What do we mean by "emerging" church?

In some ways this question is reminiscent of an Oxford Philosophy don of the mid-Twentieth century, but I'm finding it has some traction as a real question these days..."Emerging" seems to imply a process, a movement of some kind. Notice though that the movement (and surely movement is a pun, if not the most applicable description of everything that is the "emergent church") seems to be toward something, namely church. Emerging, like any good gerund, describes a kind of church...But what if you don't know what church is? Does "Emerging" give any clues to that?
Here we have something, at least if "emerging" is truly descriptive of church...What we have is a church that has as its key characteristic not an ethnicity (e.g., the Greek church); nor a theological tradition (e.g., the Methodist church); nor, even a theological motive (e.g., the Four-Square Gospel church); and not even, contrary to many hopes and dreams, a community value (e.g., Community church). Rather, the characteristic these groups adhere to is growing, emerging, processing...which brings to mind some interesting theological questions.
First, we can dispense with "emerging" as a synonym for "innovative." Congregations that do "emerging" things (candlelight services with coffee, for example) are not emergent congregations, bur rather innovative traditional ones.
To be "emerging" seems to imply that--at some level--everything you are today, everything you are doing today--will be different, gone, and maybe even forgotten tomorrow. The "emerging" congregation is the zenith of the temporal church. There's nothing built into the idea of "emerging" that speaks to eternity other than continuous "emerging." (Perhaps this is what Friedrich Nietzsche was hinting at--in a completely different context--with the idea of eternal recurrence?) Of course, if such a notion is true in an eternal sense, then the church has always been "emerging," and all those who have sought to stop the process at some point are going against the very nature of God.
Because-- and here is the kicker, that both the "emerging" church and "traditional" church have to deal with: at some level there is a deep and intricate relationship between the church and the life and being of God. The "emerging" church argues God is continually in process (and Alfred North Whitehead cheers!), while the traditional church argues God does not change much, if at all. Scripture seems pretty clear that God desires church this side of the eschaton (the last day of time as we know it--your theology lesson for the day!) We cannot dispense with church, no matter how much we want to, but what kind do we have? For this, we can thank the "emerging" church leaders and people for bringing to light an important discussion: does God change or not?
All other questions seem pretty tame compared to that one.

Prayer and "Openness to the Mystery"

It should come as no great shock, if you peruse these blogs, that "mystery"is the dominant metaphor I use for God...I've had experiences of God that defy rational explanation...I have heard God come from the most unlikely of people...like Geoffrey Rush's character in "Shakespeare in Love," I don't know how it works out, "It's a mystery."

So with that backdrop my reading this past week has gone into the deepest realms of the mysterious, if not the most difficult...First, I'm trying to read Cormac McCarthy, and he requires time and concentration...lots of it for me...Then I was reading some John D. Caputo (another Google possibility for the intellectually curious). He wrote in "Radical Hermeneutics" (Indiana University Press, 1987, p. 275)"To respect others is to come under their spell, to feel their influence, it is more like entering a field of energy than meeting up with another empirical object."

Although it was not his topic, such a phrase seems like a pretty good definition of prayer.
Like respecting others prayer is...coming under the spell, feeling God's influence...when you respect somebody else you allow them to influence parts of your life...you do things as they do...and prayer is doing things as God does. So how you understand God is how you live under God's influence. If you respect God as love ( a popular option), then God's love should influence you somehow...But notice that God is not some person telling you how to love; rather, God is the energy that frees you to love. God doesn't do the loving for you, but God frees you so that you can love your neighbor (just in case you didn't really want to!)...But if you respect God, the loving will come because you are in the energy field of God (who is love, right?)...

As much as respect is important for prayer, it becomes even more so when we talk about authentic community of any kind...and respect cannot be earned, it can only be given...(I know this flies in the face of most of our common thought, but think about someone like Hilary Clinton. Many people respect her, many do not...but notice she has only done what she has done...so why do some respect her and some do not? It's because whatever she does is not related to whether we respect her or not...even of you think it it, it isn't...we respect her or we do not because we are free to respect her or not...all our other ideas are just rationalizations of why we do or don't respect her, or somebody else, she's just a popular example these days)...so if a community has respect given to its people, the community will thrive, if not...........well, most of us know what happens then...

Prayer is the same way...if we are open to the mystery, then, we are open to respecting the Mystery...which is after all, not an object to be manipulated, but a presence to be lived in...Now, a God who conquers death, who gives that victory to regular ordinary folks like you and me...I don't know about you, but for me that's enough to at least listen every now and then...

