Emergent Experiences in Existing Churches

As I hit the mid-point in Tim Conder's "The Church in Transition: The Journey of Existing Churches in the Emerging Culture", it is apparent to me that as a local church pastor in a mainline church, I share more experiences in common with Tim than any of the other authors I have read to date. Let me tell you why I say that. I bonded with Tim's pastoral experiences right away when he identified the greatest fears existing churches have in incorporating emergent experiences: these fears include "losses related to changes in music and hymnody, adaptions of other elements of worship services, the loss of sacred language describing fellowship and spirituality, the marginalization or departure of beloved leaders who feel uncomfortable in a changed church environment, transitions in church polity and structure, new facilities, or simply a change in the weekly church calendar" (79). These observations obviously come from a local church pastor who has lived (and not just researched) these painful and challenging realities. I also enjoyed Tim's exploration of the fears that exist around the effects on church culture. As a pastor serving an ecumenical church aligned with three Protestant denominations, I'm in a particularly unique situation when it comes to factoring in issues of tradition. For at Mountain View, we seek to balance Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, and United Methodist traditions along with the traditions of our local church. At times this makes me long for the post-denominational reality that many claim we live in. The fact that we have not yet arrived there was brought home to me in a worship team meeting one time where much thought was given to whether we call the "object" at the front of the sanctuary an altar (according to United Methodist tradition) or a Communion Table (according to Presbyterian tradition). I was reminded of this experience through Tim's words: "The word tradition is meaningless without a frame of reference" (79). The challenge is to get individuals to be honest with themselves and the worshipping community so that they can realize their appeals to tradition are often not as universal as they would like to believe. Finally, I connected most with Tim's exploration of traditions when he wrote that the greatest challenges we face involve those moments when our innovations affect unspoken traditions or values. The two most prominent of these unspoken values - in Tim's words - are "comfort and safety" (81). Getting folks to see (and admit that) is a Herculean task for most local pastors and worship faciltiators. I'll end today's entry with one word of caution Tim raised about exploring emergent worship from a trendy (rather than theological) perspective. "In some emerging churches I've visited, being culturally 'cool' takes a prominent seat at the banquet of values." He goes on to tell the story of a worship gathering that featured an engaging piece of art. When he asked about its meaning in the gathering, "their response was that they had no clue what the piece meant or why it was in their worship space - but is sure was cool" (81). So much for the intentional practices that Butler Bass wrote of. God help us so that we never go down that path. Til next time ...