younger colleagues. God forbid. They have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. Just like those of us who are older, our young brethren have not entered ministry for the purpose of personal gain or with the intent of becoming sellouts. They entered ministry because God called them and because they have a passion for the lost. I have seen a fresh and deep passion in our young ministers. God has called them to reach their generation. We cannot expect them to pour the wine of twenty-first century revival into a 1950s wineskin. It will surely burst. But where do we stand?

To my peers and elders: Our younger ministers are in the throes of this cultural change. Does it really matter if they wear casual attire in worship? Does it really matter if they prefer guitars over Hammonds? Does it really matter that their preaching style is not in a revivalist camp meeting style? (After all, Jesus and the apostles sat down when they taught.) When they speak of social action and helping the poor, they are simply trying to obey Jesus and the apostles. Maybe we should forget about political liberalism and Social Gospel, return to our early roots, and join them. We may not understand their methods and why they are attracted to resources that we don’t understand. But have we given them comparable tools? Have we shown them how to effectively communicate the gospel in today’s culture? We have not taken the time to show them how to be postmodern and Apostolic, so they have looked elsewhere. At some point we are going to be required to extend to our successors the same confidence our elders extended to us. Otherwise, we will drive this thing into the ground.

To my younger brothers: We are concerned that much of your church model comes from non-Apostolics. We are concerned when you measure “how many made a decision for Christ” instead of how many received the Holy Spirit. We are concerned when baptism is no longer urgent. We are concerned when it appears that Pentecostal distinctives are minimized and people do not know that your church is a Pentecostal church, even after attending for a while. We are concerned that the doctrinal statements on your websites speak of authenticity and journey but say little if anything about the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the identity of Jesus Christ. I realize some of you get disillusioned with a bad leader or a stale church culture and you feel you have nowhere to turn but to the conferences and authors listed above. But it is okay to be postmodern and Apostolic at the same time. Further, it is okay to be disgruntled and even disillusioned and be Apostolic. There is no need to stop being Apostolic simply because one is frustrated.

Faith is always contextualized within culture, and therefore the church must continually discern how to be light and salt in its given context. Each generation has not only the challenge but the responsibility to engage in serious reflection. The church’s wrestling is good. But there are healthy ways and not-so-healthy ways to struggle. (See I Corinthians 9:26 and II Timothy 2:5.) However, it is a grave error for us to cast our lot with Corinth.

I think we need to talk. Is anyone interested?

From the article Where Do We Stand? Postmodernism, the Emergent Church, and Apostolics

[KWSS1976]

This sounds about right...To my younger brothers: We are concerned that much of your church model comes from non-Apostolics. We are concerned when you measure “how many made a decision for Christ” instead of how many received the Holy Spirit..LOL Its all about receiving the holyghost.. bunch of one track minded people

[coadie]

All knew definitions for the same terms. I have followed this for 2 years.
They claim they are relevant.

[coadie]

Bring out the tattoos. This movement is driven by the culture.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Charnock

http://rodneyshaw.wordpress.com

Rodney Shaw is a great guy. He has some keen insights at times and expresses himself very well.

[Pastor Keith]

I might not agree with every minute point, but I think this to be a balanced, thoughtful article/blog with some nice applications at the end. I does help make sense of sometimes a confluted subject matter. Thumbs UP!

[EA]

I don't think this is the entire article.

I clicked on the link, then clicked onto his blog to read it.

[EA]

To my peers and elders: Our younger ministers are in the throes of this cultural change. Does it really matter if they wear casual attire in worship? Does it really matter if they prefer guitars over Hammonds? Does it really matter that their preaching style is not in a revivalist camp meeting style? (After all, Jesus and the apostles sat down when they taught.) When they speak of social action and helping the poor, they are simply trying to obey Jesus and the apostles. Maybe we should forget about political liberalism and Social Gospel, return to our early roots, and join them. We may not understand their methods and why they are attracted to resources that we don’t understand. But have we given them comparable tools? Have we shown them how to effectively communicate the gospel in today’s culture? We have not taken the time to show them how to be postmodern and Apostolic, so they have looked elsewhere. At some point we are going to be required to extend to our successors the same confidence our elders extended to us. Otherwise, we will drive this thing into the ground.

That's some pretty strong language.

[coadie]

http://www.forgottenword.org/marshawest.html


In a 2006 interview McLaren calls the doctrine of hell "false advertising for God." "[T]his is one of the huge problems with the traditional understanding of hell, because if the Cross is in line with Jesus' teaching, then I won't say the only and I certainly won't say .