Next-Wave Ezine > church & culture

Wheaton College and Positive Things About the Emerging Church
By Dan Kimball

Just got back from a really great time at Wheaton College. I was there for a 2 day event put on by the Christian Ethics Center. They called the event "The Emerging Church: What Do I Really Know?" I don't speak or think too much anymore in emerging terminology, but I met Vince who is the leader of the ethics center last time I taught at Wheaton College and he felt this would be of interest and helpful. I really didn't think too many people would even come out for it because it feels like the "emerging church"* discussion with that term is more one of the past (*I do believe the church will always be "emerging" until Jesus comes - and as I say often, the mission of the emerging church still continues even though terminology may change). So I was surprised to see the place so crowded to where they ran out of seats the first day and people had to sit on the floor. The first day was primarily an hour long lecture that I gave. The second day, Skye Jethani from Leadership Journal made a presentation and then we had open discussion with people there.Skye is a friend and part of Origins, so it was fun doing this with him.

On the first day, I shared that my personal entry into the emerging church world back in the mid-1990's. How for me it was primarily about evangelism to what was known as "Generation X" back at that time. How the discussion over time shifted from how to reach the next generation to bigger issues of ecclesiology. Then a lot of theological issues came up which then caused confusion as different people within the emerging church world had different opinions. There was no unified doctrinal statement or core set of beliefs that people had who became part of the emerging church world. So through time, because of the diversity, there developed the need for people to draw distinctions within it. I walked through some of the ways Ed Stetzer, Scot McKnight and others ended up creating categories to show the differences within the whole thing.

I explained how a lot of people ended up creating a stereotype or generalization of anything that had the word "emerging" or "emergent" in it - confusing the two terms. Because of blogs being written by people who were sometimes giving out information that was not always correct about the emerging church - it then created even more confusion. Some people assumed that just because someone wrote something about the "emerging church" on a blog, that it was accurate and didn't do their own research or personally look at source writings or ask people in question what they believed or not. So to me, the term "emerging church" lost its meaning.

I ended my part explaining how I personally now strive to focus on evangelism and mission and that is why the new network Origins was formed for those also wanting to focus on this. But despite, all the confusion and good and bad things of what was the emerging church - I ended with what I felt were helpful and positive (at least from my perspective) that happened in the years of the emerging church discussion:

Friendships developed amongst many who thought they were alone and going crazy.
A recognition the church is not connecting with emerging generations and a shared urgency developed to do something about it.
Safe places to ask questions were formed - and a strong interest in theology not just methodology developed.
The contemporary church has made changes to where it often looks like what was being done in young adult ministry 10 years earlier.
There has been a refreshing reevaluation of how tight we held onto certain minor theological or denominational differences and ceasing what we used to argue about. But at the same time, all the more solidifying our historical orthodox Christian faith and core doctrines and unifying together on those.
There has been a correction made to the reductionist form of the gospel we were using that focused only about the afterlife and making a “decision” - and not about mission, justice and compassion in this life. But as much as we now focus on justice and compassion in this life - we still cannot ever forget about the reality of eternal heaven/hell.
There has been a healthy rise of attention for having both orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the life of a disciple of Jesus.
There has been an interest in exploring why we do what we do in the church and if the origins are from Scripture or from tradition. Tradition for tradition-sake must never get in the way of mission.
Youth pastors stopped wearing mullets. Goatees were adopted, but at least they were better than mullets. There seemed to be some unspoken fashion code amongst male youth pastors as a high percentage of them wore mild to severe mullets back in the early 90's.
There has been a healthy rise of the church "being the church" instead of “going to church” – and that the church is seeing itself more as being sent into the world on mission.

I love being around students and colleges as so much thinking and openness is there. While at Wheaton, I got to go to one of my theological heroes classes John Walton. I went to a class he taught on Ancient Near East writings and the Bible. I got to have lunch with John and had a list of questions for him.I will have to blog more just about that, as his writings has given me great confidence in Scripture and someone I love reading everything he writes. I also got to hang out with Daniel Hill, Rick Richardson, loved meeting students and hanging with Vince too. It's days like these where I go there to speak, but I come back so refreshed and learn so much from people.

Also got to go through the Billy Graham Museum again, which is the story of evangelism in the USA. It is quite moving to be able to just read and look at the history of how people in America adopted different forms of evangelism throughout our history. The passion they had, the ways they would innovate for the sake of people knowing Jesus. May we never, ever lose that passion.

Dan Kimball is the author of numerous books, including They Like Jesus But Not the Church. He is also the pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California. This article originally appeared on his blog - www.dankimball.com. He is part of the creative team launching the Origins Project.