the real emerging church
May 1, 2007
…there really is another emerging church that people don’t talk about that much, and that is the church in the East.
It’s the real emerging church. I don’t think emerging church is the right word here in the West, I think it is deconstructing. And that’s not bad. The church always needs to be deconstructed in the sense that this is what it meant to our fathers, now what does it mean to me and what is it going to mean to my children and grandchildren?
The emerging church that I deal with the most is in Asia and Africa and that part of the world and it is truly an emerging church, where Christianity for the first time is exploding on that side of the world, like we haven’t seen here for millenniums or centuries.
China is the greatest church growth story the world has ever known. But here’s what’s different in the two churches: the church in the East, it’s not deconstructing, it’s constructing; it’s not frustrated and disillusioned, it’s excited and positive, it’s just a totally different response. It’s not old faith and vintage faith that’s being reinvigorated, it’s new faith with a tremendous amount of passion.
I think the whole dimension of what we’re going to see from the emergent church in the East is far more significant on us than the Western emergent church is going to be on the rest of the world. For the first time in the history of the church we’re going to be affected more by the East than us affect the East since the split between the Orthodox churches, I’m convinced of that.
-Bob Roberts, pastor of NorthWood church, author of Glocalization and Transformation, and blogger at The Glocal Trekker from the May 2007 edition of Church Executive magazine
How do you feel about this?
I think America evangelicalism needs to get ready for a real gut check. We in the West are so sure we understand the church, evangelism, missiology, etc. We have a glut of conferences, podcasts, magazines to this end. It almost reeks of egotism.
Will we humble ourselves to learn from someone who doesn’t live in the United States? Will we step outside of ourselves to hear from the glocal community?
Just last week I was eating in a Thai restaurant and one table over from me was a group of eight young, 2nd and 3rd-generation Asian-American seminary students. I admit, I eavesdropped on much of their conversation which centered around ministry.
Here is my confession: I had to resist the urge to be skeptical of their dialogue. Why am I so cynical about their contribution to the American evangelical landscape. How pompous…
Tim Keller calls this ‘groupism.’ It is what happens when we compartmentalize the Gospel to apply only to certain groups.
Lord, create in me a clean heart that truly sees all people through your eyes and listens to all people with your ears.
Posted in Christianity, emerging church, evangelism, missiology, quotes of note, world issues
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May 1st, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Good thought; while there is a lot of spiritual activity in the 2/3 world, in places like Asia and Africa, those activities may not be directly applicable to the “1st” world of North America. I’ve yet to see a popular conference in the USA where non-American speakers dominate the majority of the keynotes and workshops to speak about Christian leadership. In a free-market economy that is driven by what the “customer” wants, American pastors must be apparently voting with their dollars and wanting to hear from American Christian leaders rather than non-American leaders.
May 1st, 2007 at 4:59 pm
wow dj, thx for coming by. i follow your blog regularly…
i’d be interested in continuing this dialogue with you.
first, why do you think there may be little applicability of what is happening in 2/3 of the world? what is roberts talking about then?
May 1st, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Not hard to understand - we don’t think they know anything that will really help us. They had to learn English - we’ll have to learn Chinglish. We fill up buildings - they fill up lives with Jesus. They get what we want - it’s too hard - we’d have to pray and really know God.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I would also suspect that denominationalism plays a part in this. If people are not part of one’s tradition, such as reformed, baptist, methodist, what have you, how can one assume they are “orthodox” enough to listen to? As long as Western Christians only listen to and congregate with those that are the most similar to them, we will miss out, not only on the rest of our brothers and sisters, but also what they can teach us.
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
i don’t know henry…
i’m seeing alot more transdenominational cooperation than i did when i was growing up. some call it ecumenism but i prefer the aforementioned phrase…
i probably plays a part. but when it comes to listening to the East about the church movement, their stories almost transcend denomination.
they are in a pre-christian era. we need to listen to them…
May 4th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Great topic of discussion here. Thanks for posting the excerpt Brad.
I want to bring up a point not mentioned yet: the Bible. Whenever a new wave of faith seems to be swelling, it is important to always ask whether those involved possess a biblical faith. In the case of the church in the second and third world, God is obviously pouring out grace in the building up of many. That does not mean, though, that all others ought stand clear and in complete silence.
If the church in the west abandons the grace God has given to it, it will only become a disservice to the growing church of the east. How might it do this? By allowing a romantic view of miraculous faith to be, by way of entertainment, more appealing than orthodoxy, more fun than the Bible.
The Bible has seen more liberty in the English language than any other. It was in Latin for a thousand years, but without any freedom. Now, after five hundred years in english, three hundred in relative freedom, the english (western) church has great scriptural wealth to share. This is the grace God has given to us.
The Christian churches of the west and the east are both called to serve each other, not just one to the other. The church of the west, as I have said, has the Bible in freedom. The church of the east has suffering. We both need to learn from each other.
May 4th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
[...] It was an honor to have Bob - I feel like I can call him Bob now - comment on my entry in which I responded to a great quote from him on ‘the real emerging church.’ Particularly, it seemed he was responding to my question, “Why am I so cynical about their [other ethnicities] contribution to the American evangelical landscape?” [...]