The last post for each month is going to be a newsworthy discussion topics that have been highly discussed in the blog world that I want to present my perspective on and link to other bloggers perspectives on.

Pew Forum Study on Religion and Public Life

There was a study released this month by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that has yeilded a lot of discussion in response to its findings.  The study has found that people who were involved in a faith of some kind as children drift away from their faith and then may return to it when they have kids for the purpose of having their children grow up with faith.  The study also finds that people are seeking a more personal and less organized faith.  This is a mindset held by parents that faith is an essential aspect of childhood but is not something that impacts all aspects of life.  Faith and religion is then seen in the minds of parents as a good place to form morality and make you a good person, but it is not something that is of any use beyond the forming and developmental stages of childhood. 

In the New York Times article on the subject Professor Stephen Prothro, the chairman of the religion department at Boston University notes that “mega-churches succeed not because they are mega but because they have smaller ministries inside.”  People are seeking a faith that has no accountability which would be found in the community of a church because they do not want to be expected to live at a certain standard.  The church has become so consumerised that the gospel has become something that is your personal experience with Jesus without community and embracing a lifestyle led by the Spirit and the Great Commission.

The heart of the gospel has become lost in the American church.  Jesus has been presented as someone less than Lord.  Therefore, Christians are leaving the church and switching religions because they never had a relationship with Jesus Christ seeking after Him and pursuing Him for who He is not what he can do for them.  May God raise up His church to clearly proclaim the holistic gospel that impacts all areas of life so that His name and glory can be proclaimed in all nations!

Related Links:

“Americas Changing Religious Landscape” by Dr. Albert Mohler- This is a good article by the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky
New York Times’ Article “Americans Change Faiths at Rising Rate, Report Finds”- This article does a good job breaking down the research findings.
Pew Forum Study on Religion and Public Life- This is the entire report.
“The Religion Shift in America” from ChurchRelevance.com- This is a good percentage breakdown of the research findings.

The third and final essential element for the church to impact the culture is community.  Community is what holds the church together.  It is people gathered together in order to chase after Jesus Christ and to hold each other accountable for personal holiness and being intentional to reach out to others. The early church is shown in Acts 2: 42-47 pursuing Jesus together in the context of community. 

Community is not just important in that it unites the church on mission and personal accountability, but it is also attractive to people who do not know Jesus.  A group of people that love each other and care for each other really stands out as different and attractive in our culture that is full of divisions.  This is something that people will be drawn to, and if our community is open and caring to people who are not part of the community, this makes them desire to be a part even more. 

A church that love and cares for others and pursues accountability will shine brightly to the culture around them.  My hope and prayer is that God would raise up churches focused on the gospel and proclaiming it in the context of mission through the encouragement and accountability of a biblical community!

We have not been called to just sit on this glorious news of freedom from sin and victory in Christ that is given in the gospel.  This leads us to the second essential of being the church in culture - mission.  Jesus left His followers with a mission which we have been exploring all month to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28: 19 ESV).  This should be the all-consuming passion and drive for all believers. 

I want to note that the call is to make disciples.  Disciples are Christ-followers who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross.  There is a tendency in today’s Christian environment to lose site of declaring this good news and to instead make the focus of our mission secondary issues such as social justice.  These secondary issues are not negative things to do in and of themselves, but that is not the primary mission.  Jesus came to earth and lived for about thirty years on the earth before His death on the cross and resurrection.  During that time, He could have solved all of the issues with world hunger, cured everyone from all their diseases, and stopped the injustice of slavery.  The very intersting thing is that He did not.  So, does this mean that Jesus does not care about these issues that are pressing and cause pain and heartache for so many?  No, He does care because we see Jesus meeting many people’s needs such as these.  He is however focused on a single mission - to die on the cross and rise from the dead for sin.  Jesus knew that everything is at its root a spiritual issue due to the fact that all social justice issues are ultimately a result of sin and the fall.  We cannot merely address the symptoms and miss the disease itself.  Jesus understood this.

We need to never remove the proclamation of the gospel from missions.  We should also seek to show the love of Jesus to people by getting involved in social justice and other issues involving hurting people, but this should never be done without presenting the gospel. 

Our mission calls us to be gospel-centered and intentional to share Jesus with others and also to show love and grace to others in Jesus’ name.

