it seems to me all of these worship forms reach different people differently. the sniping and judgement of worth from each viewpoint doesn't seem to do anyone any favours.
my understanding of the gospels and christ's actions was not to start a new religion or to condemn the old, but to provide people with access to god. direct access, to the creator god and the love offered for each of us. jesus was a good jew, faithful in his duties though unwilling to have god defined and compartmentalized as was happening in this point of history.
i believe christ sought above all else to connect people back to the creator. the current trend of self definition "we are bible believing christians... - we are missional church... - we are etc." suggests that all others are not. ouch! because i choose not to prescribe to any of these institutional ideas (yes i believe emerging church is institutional) in their entirety i find myself labelled as something other, lesser or unwelcome. disconnection is at the heart of this. not a christ concept in my thinking.
so i wonder...
- if christ's main purpose was to connect people to the creator
- if yes, does the 'church' in which that happens now really matter
- if no, what was it
- if 'bible believing christians' and 'missional christians'... etc understand how offensive the self defined tags/labels become to those they exclude
2 comments:
Hey Derek,
I'm guessing that labels people give themselves come from different places. Some like "bible believing" come from a place of frustration at others. In that case from believing that other Xns don't really believe the bible. As far as emerging missional church I'm not sure where that came from. Partly from people wanting to do church in a way that acknowledges that most people are not Xn in Australia and therefore we need to do church more like the way a missionary might do church. Having said that I know lots of people who loosely fall in the "emerging missional" church mould and feel very uncomfortable about the title. Most of them go out of their way to avoid titles. As for the question of wether "emerging missional" type people see there way of doing church as the only way that would vary from person to person but for many I know it has come out of a place of try to find a way of doing church that works for them, with a respect for what has gone before them and still gores on around them. Rather than as part of a missional crusade of sorts.
Chris
interesting point. obviously you're not a 'bible believing' christian from that comment but it appears you are a part of a 'missional' church.
the awareness of exclusivity, it seems to me from conversations i have had with others, is something the 'missional' churches are aware of because they have been generated by those who i think in some form or another have felt excluded or disconnected. so i see your point that it varies from individual to individual. as i have said in a previous post - all gross generalizations are incorrect!
the labels haven't been created by me if thats what you are wondering they are all labels i trip over or have thrust upon me as i read or browse the latest and greatest trends in christianity.
the labels are an issue for me because it works against unification. i.e. the anglican church had a great number of things going for it for a very long time the most significant being the room for healthy theological debate and therefore many varied viewpoints. with all the varied viewpoints we had one thing in common we called ourselves anglicans. now we call ourselves - evangelical anglicans, traditional anglicans, lkiberal anglicans... you get the idea. this is even worse across denominations and you start throwing 'missional churches' in the mix and we have a whole lot of people saying they are christian (in some cases more christian) but unwilling to enter into healthy 'christ-like' relationships based on mutual respect and willingness to learn.
right or wrong we need to give each other the freedom to exercise our free will.
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