Emergent?

I've for several years been a follower of figures in the emerging church world--Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, to an extent Shane Claiborne (I know I've lumped four people in one awkward pot).

If you're not familiar with the terms "emerging church" or "emergent," I don't think I can do a very good job describing them with short, clear sentences. It's a loose group of folks from various church backgrounds who are seeking out a "new way" of doing church. Post-evangelical, post-liberal, post-mainline, postmodern. Theology in the emerging church is contextual and even, I'd say, temporary--it grows out of specific experiences, but veers away from any association with "Truth." It is "truth" (with the little "t").

Emerging churches tend to be non-hierarchical, creative in their liturgy, focused on justice and service, and unconcerned with formal membership.

All of this I really like.

I've just been struggling with the way that emergent has been presenting itself recently. Brian did a big tour. Shane's in the middle of a big tour. Doug and Tony are doing a tour with Mark Scandrette (which I'm hosting at my church!). All this is great--I'm glad they're getting out of the house. I need to do that more often.

But I have a weird feeling that what is important and truly significant about the emerging church movement doesn't show up in these big-venue, high-publicity events. Don't get me wrong--I personally identify with emergent. I'd join an emerging church. But there's getting to be too much talk within the emerging church about how interesting the emerging church is.

It's not that interesting. Or let me put it another way--it's interesting to DO, but not to talk about. It's basically socially-engaged Christianity, with a postmodern ecclesiology (a term that refers to how we theorize about the structure and mission of the church).

That's the church I want to be a part of, but I'm just not sure there's a way to make it sound like big a deal to a broad audience without going overboard and over-selling it. Essentially, as I understand it, the emergent conversation is a reform movement that has roots in BOTH evangelical and liberal wings of the church that wants people to DO the work of Jesus (an old, old reform tradition in the church) while BEING THE CHURCH in an intimate, non-hierarchical, storytelling, de-bureaucratized, nimble way. The innovation of emergent is not in the ethical imperative (that's what liberal churches have been doing since the Social Gospel movement of the 1910s); the innovation is the de-centralized ecclesiology... bringing Jesus' teachings on power to bear on the systems and structures that govern the church itself.

I just wonder whether the loveliness, power, and beauty of this way of being church is diluted the more it gets talked about. The emergent movement has probably gone a bit too far in self-promotion, using words like "new" and "radical" too frequently, mostly with reference to their structures and systems. Perhaps some of this promotion is being pushed by book publishers and other sponsors who see a "new big thing" in the Christian publishing world. That would be a shame--the cart leading the horse.

In the end, the emergent conversation is a healthy one and one that I like. But it's got to be more about doing (justice and church) than talking (about justice and church). Good talk is like eating a bag full of Oreos--delicious, but unsatisfying. Doing good is what rewards and satisfies. People will know us, not by our hipness or by our great book tours, but by our fruits; not by how elegant or fancy or postmodern our branches are, but how our fruits are sweet and satisfying for the weary and the brokenhearted. If emerging churches produce good fruit, people will notice, and there will be no need to draw attention with words like "new" or "radical."

Few people who draw attention to themselves are worth the attention.

I keep wishing this "conversation" called the emerging church--which I am so fond of--would shrink back from its public personae a bit, and just be comfortable in its skin and keep bearing fruit... or not.