We have journeyed over the last month looking at the church in culture and making the gospel relevant to a post-modern, post-Christian generation.  I have waited until the very end to lay out my thoughts and perspective on this topic.  I would love to get your thoughts, perspectives, and feedback also.  I will spend the next three days diving into what I believe are three essential elements of the church being a light and making an eternal impact on the culture.

The first element of the church’s cultural impact is the most essential element - the gospel.  Jesus did not just come to be a good teacher or moral philosopher with a system of suggestions on making your life better.  He came with the gospel which is not some theological presuppositions but is Himself and the mission that the Father had given Him.  I think that the tendency has been for churches and movements which are seeking to redefine Christianity to lose the gospel in the midst of making the church more culturally and seeker friendly.  Paul reminds to the church at Corinth in his letter that they are to “hold on to the word I preached to you” (1 Corinthians 15: 2 ESV).  Paul then goes on to preach the gospel which is the very message that he is encouraging the Corinthian believers to not lose sight of.  I think that we have a tendency to lose sight of the very gospel which Paul was encouraging the church not to miss.  It is so easy for us to lose the heart of the gospel in the midst of postmodernizing the message to make it relevant to the culture.

In light of this, I want to lay out the gospel straight from the Word of God which is the basis of our theology which we will see in the next few days will fuel us on our mission and lead us to embrace each other in biblical community.  The following is an outline of the biblical elements of the gospel as defined in scripture (the outline was compiled by Dr. David Platt at the Church at Brook Hills and the comments are mine):

• The Character of God
  • He is Our Creator/Owner (Genesis 1: 26-28, Acts 17: 24-28)- God is the creator and owner of everything.  We are handcrafted in His image and specifically designed to live in an intimate relationship with Him.
  • He is Our Judge (Psalms 96: 10-13, Hebrews 9:27)- God stands in His rightful place as Judge over His creation.  God has set standards for His creation and will rightly judge His creation.
  • He is Our Savior (Zephaniah 3: 17, Jude 1: 25)- God is the Mighty Savior of His people.  He is the only One who is worthy to save.
• The Depravity of Man
  • We Have Rebelled Against a Holy God (Psalms 51: 4-5)-All sin is an offense to God.  He is holy and cannot tolerate sin. All sin committed is committed not just against the individuals involved but against God.  We have also all be born into sin and have a sin nature that seeks after sin rather than God and holiness.
  • We Are Dead in Sin (Ephesians 2: 1-10)- We are not coping with our sin and managing it well.  We are dead and lifeless because of our sin. We are captive to the passions, desires, and appetites of our sinful nature.  The only hope that we have for freedom is through the grace of Jesus Christ and Him taking our place and punishment for sin on the cross.  We can have victory over our sin natures only through the power of His Holy Spirit at work within us.
  • We Are Unable to Save Ourselves (Romans 3: 9-20)-No person is righteous or a “good person.”  No one seeks after God.  All people are in constant pursuit of their own pleasures and selfish desires.  We cannot keep God’s law and be holy on our own.  We are desperate sinners in need of a Savior.
• The Sufficiency of Christ
  • The Gospel Includes Both the Person and Work of Christ:
  • The Person of Christ (Philippians 2: 5-11)- Jesus was willing to become a man and to humble Himself to save us from our sins.
    • He is God. - Jesus is God who came down from heaven to save us from our sins.
    • He is man.- Jesus lived a life on earth fully man.  He set aside His place as God and humbled Himself to become one of us and bear our sins.  He came to a world full of hurt and pain to bear indescribable hurt and pain for our sin on the cross.
    • He is Savior. - Jesus died for our sins in order to save us.
    • He is Lord. - Jesus reigns as Lord and Judge.
  • The Work of Christ (1 Corinthians 15: 1-5)- Jesus Christ came to earth and died for our sins, was buried in a grave because He was really dead, rose from the dead, and appeared to eyewitnesses.
    • His Life (Romans 5: 18-19)- Just like the sin of one man Adam led to sin and death for all, the obedience of Jesus through living a sinless life and dying on the cross for sin leads to righteousness for many.
    • His Death.
      • Justification (Romans 3: 24)- We have been made just and our resume has been wiped clean by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. We now appear sinless before a holy God due to Christ taking our place.
      • Redemption (Romans 3: 24)- Jesus Christ has set us free from our sin and the penalty of death that we all justly deserved by His death on the cross.
      • Propitiation (Romans 3: 25)- Jesus has satisfied the penalty of death that was the due punishment of our sin by His death on the cross.
    • His Resurrection (Romans 6: 1-14)- Jesus’ resurrection proved that He was God like He had said, but it also gives Christians victory from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• The Necessity of Faith.
  • We Are Saved by Grace ALONE through Faith ALONE in Christ ALONE (Ephesians 2: 8)- We are saved through utter dependence on Jesus through faith in Him and Him taking our place.  We are saved not because we are good people and deserve it, but rather because Jesus is gracious and has shown His grace to us. 

