Emerging Ads

I enjoyed this definition of "emerging":



-Derek

First Day in PM 843 at Multnomah

On Monday, I started the class at Multnomah on Missional Churches. The instructor is Roger Trautman and there are 10 other students in the class -- many of who are working toward working on some form of the emerging church.

After dispensing of some of the introductory things like class requirements, we discussed the meaning of "emerging church". Here's a sample of some of the notable thoughts:

"Churches need to redefine themselves every 5-7 years," Mike
Perhaps every church ought to re-emerge regularly.

"Ecclectic is the emerging church," Halden
There are many definitions to the emerging church.

Jody also offered a comment that I didn't get the full quote on, but his point was that the emerging church is mostly about living like Jesus did in terms of serving others.

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Dr. Trautman offered these two notable items:

1. It's really the re-emergent church. Church historians liken the current movement to other movements of the past such as Luther and Wesley. These were times when people did things differently -- and they changed our churches for centuries.

2. The missional/emergent church represents a shift in truth-finding from primarily a study-oriented church experience to a service-oriented societal experience.

This point #2 is what I've been thinking about for a long time. Here's a great source on this thought:
- Rob Bell did a Catalyst Podcast a year ago on how his church is serving the city of Grand Rapids: http://www.catalystspace.com/src/07-Rob_Bell_Podcast_Part2.mp3

-Derek

Sanctus and Crossroads

Yesterday, we went to Laurel Church's new "emerging" service called Sanctus which is very "dark and edgy." This was their "Sample Service" for the launch on September 9th.

Laurel (where I had once been the youth pastor), is a 115 year old church with a rich heritage and many multi-generational families that have attended for decades. They are starting a new two service format: Crossroads, a mix service for more traditional folks that will feature hymns and choruses done with a small band and Sanctus, which is very contemporary and will have primary appeal to 20's/30's and teens.

The worship leader at Sanctus, Cami, is obviously extraordinarily gifted as a worship leader -- she's musically solid, and very warm, energetic and get's people involved. The band was awesome too -- it didn't seem like a brand new service. I would have thought they had done this for a long time.

There were a lot of new songs that I didn't know. Some were from a band called "Pocket Full of Rocks". I bought the CD -- I'll let you know.

It's interesting to me (but refreshing) that Laurel would do two services soooo different rather than traditional (hymns, organ, etc) and contemporary (adult contemporary style). Instead, they have a service with the mix and one that is very young adult in focus. It will be interesting to see where this goes over the next several months.

-Derek