Why Emergent?

I wrote the following for an online Episcopal Magazine.  Enjoy.

Reflections on the journey: From a Post-Evangelical, Emergent, Episcopalian

The conversation usually goes something like this:

Inquisitive Person: “So, what is the emergent church?”

Me: “Well, technically there is no emergent church.”

Inquisitive Person: (Blank stare)

Me: “It’s more of a conversation than a church.”

Inquisitive Person: (Continued blank stare)

The conversation started for me during college while I was on a mission trip in East Africa.  I was on the island of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania living with a Christian pastor, preaching in the local church, and participating in door-to-door evangelism throughout the island.  More than a million people populate Zanzibar and at least ninety nine percent of the population is Muslim. It seems an obvious statement when looking at the situation from a certain perspective to say that Zanzibar had not yet been reached by the gospel.  This opportunity was rather significant for me.  I had grown up in the Christian & Missionary Alliance, an evangelical church, where my Christian formation involved sharing the gospel with all people.  I remember a youth rally I attended where a guest speaker told us that 166,000 people die everyday without knowing who Jesus is, and that it was up to us to go into the entire world in order to share the good news of Jesus.  I took that challenge to heart and I committed my life to sharing the gospel with the world.  Three years later there I was doing just that: sharing the gospel with people who had never heard it before. The mission was not going very well.  People were not receptive to our message and as far as I could tell, I could not foresee their minds changing anytime soon.

The Church in Post-Christian America

Much has been said about the recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, The Coming Evangelical Collapse.  Now, it isn’t just evangelicals who are in trouble, but Mainline Protestant denominations find themselves in similar circumstances. In coming years, many churches will be forced to close shop because of dwindling attendance . These churches will be forced to close because they will no longer be able to afford the cost of their buildings or their staff. One solution to this new scenario is something that Church of the Apostles, the church I’m currently working at, is doing quite well: Open the building to the community.

COTA meets at the Fremont Abbey, a building that we are currently in the process of buying from the Lutheran Church.  The building for most of its life was St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.  After St. Paul’s closed down, the building was used as a homeless shelter for a few years, and then 3 years ago, COTA moved in.  Instead of slapping our name up on the building, and making the building a “church”, the COTA community decided that this building was going to be for all of the Fremont Community.  And they thought the best way to serve the Fremont Community was to make the building a place for the arts.  Because of this the Fremont Abbey is home to two separate non-profits: Church of the Apostles and the Fremont Abbey Arts Center. Because of the Arts Center, the Fremont Abbey is occupied 7 days a week with a music school, dance lessons, a jazz band, concerts, mediation weekends, kids art classes, etc, etc…  And because our building is occupied 7 days a week, supporting (and paying for) the building does not fall entirely upon the church congregation.

I need to make something very clear, the Art Center does not exist as a bait and switch (i.e. “Let’s get people in the building so we can convert them”).  The Art Center is its own non-profit that lives in the Fremont Abbey.  And secondly, the Arts Center does not exist to support the mission of the church.  The Arts Center exists because the community of Fremont values the arts, and because so many people in the community volunteer their time, expertise and money to support the arts in Fremont and in the Fremont Abbey.

Now what is taking place in the Fremont Abbey is a mutually beneficial relationship between a church and a community arts center.  Neither of the missions are more important than the other, and we try and treat each other that way.  And because of this relationship we can both continue to exist, own property, and pay a staff in a very expensive urban area.

If the church wants to continue to have buildings and paid staff, but can’t attract large enough numbers to pay for these things it will have to figure out ways to open up their buildings to their neighbors.  And it will need to do this in a mutually beneficial way, avoiding a patronizing, bait and switch relationship.

Hopes, Dreams and Disapointments

Here in America the ideology of progress runs deep through our veins (at least from my middle to upper class veins). It is ingrained in our culture that whatever we put our hands to it can be made better, more efficient, and ultimately will better the entire world. Obviously much can be said about what type of progress has been made in our society and world. But for my blogging purposes it is sufficient to state that as Americans we are trained to believe in progress.

My question is how does that mindset line up with the Gospel? Did Jesus come to bring progress? And if he did, to what extent?

I study at MHGS, and many of us here have come to re-imagine what the gospel is in our present context. Many of us who come from an evangelical background have found that the evangelical goals: preach the gospel, win converts, build churches fails to encompass the totality of the gospel (that of course is a horribly generalized description of evangelicalism, I recognize that, but also recognize that there is certain measure of truth in it). My evangelical dreams died when I returned from my second trip to Africa. My mind and body broke under the weight of the responsibility of “reaching the world for Jesus.”

You see I grew up in the age of the youth rally. A context where the American ideology of progress was fused with the Christian call to mission. I was told that my generation would be the one to reach the world for Christ. So myself like so many other young people went to foreign lands to share our good news. We came home (and I say we, because I am not the only one who has been deconstructed by overseas mission) changed, confused, and to a certain extent disappointed. There are too many “who haven’t heard.” There is such immense suffering?! Is God good? Is there even a God? Have I just participated in the Americanization of the world? Have I participated in the destruction of local cultures in the name of my American God of progress?

So then, where do I find myself now. What is Christian mission? What is the gospel? If we fail in our mission and if we preach the wrong gospel is the world doomed? Is heaven the reward for getting it right (I guess we don’t have to worry, we are the saved?!)?

I have come to believe that approaching mission and gospel is not about determining who is in and who is out. Christian mission is not about riding around in a life-raft pulling in whoever you can.

God in Christ has eternally committed Godself to the world and to humanity. God became human, forever signifying God’s solidarity with us. God has forever put to rest the question of who is in and who is out.

So what is Christian mission: committing ourselves to the world and to humanity. But we do it from a different vantage point than God. God had to put on flesh to establish solidarity with humanity. As humans we are already in solidarity with all humanity. God is the other, not our neighbor.

So we do as Christ did, we offer our lives to our neighbor. Are we promised social progress if we do so? Are we promised that we will establish peace on earth? We are not. Miroslav Volf, in Exclusion and Embrace, refers to this as the scandal of the Gospel. He writes, “The ultimate scandal of the cross is the all too frequent failure of self donation to bear positive fruit” (26). I.e. when you turn your other cheek, most often you will be struck again. But he continues on, and what he writes next I think is the heart of the gospel (he is speaking of the experience of the disciples),

“Precisely in the scandal, they have discovered a promise. In serving and giving themselves for others, in lamenting and protesting before the dark face of God, they found themselves in the company of the Crucified. In his empty tomb they saw proof that the cry of desperation will turn into a song of joy and that the face of God will eventually ’shine’ upon a redeemed world” (27).

The experience of the gospel is to find oneself in the company of the crucified. To pour out love and grace and be returned with violence. And yet to have the audacity to hope that God will eventually shine upon a redeemed world.