This is a brief summary of the gospel.  There are many theological issues and discussions that can flow out of this outline.  These are issues that divide the church of Jesus Christ as men and women attempt to be able to explain a God who’s ways are higher than ours.  This outline, I think, does a good job of portraying the essentials of the gospel.  This is what we must never compromise preaching and speaking until Jesus returns.  May God keep us from losing site of this message!

The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern Worldedited by John Piper and Justin Taylor is a great resource for the discussion on the church and culture.  This book seeks to address the issues relating to making the gospel relevant to a postmodern society yet still teaching and preaching the gospel as the inerrant Word of God.  This comes out of a conference by the same name that was held at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota which is Piper’s church.  The contributors are varied and include perspectives from Voddie Baucham Jr., John Piper, D. A. Carson, David Wells, Tim Keller, and Mark Driscoll.  The issues addressed in light of the gospel in a postmodern culture include speaking truth in a relativistic culture, love and joy in the life of a Christian being displayed to the culture, the churches role in the culture, and the role of the gospel in the culture.  This is the book that sparked my thinking for the church and culture blog discussion for this month, and I would highly recommend it to gain some different perspectives on the issues that this blog has started to address this month.

The Home (House) Church Network is a network of Christians who instead of gathering in traditional churches are gathering in their homes to seek after Jesus Christ and community together.  According to their website, home churches, also known as house churches, are “small groups of believers - even as few as 2 or 3 - who gather in the name of Jesus Christ. They are very similar to the earliest churches which were customarily designated in the Scriptures as household units.”  These are churches of people gathering to try to build the biblical community and picture of the early church that we see in Acts 2: 42-47. 

This home church community seeks to live out the gospel in all forms of life as the website describes: “the totality of life must be God-directed as we are motivated by gratitude for the life, death, and resurrection of His Son. The Home Church perspective is thus a unique world-view in which every follower of Jesus becomes a full-time Christian minister or servant. Every day, every event, every thought, every place become the domain of the Messiah. The line between sacred and secular progressively diminishes because Christ gives true meaning to all things.”

I think that it is great to promote living out a holistic gospel which effects all areas of our lives. The home church proponents then go on to describe the emphasises of these churches within their network: “We emphasize an actual faith rather than merely an intellectual one. The execution of deeds rather than the formulation of creeds. Community rather than disunity. Brotherhood rather than hierarchy. Winning unbelievers rather than winning arguments. What we are for rather than what we are against. Making a real difference for others as well as having an experience for ourselves.”

This is a group of people trying to live out biblical community without any formal training in the scriptures.  I really like the idea of the community and the incarnational gospel which this church movement is trying to live out, but I am once again concerned about the potential loss of focus on the gospel itself and the above statement about “The execution of deeds rather than the formulation of creeds” still makes me cringe.

What are your thoughts and experiences regarding the House Church Network?

I am working on a theme for the blog for March.  I want to see if anyone has any ideas or suggestions of a topic or theme that would be interesting to you for this blog to address in March.  Please post suggestions below.

The Acts 29 Church Planting Network is a group that is founded to plant churches with “both rock-solid theology and contextualizing the gospel.”  Pastor Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle is very involved with this church planting group.  They exist to plant churches that are both theologically sound and yet culturally relevant.  The website describes their mission well by stating “we won’t water down our theology to reach more people and we won’t attack the culture in the name of Christianity. We are planting churches that are missionaries in their respective communities sent by Christ with the gospel.”  This is a group of church planters that are focused on reaching the culture through planting churches focused on the mission of sharing the gospel to their surround communities of influence.  This is a group that in my opinion is being missional yet not diluting the gospel or minimizing scripture.  Let me post some beliefs from their website for discussion:

“The short answer is that we are first Christians, second Evangelicals, third Missional, and fourth Reformed. The more lengthy answer is included below and intentionally omits some finer points of doctrine and secondary issues as we allow the elders in our local churches to operate according to their convictions on these matters.

