I'm looking at what the whole ethos of 'emerging church' has to say about children so I thought I'd google 'emerging church and children'. Low and behold the first link it came up with was International Christian College, with a link to the Monday evening classes (April-Jun 2008) on the themes Exploring Emerging Church with Peter Neilson - looking at 'Examples of how Church is reconfiguring for our times and why'; and The Heart of a Child with Vicki Shaver - looking at 'Nurturing Children's Spirituality through Family and Church.' Both, I'm sure, will be excellent and will speak to the subject of children and emerging church.
The subject of emerging church seems to attract many voices of different opinion within the Evangelical world. Those who criticise the emerging church movement believe the movement's embrace of a postmodernist philosophy leads emergents to such things as unorthodox theology, relativism and universalism.
Iain Mobsby, an Anglican priest, has published his MA research in a book called Emerging and Fresh Expressions of Church: How are they authentically Church and Anglican?, a title I presume because emerging church expressions are taking serious criticism from academics, and highly regarded Evangelicals and many alternative worship and emerging churches in the UK seem to be specifically connected to the Anglican Church. He says the results of his research "indicated a number of things that are interesting regarding different sub groupings of fresh expressions relating to contextual theology, Trinitarian theology and new forms of mysticism," and highlights that most "emerging churches use Andrei Rublev's Trinity Icon to frame much of their thinking." Well, anything that uses the Trinity as a hermeneutic or lens through which to better understand a true expression and practical outworking of Church is definitely a plus in my book! Some useful websites on the subject are:
http://www.emergingchurch.info/
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/cultureandreview/emerginandfresh
http://www.alternativeworship.org/definitions_awec.html
http://www.cmaresources.org/ specifically http://www.cmaresources.org/articles/What_Kids_Church.asp an article by Neil Cole on 'What about kids in organic church?' Part One: Integration is better than Segregation - yes I have to endorse what he says. We have a lot to give thanks for with the instigation of the Sunday School movement but we need to understand the context and motivation behind it. We seem, now in the 21st Century, to be somewhat stuck in a time warp and unable to easily reform. Isn't a key lesson from the reformation that we must KEEP reforming? Church isn't school! We must move beyond the old Sunday School model where cognitive learning is the primary task to a model that truly seeks to nurture children's relationship with Jesus and looks to give children real ways to express their faith and know God more.
Useful books:
I Like Jesus But Not the Church: Following Jesus Without Following Organised Religion
Postmodern Children's Ministry
The Out of Bounds Church: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change
So what about the voices against Emerging Church? Critisism of the movement comes from esteemed scholars such as DA Carson and John Piper (so in knowing some of their thinking and theological handling on the role of women in the church, I am already suspicious as to how their theology meets the emerging church 'conversation'!) but keen to know their concerns. Some comments refer to emerging church as fad-driven, straying from the gospel, and question its orthodoxy. Brian McLaren is a leading voice in the emerging conversation and Carson has been particularly vocal in his criticism of McLaren's doctrinal views, saying "I have to say, as kindly but as forcefully as I can, that to my mind, if words mean anything, both McLaren and [Steve] Chalke have largely abandoned the gospel" (D.A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, (2005), p.186). Steve Chalke took some pretty heavy criticism after writing his book The Lost Message of Jesus, but I do think his efforts to raise legitimate concerns about the dangers of unsophisticated atonement theory needs to be seriously engaged with.
A must website to visit is ApologeticsIndex. Point 8, Glossary of Emergent Terms for Those New to the Conversation provides some interesting reading! I'm afraid I don't appreciate the satire even if it is an attempt to accurately portray views!!
Conclusion: It seems muck slinging is becoming an acceptable method of dealing with other believers who don't fall into the same categories as we place ourselves. Are we still all in the same body? I sometimes don't know who the enemy is anymore. Why do we resort to devilish tools when we're supposed to watch each others backs?
The criticisms are more than serious - I'd say they are so strong actually that I don't think I could align my theological underpinning to the EC movement if allegations of rationale are as liberal as they are accused of, however, in practise, I totally support a more fluid and organic presence of the 'Church' in all areas of life (that's what the Church is isn't it?) and see the many flaws in traditional models of church. Does that make me one of them?!?
This is a useful article from Scot McKnight in Christianity Today, who says, "Emerging catches into one term the global reshaping of how to "do church" in postmodern culture". I think there is a desire here to 'do' church in a way that really helps us 'be' the Church! Whatever position we align ourselves with, we must seriously critique any model of church that is not mission focused at heart but this seems to be. As gathered communities of believers we portray a particular expression of the worshipping community of faith. BUT our 'being' Church IS NOT that gathered expression in isolation to our daily walk - with other believers and non-believers ... and, of course, GOD. Our 'being' and 'doing' Church is who we are - the body of Christ - in our homes, in our streets, in our schools, in our workplaces, as we drive, as we frequent restaurants, super markets, etc, etc, etc ... If any expression of church is only what we can glam up and re-package as a post-modern Christian expression to lure in the crowds then count me out! We are to be in the world but not of the world - we need to help the world understand reality and what is truly absolute, in knowing God and God's story. We must be careful in how we use terms and labels or we will misunderstand one another and miss something of God at work in our world today! Perhaps we (adults) should step aside for a while and let the kids lead? We might just learn something... !
