Commentary8

A time honored event returns once more as we move from one generational shift to another. It seems that the old and the irrelevant must go, to be replaced with the "newest thing" that supposedly brings back the life, the excitement, the experiences that will help to restore us to a simple devotion to our Lord and Savior. Over many centuries "it seems" we have never been able to attain this position as a corporate body and now, this new generation, with all of its knowledge and understanding, thinks that they have discovered the answers that have been eluded us for so long.

The Emerging Church is the latest movement that is affecting the Body of Christ and infecting the mindset of the newest generation of believers. If you take the time to visit many of the sites that are promoting this view, you begin to see the connections between the Church Growth proponents and even a view into New Age concepts blending with today's contemporary church.

We will take a brief look at a movement that is still hard to define but is growing with such rapidity that we must look to see if this is really a "new thing" or just another attempt at renewal and self-induced revival. To see a commonly accepted definition of The Emerging Church go to the following link: Emerging Church.

Back in 1973, my wife and I were involved in a home group that was identical to a concept of church experience that we see rising up among the younger generations today called the Emerging Church. At that time we were young in age, looking and expressing ourselves as openly radical and being young in the Lord, the Institutional Church did not seem to offer what we thought we needed or wanted to be turned on to. We found many of the same like-minded groups all over the US that had the same disposition towards what we then termed as the 'Old Dead Church.' We only called for "revolution" and for others to be "radical for Christ" and would not have even understood the terminology that is used today, such as "God is doing a new thing" or "we are seeing a paradigm shift" or the "shift in atmosphere."

As part of the Jesus movement of the late 60's and early 70's we were attempting to bring something new to the church experience that was not the Institutional Church which we thought was lifeless and irrelevant. It is eerie to see the same things happening today, with the same problems being addressed and the same solutions being offered. We see the same thing happening with many of these new groups, fellowships and networks forming; a return to the same forms and institutions that they are trying to emerge from.

Same hype, only different language. Even with the best intentions the groups that have been in this most recent loop in the UK for the last 20 years have and are becoming another institution. The very thing they despised and rejected has overtaken them and is producing another "institutional church." Many may deny that this is the case, but in comparison to the cyclical pattern that is evident over the past years, it would seem inevitable that the same results will occur.

We have noticed a scramble or positioning of principals for leadership positions (trainers, teachers, elders). Some of the concepts promote servant leadership from within but others are caught up in the same struggles affecting the Institutional Church. People are competing to get their books published with their views and additions to the building methodology that will eventually swallow up what some think is a new revolution on the church issue. (That was our heart cry even in the late 60's as the Jesus movement emerged.)

If we look closely at generational history we might find that there is actually nothing new at all with this desire to seek a closer walk with Christ, a closer relationship with the Lord and with the brethren, but every 30 to 50 years or so, a new generation of believers wants to step beyond the modernistic view to a post modernistic view, the old to the new, a new paradigm or model, if you will, but in reality, nothing here is new at all. Most of our dissatisfaction with our walk in the Lord is just that, a problem with our relationship to and with our Lord and Savior rather than our relationship with the Institutional Church, wherever that may be.

In every generation of Christian believers there are those who are never satisfied with what God provides or who He is. Even though we have been given the fullness of God, though we have been given everything we will need to walk in Christ in this world, it is not enough. Is Jesus enough?

I see the same things today that I observed 30 years ago; there is a famine for the Word of God and a lack of love for the truth. I have spoken to many of the young "Gen X" and "Millennial" crowd that are moving into the new experiences of the Emerging Church, only to find that even with their claims of having a "passion" for Jesus there is very little biblical grounding and a large degree of sensuality (walking by feelings and experiences) in their relationship with the Lord.

When God captured my wife and I over 33 years ago, our immediate desire was to read the Word, over and over, for months on end, many times through the OT and the NT and we gained a love for His Word that we did not lose. And we were called by the Lord to consider the cost of discipleship and we chose to pay the price then and have grown in our desire for the Lord for over 30 years.

This leads me to the point that I really wanted to make. In the young people that I have spoken with from various backgrounds and various fellowships, there is a keen lack of discernment for the dangers that we all face as believers, from the many false teaching which are being introduced with greater frequency to this movement and to the IC, to the New Age concepts of Contemplative Spirituality and Contemplative Prayer that I find being infused, to literal occult experiences being accepted and practiced without testing the spirits, as we are warned to do in John 4:1-3. In fact, many of the warnings that Paul, Peter, John and Jude give are not even considered because many of the believers and many in this new leadership do not have the depth of knowledge and understanding of the Word of God to be effective at guarding the flock.

What are we willing to compromise as we look more to experiencing God in the mundane of our everyday lives? What is really driving our dissatisfaction? Are we really looking for the truth, the way and the life, which is found in Christ alone? Dr. Orrel Steinkamp gives us a clearer understanding of the underlying struggle that we must define whether we can adequately make sense of this movement which really has been stirring since the early 60's. In Dr. Steinkamp's article, 'Cross Over to the Other Side', he writes:

During the modem era, (since the 18th century) Truth was assumed to exist; it was just waiting to be discovered by rational and thinking persons. People could debate and disagree about the Truth but there could be only one Truth. But now "truth" is whatever the individual or community believes it is. Postmoderns now insist that truth is no longer "over and above us," that it is something that cannot be conveyed across cultures and over time. Each community can have its own “truth.” Therefore, contradiction is not only inevitable, but abounds; contradiction in spirituality is not only acceptable, but welcome. Augustine's dictum, "All truth is God's truth" has been altered to mean, "Everybody's truth is God's truth." It all depends on how you look at it and of what social group you are a member.

The Scriptures are clear as to why God would send a deluding influence upon the Body of Christ. In 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 we read:

¹⁰And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

¹¹And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

¹²That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

I am not writing this to make an indictment on this movement but with every "so called" move of God we have seen many brethren fall and lives end up being decimated, and we end up working with those that we can rescue and snatch out of the fire. I would call upon those leaders who do have the discernment skills, to watch and guard the flock which are His alone, to be able to protect and equip them in the Lord, having done all in obedience to His Word and having given the whole counsel of God.

More could be written and in the future more will be as we see the fruits (good or bad) of this movement being lived out before us. I would hope to see a renewed love for God's Word and a renewed love of His truth, with this current Emerging Church movement. Even though we see this generation responds more to the visual and sensory message, it is the truth of the Word of God that will impact and change their lives as they walk by faith and not by sight (their experiences).

When searching for emerging church in mid-May, 2004, the results were 35,000 hits. In mid-June the number of hits increased to 159,000 and July 13, 2004, the number has increased to 507,000 hits.