Remembering Our Future: Part Two

As we continued reading the essays contained in Remembering Our Future: Explorations in Deep Church many new insights have been presented. I continue to filter and process these insights in my mind and my passion for the church, the Body of Christ, continues to flourish.

Chapter 2, Beyond Emerging Church, by Luke Bretherton explores the striking similarities between the Emerging Church (EC) and the Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement (PCM) and presents a vision for deep church that is concerned with bringing “certain theological and ecclesial cadencies to the fore” (p.29).
Bretherton defines the EC as:

• transnational: exceeding national frontiers in the political/cultural arena
• glocal: a horizon that surpasses nationality/region and the local has global value
• subcultural religious community: its norms/values are in response to or opposition against the wider, conventional culture

The similarities in the EC and the PCM that Bretherton highlights speak to the following:
• An anti-instituional style: Kingdom of God over/above the church
• openness to more “secular” and non-Christian forms of communication, such as satellite television, internet and most of all the consumer mentality

Bretherton moves on to suggest that these similarities are not negative, in and off themselves, but he stresses that moving to do deep church will mean making more of a connection between what Christ and the Spirit are working through in our current context and that which has shaped the historical life of the church.

Chapter 7, God’s Transforming Presence: Spirit Empowered Worship and its Mediation, by Ian Stackhouse deeply resonated with my church experience. Stackhouse’s thesis is that the immediacy of ecstatic Spirit-led worship experiences, familiar to Charismatic/Evangelical circles, has led to less of a focus in the power of Scripture and the sacraments passed down through tradition. This focus on the immediacy of the Spirit and the existential reaction to formalism can create an individualized prescription for energetic worship and participation is relegated to simply just showing up in church. Stackhouse also argues that what is at stake in these immediate experiences is the full Trinitarian fellowship and the power of the Spirit through the word/preaching, prayer, communion and baptism.

Chapter 10, Mundane Holiness: The Theology and Spirituality of Everyday Life, by Luke Bretherton is a powerful depiction of encountering Christ in our everyday, ordinary circumstances. Bretherton writes that our connection to the Creator is found in the patterns set before us in our everyday lives. The shape of spirituality in a Christian’s life is determined by the renewing of our lives to become “truly human” as Jesus was. We are empowered, by the Spirit, to live Christ-like lives in this fully broken world and encounter real power in ordinary situations. It is when we learn to become truly human, like Jesus, that we find a pattern for spirituality, in this world, that aligns itself with our Creator.

In regard to Stackhouse’s essay, concerning the immediacy of the Spirit, I see one issue that presents itself (which Stackhouse highlights as well). In my experience, charismatic worship and supernatural demonstrations of the Spirit have become all too legalistic in their own sense. As Stackhouse notes, this immediacy has been thought of as a counteractive approach to dead and boring institutional traditions (i.e. the sacraments). In an effort to become more “spiritual” and more “spirit-led” these charismatic movements have hindered the power found in more communal practices. This immediacy becomes a quick fix and people simply come in search of a “touch of the Spirit.” The whole issue of legalism and dead religion comes back around, as these movements have become their own religions and follow their own legalistic prescriptions. How do we address this? How does one find the balance? How does one emphasize the importance of the sacraments without de-emphasizing the power of the Spirit of God. It seems to me that one cannot simply walk into a church and “fix” this. How do we recapture the essence of the Scripture, the powerful word of God and let the Spirit of God continue to manifest itself?

All of these issues drive my passion for the Church and the mission for the body of Christ.
“The faithful performance of the Christian faith requires attention to both the inherited patterns of church life as well as the wider context of which that church life is a part.”
--Luke Bretherton