Christ, The Spirit, and Authentic Community

A long time ago when I was researching for my doctoral work, I came across some interesting work by an Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas. (I throw this out only for those who might want a Google topic). What I learned from him is to see the fluidity in which God works across all our human boundaries and distinctions. It seems to be no problem for God to be Jesus Christ the Spirit, and all the while still creating the world in its beauty and glory...Of course, for us, we need to make some distinctions, so we like to say the Spirit OF Christ, as if the Spirit comes after Jesus...or, we note how the Spirit leads Jesus...or, Jesus commends his Spirit...there's all kinds of tricky ways...
We got to talking about authentic community the other night, and I was reminded of how God sort of swims in that same realm of conversation. Authentic community means--at some level--that there is no priority (logically or theologically) with one person or another in community...Authentic community has at its heart a total equality of personhood...just as God has a total equality of personhood with the Father Creator, the Son, and the Spirit. It may be true that I am a trained theologian in a group; someone else may be a computer programmer; another a nurse; another a woodworker...but in any authentic community those skills would only make the group stronger, not be a source or division of power or labor. (Having just written that I'm reminded of my favorite quote from Karl Marx that in a truly communistic venture he'd be able to read Greek tragedy at night)...There will no doubt be divisions, but they must be seen as divisions which arise from something arbitrary or, if necessary, necessary only for the well-being of the community. (We still need a bookkeeper!)
Zizioulas taught me a basic division of labor within God: The Son becomes history...the Spirit liberates the Son from the bondage of history. (For those of you versed in theological language, you see the obvious reason why a Lutheran resonates with that statement.) When Jesus is around he is in history...just like me and you. Does God know what it's like to be angry? Yes,because Jesus did. Does God know what it means to laugh until you cry? Sure, just as Jesus did. But Jesus does not stay trapped to our history, and it's this freedom that comes about by the work of the Spirit...so we have a future, as authentic community, because the Spirit gives it to Jesus and he has promised it to us...
Somedays we don't know what's going on...somedays we just seem to be treading water...somedays we get excited...some days, we don't. But it will not always be like this, and that is what makes our lives in God so challenging...so fun.
Authentic community is being in the world with each other...just long enough, we hope, to make good friends along the way.

On Rabbit Ears and Dinner Guests

Someone noticed what looks like "rabbit ears" over my head in the picture at the left. At first, we thought about cropping those out, but I wanted to write a blog about that photo...so we kept it in. The "ears" are part of the poster that announces the centennial of Edvard Grieg's death, the Norwegian composer, and the upcoming events commemorating his work and music. In and of itself this is not so much, except that the picture was taken outside of Grieghallen in Bergen, Norway...
You see, if this internet stuff is really going to catch on, then places like Bergen, Norway and Bismarck, ND, USA have some kind of relationship, even if it's not how we usually think of relationships. If you think of Prairie Table as a real table that has real people around it...well, that's what we do in Bismarck (usually at a bar)...But there's another way in which the "table" is the globe itself, the great world upon which we walk. In that way, the folks in Bergen, the folks in Bismarck, you reading this wherever you are...we're all at the prairie table. This is what makes the internet such a difficult "place" to be...time means very little (you can read this whenever you want, and we'd still be in "conversation" even if I was asleep when you wrote it)...place, of couse, is irrelevant...and the Christian Church has always assumed those preogatives to be of God, not humanity. Time and Eternity...Historicity and Omnipresence...this was how you know the difference between the divine and the human. The internet seems to challenge those ideas...

Second topic this month: dinner guests...Who to invite to dinner, or, more problematically, who not to invite for dinner? Who do you invite to dinner? Have you ever wondered why people invited Jesus to dinner? You know, many of the more strict Pharisees thought Jesus shouldn't eat dinner with the kinds of folks he ate dinner with...but why did they invite him to dinner? When you invite someone to dinner..why? For me, it's usually to catch up with friendships...so was Jesus a friend to the folks?...Sometimes I invite people to dinner to get to know them...this seems to be the most logical reason people invited Jesus to dinner...I suppose the question for us is: would we invite Jesus to dinner? Comment away!

The Prairie Table and Religion

In some ways religion and morality go hand-in-hand. Although that has been true for many people over the centuries, for many people it has not been enough. Even more troubling is that certain religions get labeled with certain types of morality--and then the battles really begin. For example, one could view the "religion" of Jesus of Nazareth as a battle between his view of Judaism and the Pharisees' or the Saducees' view of Judaism. Each view carried its own morality, Jesus' seemingly to be caught in the phrase of knowing that God asks for "mercy, not sacrifice."
Prairie Table, as much as it may be religious, carries its own morality too. A morality that understands God wishes to create, sustain, and recycle rather than to destroy, abuse, or waste. The morality of Prairie Table comes from putting relationships ahead of success, statistics, profitability (although as a non-profit organization, that's not a huge concern), and relationships breed their own kind of accountability--one that "accountants" might not be able to calculate. Basically, the morality of Prairie Table arises from the idea that life is more fun "when we do it all together."
Now, this is not the type of "morality" that makes it into the worlds of mass media, or the conventional Christian bookstore. Morality in those places often is a set of rules or ways to behave that follow ideas a bit different than the Jesus of the gospels. The morality of Prairie Table Ministries has three pieces: first, God makes and re-makes life for the sustaining of all creation, including non-human species; secondly, from Christ we receive the power to respect the well-being of someone other than yourself is more important than you; lastly, the Holy Spirit frees us so it's more fun when we do it all together. This is the kind of morality that I like...the kind of morality that puts people ahead of ideas and rules, the kind of morality that trusts in mercy, not the laws of sacrifice. It is--finally--I argue, the morality of the cross of Jesus Christ. So the question for the month: what relationship does morality have to your faith in Christ Jesus?

(PS: A lot of people are wondering if PT will have a "real" site in Bismarck soon. I hope so. If all goes well there whould be something by June 1. Prairie Table Ministries is a non-profit organization under the auspices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Contributions are tax-deductible and can be sent to the Western North Dakota Synod, attn: Prairie Table Ministries, 1614 Capitol Way, PO Box 370,Bismarck, ND 58502)