I believe that every generation of believers comes to a point of "making the faith of our fathers, OUR faith". We see that in youth ministry all the time, as adolescents who have been raised in church settings come to a point as emerging adults where they realize that depending on the faith (church) they've been raised in isn't enough -- it has to be THEIR choice to believe, trust in, and follow Jesus Christ.
How many times do youth pastors (I've been involved in youth ministry in some capacity for over 20 years now) hear testimonies about "accepting Jesus when I was little, but recently it just became more 'real' and I had to choose to follow God as an adult"? I've lost track, personally, because this is a very, very common experience for youth who were raised in the church, when they hit junior and senior high school.
The emerging church, let me be clear, should not be viewed as adolescent (immature); but it is a growing percentage of Christians who are wondering if contemporary Christianity has bought too much into culture, and allowed culture to influence the Gospel message. The emergent church is hard to pin down for any cohesive doctrinal statement simply because there are people in almost every denomination going through this same sifting process of trying to weed out cultural Christianity from the real, raw Gospel that Jesus (and the later apostles who wrote Scripture, like Paul) preached.
Many of these "emergent" people are not leaving their denominations, so the expression of what is "emerging" can be quite different in various settings; Darryl Dash pastors a Baptist Church in Toronto (http://www.richview.org/), Pernell Goodyear leads The Freeway (http://www.frwy.ca/) which is part of the Salvation Army, Gerry Milchalski pastors Soul Sanctuary (http://www.soulsanctuary.ca/) as part of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, Frank Emmanuel is pastor of Freedom Vineyard (http://www3.sympatico.ca/femanuel/freedom/index.html) which is part of the Association of Vineyard Churches of Canada, and Jordon Cooper is pastor of Lakeland Community Church (http://lakelandchurch.blogspot.com/) which is a Free Methodist congregation. And that's just some of my fellow Canadians that I'm personally aware of. The list is, of course, much larger worldwide.
Why do we need an "emerging church"? The same reason that every generation has to "own" the faith of their fathers. The same reason that there has been a constant historical cycle of renewal-consolidation-complacency-renewal since the early church. The same reason why Jesus was having to call people back to a pure faith as early as the writing to the seven churches of Revelation (chapters 2 & 3). The Church is constantly in need of Renewal -- a touch from the Spirit, definitely, but also a renewal of our understanding of the Faith and also the expression for Faith that our church structures allow (or disallow).
Robbymac
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