First, we are Christians which distinguishes us from other world religions and cults. Therefore, we adhere to both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds.

Second, we are Evangelicals and in agreement with the doctrinal statement of the National Association of Evangelicals:

• We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

• We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

• We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

• We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

• We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

• We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

• We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Third, we are Missional:

• We believe that our local churches must be faithful to the content of unchanging Biblical doctrine (Jude 3).

• We believe that our local churches must be faithful to the continually changing context of the culture(s) in which they minister (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

• We believe that our mission is to bring people into church so that they can be trained to go out into their culture as effective missionaries.

Fourth, we are Reformed:

• We believe that God created the heavens, the earth.

• We believe that God created man and woman in a state of sinless perfection with particular dignity as His image bearers on the earth.

• We believe that our first parents sinned against God and that everyone since is a sinner by nature and choice. Sin has totally affected all of creation including marring human image and likeness so that all of our being is stained by sin (e.g. reasoning, desires, and emotions).

• We believe that because all people have sinned and separated themselves from the Holy God that he is obligated to save no one from the just deserved punishments of hell. We also believe that God in His unparalleled love and mercy has chosen to elect some people for salvation.

• We believe that the salvation of the elect was predestined by God in eternity past.

• We believe that the salvation of the elect was accomplished by the sinless life, substitutionary atoning death, and literal physical resurrection of Jesus Christ in place of His people for their sins.

• We believe that the salvation of the elect, by God’s grace alone, shows forth in the ongoing repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ that leads to good works.

• We believe that God’s saving grace is ultimately irresistible and that God does soften even the hardest heart and save the worst of sinners according to His will.

• We believe that the gospel should be passionately and urgently proclaimed to all people so that all who believe may be saved through the preaching of God’s Word by the power of God’s Spirit.

• We believe that true Christians born again of God’s Spirit will be kept by God throughout their life, as evidenced by personal transformation that includes an ever-growing love of God the Father through God the Son by God the Spirit, love of brothers and sisters in the church, and love of lost neighbors in the culture.

• We believe that God is Lord over all of life and that there is nothing in life that is to be separated from God.

• We believe that the worship of God is the end for which people were created and that abiding joy is only to be found by delighting in God through all of life, including hardship and death which is gain.”

The site goes on then to address what this movement of church planters is not.  This is discussed according to the website due to the fact that “Acts 29 is often associated with other movements we frequently get questions about emerging theological controversies. To help clarify our beliefs we believe it may also be helpful to declare what we do not believe. In stating what we are not, we do not seek to attack those who disagree with us, but rather distinguish ourselves so that pastors considering joining our network are aware of who we are, as well as who we are not.

• We are not liberals who embrace culture without discernment and compromise the distinctives of the gospel, but rather Christians who believe the truths of the Bible are eternal and therefore fitting for every time, place, and people.

• We are not fundamentalists who retreat from cultural involvement and transformation, but rather missionaries faithful both to the content of Scripture and context of ministry.

• We are not isolationists and seek to partner with like-minded Christians from various churches, denominations and organizations in planting church-planting churches.

• We are not hyper-Calvinists who get mired down in secondary matters, but rather pray, evangelize, and do good works because we believe that the sovereign plan of God is accomplished through us, His people.

• We are not eschatological Theonomists or Classic Dispensationalists (e.g. Scofield) and believe that divisive and dogmatic certainty surrounding particular details of Jesus Second Coming are unprofitable speculation, because the timing and exact details of His return are unclear to us.

• We are not egalitarians and do believe that men should head their homes and male elders should lead their churches with masculine love like Jesus Christ.

• We are not Open Theists and believe in the sovereignty and foreknowledge of God in all things.

• We are not religious relativists and do believe that there is no salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ alone.

• We are not nationalists seeking to simply improve one nation but instead ambassadors of the King of Kings commissioned to proclaim and demonstrate the coming of His kingdom to all nations of the earth.

• We are not moralists seeking to help people live good lives, but instead evangelists laboring that people would become new creations in Christ.

• We are not relativists and do gladly embrace Scripture as our highest authority above such things as culture, experience, philosophy, and other forms of revelation.

