Emerging Church Emerging Spirituality

Bonsai Trees
I bought myself a bonsia tree yesterday and I have noticed an increase in their popularity, once I got it home and began to read about them and the processes that are needed I was a little suprised. I thought, little tree, little work. You have to water everyday, feed them regularly, shape them, trim them wire them and sing to them! there is more work and it is all on such a small scale. So I got to thinking about the emerging interest in this peace finding spirit that I have observed more and more amongst people in my age group.

Prayer Flags.
I am starting to see more people who know what prayer flags are and think they are a great idea. I watch the lifestyle channel a fair bit and see stuff like this all the time now. The material on the flags is not hemd and so the loose threads fly off and carry the prayers that have been prayed onto that flag off on the wind. Cool idea.

This used to be considered a tree hugging hippy thing to do, but they are becoming more and more commonplace. Prayer and meditation are just another aspect of a quite normal lifestyle.

Renewed Interest in Surfing
More people are into surfing, I guess with cars, fashion and surfboards becoming more accessable than ever this is a given. But it is interesting to see that the 'surfer lifestyle' with mediation and peace, being at one with the ocean is becoming a fairly accepted thing to do.

Yoga now accepted part of lifestyle
Yoga is still considered a hippy, new age, devil possessed thing to do by some narrow minded d$*kheads, but the wider society think nothing of it. There is now an undercurrent of thinking and spirituality that says this is a normal aspect of life. In fact, I hear many people talking about the need to have space and time for reflection, there is a heap of healthy language flying around.

As the Church continues to emerge in this age we need to make sure we hear this and dialogue with the people seeking space and reflection.

eLefant Traks

I was thinking about how we tend to think that the gospel is only proclaimed in nice tones and tidy stories, but I wrote an essay on hip hop culture and where it came from and where it has gone. It began as a movement about justice and freedom and that tradition is carried on by groups like j5 and public enemy. But there is a ground swell of aussie hip hop calling people to account.

Check out these guys. Angry aussies screaming for justice and dignity for the oppressed. However massive language warning on this one.

eLefant Traks

The Gathering

What is the Church?

I was thinking about this as I spoke to my parents about their experience at the voting booth on Saturday, this started me thinking again about what the Church is and why it exists.

My reflection is that the church is the gathering of God's people, what happens after that is still the Church, and the Church ministers wherever those who associate with the people of God care and proclaim the gospel.

I love the gathering of the Church, it is a great place that thrives in contexts and within people that would not step into a formalised religion, it exists where there is evangelical bands, speakers screaming 'come forward for salvation, I see that hand!!' it underpins youth groups, social gatherings, workplaces basically anywhere 2 or more gather.

Members of the Church minister in ways that the formalised Church can not. Wherever people who have confessed 'Christ is risen' proclaim the gospel the Church is ministry. This excites me, that this undercurrent of the gospel carries the Church into peoples houses, workplaces and schools. I was reading on another blog the danger of the 'emerging church' throwing out the programs and just being, and to a certain extent I agree. The gathered church can minister in some very powerful ways, but as a wise man once said, or was it Phil McCreddan, perhaps a wise man wrote it and Phil read then told everyone else that a wise man said it, anyway, this wise man said, "You can catch glimpses of the Kingdom of God, but you cannot build a program around a glimpse." Once you try to contain or repeat that glimpse of the kingdom, where the oppressed are set free, there is release to the captives, the blind can see....... If you try to contain that it slips away.

The gathering of the Church remains a powerful thing, my earliest experience of the kingdom came about at a rally for peace. Sitting on my dads shoulders looking around at the most people I had ever seen gathered in one place for the same reason, thinking 'Wow, this is great. I want ice cream.' (I was only about 6). But that experience has stayed with me and underpins my understanding of the power of the gathered church. And while I love this image I do not want to see the gathered church reduced to a flash mobbing type of event.

The Church gathers to proclaim the gospel as a choir, and to tell the stories of the people of God.

I was about to write a question but then again, I am a minister and I already know the answer...... To this question anyway.

Why the hell have we made the gathering of church so boring and conservative?
I am speaking from my own experiences here remember that before the social action Church of Christ steals my letterbox and sets fire to my cat in protest! But we have cut down the gathering and stories to one persons choice of songs, and then one or two people speaking of their experiences of God as if no one else is valid! Again, sweeping generalisation. But as a minster I can say, it is often easier to organise everything the same way, and keep in under your control, if you let people speak up in church they may say something that is controversial.

what do people think?

A another new Begining

Once again I begin a project that will require me to regularly fit another thing into my schedule, not that I run to one otherwise it would not be an issue, however I will endevour to express thoughts that I find interesting and do so with integrity. I may well be reduced to merely linking to other sites but that is how it goes sometimes.

I have been reading some articles on the 'emerging church' and on evangelism whoops, no, I mean reaching the unchurched, (why the hell would we want to church someone?) and being a member of a church community, a missional church community, a new testament missional emerging church community reaching for the lost, the not so lost, the poor, the not so poor and the sometimes not so churched I have to say that it can be crap.

Because this community began from nothing it couldn't go backwards really, so any bump on the radar is a great achievement, however we begin this notion of Church on the backfoot. We have committed ourselves to not running events and programs that we can invite people to, we don't have musicians, well, we do, but we can't be stuffed playing music for church because we feel that it usually gets in the way, the one thing that we are committed to is meeting around the table for communion and trying to understand how to 'preach the gospel' in our lives.

We are a community of young people some are just recently married, others are moving house, the most senior member of the team is the do it all save the world pastoral care guru from and v.p. of a theological college, so most of the time is helping faith communities talk to each other. We usually meet in a lounge room and have a reading and then try to understand the impact for each of us as individuals and a community, we take communion and tell the stories that have impacted us during the week.

I have been told that we do not really 'worship the Lord' because we don't have music, 'its more a Bible study than a real Church' and I love this one, 'this is a cutting edge church'. To be honest we a group of people trying to understand faith in the context of our homes, workplaces and the greater world we live in. We are not trying to be an amazing new cutting edge venture. Sometimes I would love to fall back into being a charasmatic movement with singing and preaching from the platform and rosters and structure, but that would be far removed from our call and expression as a group of people.

We have had about 45 people connect with this community in one way or another, there are about 5 regulars and we began with 12, but as life takes over and young adults move and change it becomes difficult to be together regularly.

I would like to raise an idea that I heard years ago, a seasonal community. There are seasons for all people, all ages, why are we always so passionate about connecting, converting and then keeping within our community? I think we discredit the Church when we think we are the only expression that can exist and is right for this person or family.

There is pain in a seasonal communnity though, with every passing season there is death. A community that understands that there is a time to die and a time to be born will find death less damaging and will hurt less people as it releases (such a cliched pastoral word) its people to find meaning for their new season.

Still I think the emerging church will fall over all the time, but the Church, the Gospel will continue to exist in ways that Christians must search for and validate.

Pete Rivett