There seems to be a ground roots movement across the world today called the emerging church. As I look at various emerging churches as they spring up there is incredible variety in what they are looking like.
There are some that have a worship style that sings Passion stuff, there are the Hillsong churches, those that use mostly Vineyard worship, some that are totally alternative worship. You have groups that are house churches, others that are church plants meeting in shopping centers, strip malls, schools, or local bars. The types of meetings vary. Some look like traditional churches in format, others wouldn't be caught dead meeting on a Sunday. Polity varies, how they started varies. This is a very eclectic group of people.
I see one thing that is common among the mixture. People today are hungry for spiritual things and are not finding what they are looking for in the churches of today.
With all the variety in the emerging church how do we resonance find our way as we "emerge" onto the scene. Here are some things we could do:
1. We could come up with an elaborate marketing plan to sweep the city and let them
know that Resonance is one cool church and they should come check us out.
2. We could look at the emerging churches we think are doing community in a way that
appeals to us and pattern ourselves after them.
3. We could decide to do everything different from anything we've every seen or
experienced because we want to be different.
Here is what we are hearing from God and believe He is saying to us as we get ready to emerge as a community of Christ followers.
As we have begun to dialogue (an essential part of the community) about what do we do as resonance, we have come to this conclusion. Lets look at Jesus and see what He did. Lets ask the questions of how did he emerge in ministry. How did he live his life? What was He about as He emerged into the world? So our pattern will be Jesus. I know that can sound hyper spiritual. It can sound like buzz lightyear in Toy Story (with big booming voice) "We will follow Jesus pattern." We really don't think this is anything profound and realize probably most everyone would agree with us that Jesus pattern is the direction they are going.
So a couple of things have come up as we have just begun this dialogue within our small community.
. Lets ask like Jesus did "What is the Father saying?" and then lets get in on what the
Father is saying and doing.
. Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God and fulfilling what he taught through His
works. So we know we want the words and works of the kingdom of God to be part of
our journey.
. And recognizing this is a journey. It is not a bunch a events. It is a journey of group of
people who are being the church by a lifestyle of words and works that extend the
kingdom.
Well these are some of the initial thoughts. We met for the second time last night with four adults and two kids. As one friend who is a church planter recently reminded me "Don't forget to enjoy the journey". It is cool serving God, not always easy, but really cool.
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