
Big, huge conference happening in Kansas, " the One Thing 09'", in which the speakers will address some of the biggest faith issues concerning the church today.
According to Mike Bickle of the influential charismatic movement ( IHOP ), International House Of Prayer, " emerging churches are turning 20 and 30 somethings to ' casual Christianity ' or even apostasy!Along with gays, Muslims, and abortionists, emergers form a quadrangle 0f evil threatening the pure ' end-times move' of God today."
You check out Mike Bickle and Lou Engle plugging the conference...
http://is.gd/5ihDA
It reminds me of my army days of a general, or battalion commander rally the soldiers for a frontal assault on a perceived enemy. It's obvious they should have left there fortresses and camp and done some real reconnaissance.
They also say the following on their website...
We
will also address the growing crisis that is emerging in many churches
across America. A new wave of confusion is systematically seducing many
young adults into deception. Sincere young people whose hearts were
once ablaze for Jesus are being allured into compromise on foundational
biblical truths and practices, while at the same time they are
increasing in works of compassion and justice. No amount of increased
ministry activity can “balance out” their profound spiritual
compromises. In the name of tolerance, they are settling for a
humanistic and "politically correct" theology that trivializes the
glory of Jesus. Many young adult ministries are falling prey to this as
they are seeking “relevance” that dulls the razor’s edge of truth for
the sake of man’s approval. It is not enough to mention Jesus’ name if
they deny foundational truths about Him. Our works of justice must flow
from deep allegiance to Jesus and the Scripture.
Really! If Mike Bickle and others in the war room had read intelligence from from other sources they would have discovered there are few emergent terrorist cells propagating their weapons of faith destruction. And interesting a couple of days ago I was in a FB conversation with Bill Dahl around him being approached by a publisher to write an article about the decline of the emerging church. Some early authors of emerging conversation are re-thinking the terminology and use of the word. Kan Kimball says this...
Although I am finding that the term [emerging church] has become so
broad now and so confusing, it is very important to know that I am not
by any means stopping being involved and pursuing the heart and mission
of what the term "emerging church" originally meant.
And, Andrew Jones author, blogger, global missionary and practitioner of the emerging expression of church says this...
Words change. We give meaning to words and we take it away.
Both Dan Kimball and Andrew Jones are dropping the term while remaining faithful to the original intention of the conversation and movement. They represent many others in church leadership, bloggers, people on the fringe of the church, and ordinary people in church seats struggling to understand post-Christendom, and who might be move towards a post-emerging church paradigm.
I'm still using the word on my blog, and still writing about it. Why? Because in a sense I think it is important. I think for many there has been a sense of jet lag, many now are just catching up, ( yes really ) reading, thinking and beginning to ask questions and looking for safe places for conversation. They might not be using the term " emerging ", but they are asking and wrestling with same questions as many were in the beginnings.
For me the conversation and movement were, and still is important. Not because of the bells, smells, the ambient music of the alternative worship practice, but because it made me look seriously at postmodern culture...to take a serious look at the world outside the church. It made seriously look at interfaith dialog, conversations and cooperative interfaith justice. It really made me look at theology, especially in the terms of mission. Jesus not only spoke the truth of the Kingdom, he practiced the same truth he spoke.
I know Mike Bickle and IHOP do some wonderful Kingdom stuff, but I'm saddened when one part of the beautiful, diverse, and complex body of Christ attacks another. I know it's nothing new, but still it is a cancerous infection that really that makes the whole body sick.
I don't think it was ever destined to be a brand, a label, a denomination setting up a structure of power, and theological dogma, and doctrine...it is still destined to be something much more humble. Perhaps if they understood it's embryonic beginnings, they would put their swords back in the sheathes.
It initially was a fragile, embryonic and diverse conversation being held between individuals over the internet, small gatherings, pubs and cafe's. The conversation had an elusive tentative nature what made it difficult to describe, what if anything unified those involved. The shear breadth of perspectives and diversity of conversation made it difficult to but a label on. But maybe, to it's demise one was put on and stuck, " emergent." It was a diverse matrix of relationships that bridged various faith communities that shared different theological traditions. It never really could have been described as a becoming into something, or possible as having arrived. In the conversation there was always an acknowledgment that it is a shared journey of becoming all the Jesus is, and trying to live that truth out.
So I pray that the spark that kindled this conversation that dared to dive into the redemptive imagination of Jesus is never snuffed out. That there will always be safe places of conversation, where we dare to explore faith to it's limits. That will honor the past, but that we will stretch what faith is...but never breaking away from the truth that we live in unity.
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