The ECM Series Part 4

Emergent Church Ecclesiology: It's Upside Down

The practice of a local Emergent church is alarming. But that is mainly because the ECM is very culture-driven. This is seen in the statement, “Recognizing that people bring their world to God, emerging churches are strongly tied to local culture.”[1] Since the culture we live in now is driven by Postmodernity, then the ECM becomes driven by and towards Postmodernity as well. This neglects the issue that though people do bring their world to God, the world that they bring to God is nothing more than sinful habits of an un-progressively sanctified person. Thus a church should not simply accommodate this fact or seek to help people cease to bring their world to God. Rather, a church should desire to help these people change their own world into one God is glorified. This ECM practice is “come as you are” at its worst.[2]

Other church practices include an experiential form of worship. “The Reformation focused on the spoken Word, while postmodern worship embraces the experienced Word…”[3] But the issue then becomes whose experiences of the Word? If people are bringing their old world to God, then, are not those the experiences that are being embraced? Not to mention that those experiences drive how they view the Bible and its clear teachings. For example, “Emerging church worshipers may respond with the sign of the cross, more often associated with Catholic worship, and openly receive the deep mystical aspects of communion, candles, and incense…they may dance in different venues. Emerging churches create their own music, as at Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis [an Emergent Church], where they also practice yoga, massage, and physical prayer.”[4]

The drastic example of this is what has been called “club-culture worship.” This form of “worship” actually takes the focus away from the “rock band form of church where performers lead worship from onstage.”[5] The style and setting of music is one characterized as that of a dance club. “In club-culture worship, music surrounds the worshipers, who may not even see the DJ.”[6]

Preaching is also deserted for conversation, 2-way dialogue, or what is called “progressional dialogue” which “involves the intentional interplay of multiple viewpoints that leads to unexpected and unforeseen ideas. The message will change depending on who is present and who says what. This kind of preaching is dynamic in the sense that the outcome is determined on the spot by the participants.”[7] Pagitt, the pastor of Solomon’s Porch (part of Emergent Village, the main group propagating the ECM), says that “preaching doesn’t work” being “a tragically broken endeavor.”[8] This is also pragmatism to only meet the desires of the Postmodern culture. This is either direct disobedience or reinterpretation of what Paul clearly commands to Timothy – “Preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:2).[#]

Timothy L. Decker
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[1] Gibbs & Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, pg. 77.
[2] Romans 12:2 – “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
[3] Gibbs & Bolger, pg. 78.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., pg. 81
[6] Ibid. For more on the shocking practice of “club-culture worship,” Gibbs and Bolger continue to write from pages 81-87 about the first Emerging church called NOS (Nine O’clock Service) which is little more than “the most exciting club in the U.K., for Christians or non-Christians. The Holy Spirit was there. It was amazing dance culture, it was creation spirituality, and it was a gritty urban expression of church” (pg. 85).
[7] Doug Pagitt, Preaching Re-Imagined: The Role of the Sermon in Communities of Faith, pg. 52.
[8] Ibid., pgs. 18-19.
[#] Check this link out for a great insight from Todd Friel on his radio program revealing some interesting things about Doug Pagitt as he apologizes for John MacArthur’s view on yoga. The ECM anthem is great too(4:44 of the file)!