Flat Earth: Many Bumps Pt. 1

This is Part 1 of what will probably end up 4 parts.

I have been thinking a lot about the global nature of some of the emerging church conversation. Dave and I have been going back and forth on whether this is truly a global conversation, or whether it’s an anomaly to the white suburban church. This is particularly important to me because of the global nature of our Nazarene church, the global nature of my growing worldview, and the global nature, I believe, of the gospel.

The Disconnect

The disconnect lies in the many, many conversations that I’ve found myself involved with here in the U.S. They all seem to be full of educated, white males who are trying in some way to both deconstruct the church of their past or even their now and are trying to live into a church that they dream of. In and of itself this is not a bad thing. I truly do believe that it’s worth following the Scriptural mandate to “Test everything. Hold onto the good.” It’s simply Christian to test everything and keep testing everything.

In the process of thinking and testing many have come to the conclusion that the world is continuing to change, especially in this postmodern era, and that the church is failing at its missional core of asking missionary questions of the culture and the church and so there grows a disconnect between the culture and the church. Instead of embracing the models and methodology of the past (and perhaps ideology and theology as well), they are choosing instead to dream again of what God might want for the church to do and be in the context in which they find themselves. All of this is good stuff, generally speaking, because it is indeed testing everything and seeking to hold onto the good. It is an attempt to strip the methodology and models away and get back to the missionary questions that engage both the church and the culture in the gospel and the kingdom!

But if this truly is a conversation about re-imagining the present and the future asking these kinds of missionary questions, how come all of us in these conversations are educated, white, middle class guys?

1. I would theorize that there are a couple of options to this answer:1) This is truly only a conversation for those who can afford to have it. Meaning because we have financial resources to survive without the old we don’t mind kicking it around a bit, much the way a teenager kicks around the safest person they know (usually their parents) because they know somewhere deep inside that they may be the only people who would take it and keep on caring.
2. There are more people interested in the conversation, but they haven’t really been invited.
3. There are other people having the same kinds of conversation, but using different language and different avenues.
4. There are other people having the same kinds of conversation and we just haven’t really bumped into each other yet.
5. This is a conversation that has turned back into an issue of methodology and models which is the issue that always seems to push different people groups apart and never brings them together.