• We are not Universalists and do believe that many people will spend eternity in the torments of hell as the Bible teaches.

• We are not naturalists and do believe that Satan and demons are real enemies at work in this world and subject to God.

• We are not rationalists and do believe that not everything can be known but that God calls us to live by faith with mystery and partial knowledge regarding many things.

• We are not evangelical feminists and do believe that God reveals Himself as a Father and is to be honored by the names He reveals to us without apology.

• We are not embarrassed by the bloody death of Jesus Christ and do believe He died as a substitute for the sins of His people in selfless love.

• We are not ashamed and do proclaim a loving gospel of grace which sounds like foolishness and offensiveness to the unrepentant while also saving multitudes with ears to hear good news.

• We are not polemicists who believe that it is our task to combat every false teaching but are passionate about preserving the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The churches of the Acts 29 Network are in my opinion truly seeking to live out the gospel in a radical way and to not shy away from preaching the gospel.  This is a movement that is in my opinion bringing culture and the church together in a way that is seeking to be both biblical and missional.

The Red Letter Christians describe themselves as “a network of effective, progressive, Christian communicators urging an open, honest and public dialogue on issues of faith and politics.”  This is a network of well-known Christian leaders, such as Dr. Tony Campolo, Shane Claiborne, Chap Clark, Tony Jones, and Brian McLaren, who have united because they “believe and seek to put in to action the red letter words in the Holy Bible spoken by Jesus” by addressing the political issues that they believe Jesus would be concerned about such as social justice.   This has sparked the release of several books on the subject including Dr. Tony Campolo’s Red Letter Christians, Jim Wallace’s God’s Politics, and Shane Claiborne’s upcoming book Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. They are speaking out to address political issues due to the following statement from their website:

“For decades, leaders of the Religious Right have attempted to convince Christians and the American public that people of faith and strong moral values have only one option when it comes to voting. This narrow view continues to overshadow the majority of Christians in America whose faith motivates them to care deeply about a range of ethics and values. Our nation is hungry for an open dialogue on moral values and its role in the public square. God is not a Republican or a Democrat, and candidates should be measured by examining an array of social and economic issues.”

The website goes on to state that: “The goal of the group is to advance the message that our faith cannot be reduced to only two hot button social issues - abortion and homosexuality. Fighting poverty, caring for the environment, advancing peace, promoting strong families, and supporting a consistent ethic of life are all critical moral and biblical values.”

This is a cry from a new group of people is to redefine Christian politics and issues that matter to Christians in a way that makes Christian voters look at more than just voting with the Republican Religious Right.   Jim Wallace goes on to further the issue in the article “Red Letter Christians” where he states:

“When Jesus tells us he will regard the way we treat the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner as if we were treating him that way, it likely means he wouldn’t think capital gains tax cuts for the wealthy and food stamp cuts for the poor represent the best domestic policy. Or when he tells us “love your enemies” and “blessed are the peacemakers,” it might be hard to persuade him to join our “war against terrorism,” especially when there is so much “collateral damage” to civilians, including women and children.

Yes, Jesus is a problem —for many of our churches, the Wall Street traders, and the powerful people in Washington who maintain the American Empire. But for millions of people, religious or not, Jesus remains the most compelling figure in the world today. The church may not be much more credible than the advertisers, the media, or the politicians, but Jesus remains far above the rest of the crowd. Somehow, Jesus has even survived the church and all of us who name his name but too often forget most of what he said.”

Wallace then goes on to recommend Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus and Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution and comments that these books are “evidence that believers are waking up and catching on fire with the gospel again. Their vision can’t easily be put into categories of liberal and conservative, left and right, but rather has the capacity to challenge the categories themselves. These books are a manifesto for all those “red letter” Christians who have fallen in love with Jesus again and want to live their faith in this world, and not just the next. God is again doing something new.”

I think that the heart of this Red Letter Christian Movement is to be Jesus to the world through being involved in social justice and reaching out to the least of these, but I think that the gospel of Jesus Christ cannot be minimized to be only thoughts like “Jesus did this so I will do this.”  The gospel is a message of a Savior who not only lived out a missional way but who went to the cross to die for the sins of the world.  In this whole Red Letter Christian movement, the cross of Jesus Christ and the gospel have become a missing element.  Without the gospel, we are all headed to a Christ-less eternity and when we miss that does it really matter if we lived a good life and cared for those who are hurting?  Hurting people without Jesus may be temporarily alleviated from their hurting by our help, but our temporary help will eventually come to a close and they will be hurting once again.  I am not saying that we should not be involved in helping the hurting and social justice issues, but we should not minimize the gospel while loving the least of these.

The Emergent Church is such an abstract movement of redefining Christianity that I want to go ahead and preface this post with the fact that this is written from my knowledge of the Emergent Church which has been acquired through several: Emergent Village podcasts, The Church in Emerging Culture by Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy and The Secret Message of Jesus, and Truth and the New Kind of Christian by R. Scott Smith. 

The Emergent Church has been heavily influenced by the thoughts and writings of Brian McLaren. This movement started out to address as Brian does in A Generous Orthodoxyto unite a church that had been divided on many issues into a new version of Christianity deemed Emergent.  In this book McLaren, points out why he is a list of conflicting ideologies and how he can make them come together.  This movement began as a very noble cause to unite the bride of Christ in order to reach people with the gospel. 

The main discussion in Emergent theology is the issue of statements and some theology that the statements present.  The Emergent Church tends to put emphasis more on narratives such as the unfolding story of God at work which is seen to be evolving in order to reach a new postmodern context via the Emergent movement.  According to the Emergent Village website, the beliefs of the emergent church include beliefs in “God, beauty, future, and hope.”  The belief write up then goes on to state: “… but you won’t find a traditional statement of faith here. We don’t have a problem with faith, but with statements. Whereas statements of faith and doctrine have a tendency to stifle friendships, we hope to further conversation and action around the things of God.”  This statement and change from the doctrines of the faith which have been written and held by the church for centuries and are based on the unchanging truths of the Word of God leads to my major problem with the Emergent Church movement.  The Emergent Village site goes on to state four central values of Emergent (following italicized text comes directly from the website):

1. Commitment to the Way of Jesus

We are committed to doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. In the words of Jesus, we seek to live by the Great Commandment: loving God and loving our neighbors – including those who might be considered “the least of these” or enemies. We understand the gospel to be centered in Jesus and his message of the Kingdom of God, a message offering reconciliation with God, humanity, creation, and self.

We are committed to a “generous orthodoxy” in faith and practice – affirming the historic Christian faith and the biblical injunction to love one another even when we disagree. We embrace many historic spiritual practices, including prayer, meditation, contemplation, study, solitude, silence, service, and fellowship, believing that healthy theology cannot be separated from healthy spirituality.

Practices:

• As Christ-centered people, to understand the gospel in terms of Jesus’ radical, profound, and expansive message of the kingdom of God.
• As people seeking to be formed spiritually in the way of Christ, to learn historic Christian spiritual practices (disciplines), and to use them for the development of character, integrity, and virtue which flow from true communion with God.
• As participants in the historic Christian faith, to be humble learners, to stimulate learning in others, and to give priority to love over knowledge, while still valuing knowledge.
• As lovers of God and God’s truth, to seek wisdom and understanding, which are the true goal of theology, and to engage in respectful, thoughtful, sacred conversation about God, world, and church.

2. Commitment to the Church in All Its Forms:

We are committed to honor and serve the church in all its forms – Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Anabaptist. We practice “deep ecclesiology” – rather than favoring some forms of the church and critiquing or rejecting others, we see that every form of the church has both weaknesses and strengths, both liabilities and potential.

We believe the rampant injustice and sin in our world requires the sincere, collaborative, and whole-hearted response of all Christians in all denominations, from the most historic and hierarchical, through the mid-range of local and congregational churches, to the most spontaneous and informal expressions. We affirm both the value of strengthening, renewing, and transitioning existing churches and organizations, and the need for planting, resourcing, and coaching new ones of many kinds.

We seek to be irenic and inclusive of all our Christian sisters and brothers, rather than elitist and critical. We own the many failures of the church as our failures, which humbles us and calls us to repentance, and we also celebrate the many heroes and virtues of the church, which inspires us and gives us hope.

Practices:

• To be actively and positively involved in a local congregation, while maintaining open definitions of “church” and “congregation.” We work in and with churches, seeking to live out authentic Christian faith in authentic Christian community.
• To seek peace among followers of Christ, and to offer critique only prayerfully and when necessary, with grace, and without judgment, avoiding rash statements, and repenting when harsh statements are made. To speak positively of fellow Christians whenever possible, especially those with whom we may disagree.
• To build sincere friendship with Christians from other traditions.

3. Commitment to God’s World:

We practice our faith missionally - that is, we do not isolate ourselves from this world, but rather, we follow Christ into the world.

We seek to fulfill the mission of God in our generations, and then to pass the baton faithfully to the next generations as well.

We believe the church exists for the benefit and blessing of the world at large; we seek therefore not to be blessed to the exclusion of everyone else, but rather for the benefit of everyone else.

We see the earth and all it contains as God’s beloved creation, and so we join God in seeking its good, its healing, and its blessing.

Practices:

• To build relationships with neighbors and to seek the good of our neighborhoods and cities.
• To seek reconciliation with enemies and make peace.
• To encourage and cherish younger people and to honor and learn from older people.
• To honor creation and to cherish and heal it.
• To build friendships across gender, racial, ethnic, economic and other boundaries.
• To be involved at all times in at least one issue or cause of peace and justice.

4. Commitment to One Another

In order to strengthen our shared faith and resolve, and in order to encourage and learn from one another in our diversity through respectful, sacred conversation, we value time and interaction with other friends who share this rule and its practices.

We identify ourselves as members of this growing, global, generative, and non-exclusive friendship.

We welcome others into this friendship as well.

We bring whatever resources we can to enrich this shared faith and resolve.

Practices:

• To make an annual pilgrimage to an Emergent Village gathering; to give one another the gift of our presence at annual gatherings whenever possible.
• To publicly self-identify with Emergent Village where appropriate and to represent Emergent Village well whenever we can; to exemplify the best of what Emergent Village strives to be and do.
• To invite others to participate and welcome new participants.
• To seek to be positive and constructive in caring for the Emergent Village friendship. To find some specific ways we can help the circle of friends in Emergent Village.
• To stay reconciled to one another. To give one another the gift of commitment not to give up on, betray, or reject one another, but instead, to encourage, honor, and care for one another.
• To stay informed about emergent locally and globally via the website and email updates.

Action:

We live out the four values of our rule through four lines of action:

• We explore and develop ideas, theology, practices, and connections … through conversations, conferences, think-tanks, gatherings, retreats, publications, learning cohorts, online resources, and other means.
• We resource individuals, leaders, and organizations – funding their imagination, stimulating their thinking, providing examples, events, literature and other resources to assist them in their lives and mission.
• We communicate our calling, vision, learning, and activities to the growing Emergent Village community, and to other interested people around the world.
• We provide ways for people to belong, identify with, and participate in this community, conversation, and mission at varying levels. We encourage the development of generative friendships, collaborations, and partnerships.

Reading through this excerpt from the website has lead you to one or two possible responses as a reader.  The first response is that you read through this and feel that the Emergent Church sounds like a great and glorious movement which you are jumping to become a part of.  This is a common response if you are in a place where you are fed up with  denominations, differences, debates, and divisions.  This has also taken off in a postmodern society where people have the mindset of tolerance and are attracted to a church movement that embraces this postmodern tenant. The second response is to be totally appalled by the lack of a biblical foundation in the midst of all of these values.  This response comes from someone with a strong background in a doctrine and theologically driven evangelical church.

I feel like in reading through this the good thing that comes to mind is the unity of the church in order to impact people with the gospel.  I would agree that churches divide and fight on many issues that do not matter, in that the Bible does not specifically address them, such as musical preference and political party.  There are issues however of doctrine and theology that the Emergent church has a tendency to throw out the window.  This deeply concerns me.  The thing that most concerns me in this entire list of statements is that there is no clear recognition of the importance of the Word of God in the mission, faith, and theological discussions of the Emergent Church.  In any discussion of theology, faith, and mission, there must be a standard that is defined as truth.  The Word of God has been given as the divine revelation of God written through human authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  To deny the place of God’s revelation and then try to do ministry and follow Jesus is something that scares me.  I applaud and appreciate the discussion on making outreach and evangelism more effective in a postmodern context that the Emergent church has offered, but I could never be emergent because I think that to be missional and follow Jesus without emphasizing His Word is really not following Jesus at all.  Instead, it is following a Jesus who you have made to be who you desire him to be.