Learning from the Emerging Church: being community

Another corrective offered to the inherited, established churches by the Emerging Church movement is their emphasis on community and relationship. We in the church are too quick to judge others, to fall out, and to hold back from genuine openness with one another.

In 1991, David Bosch wrote these words: “The ‘me’ generation has to be superseded by the ‘us’ generation … Here lies the pertinence of the rediscovery of the church as Body of Christ and of the Christian mission as building a community of those who share a common destiny” (Bosch, Transforming Mission, p.362). Emerging Church groups agree: “Jesus was not a church planter. He created communities that embodied the Torah, that reflected the kingdom of God in their entire way of life. He asked His followers to do the same” (Gibbs & Bolger, Emerging Churches, p.61). And: “The term church (Greek ekklesia) is more a verb than a noun. It refers to the calling out of a people … The modern church has identified too closely with the centralised temple worship of the Jerusalem church rather than with the household basis of the Pauline model of church … a first- century Christian would have been puzzled by the question. ‘Where do you go to church?’ for church was a network of people to which one belonged. It was not a once- or twice-a-week association but rather a community of continuous interaction …” (Gibbs & Bolger, Emerging Churches, p.100).

So, those in the emerging church are convinced that church should operate not as institution but as family:
“Families consist of relationships that are not based on choice. Individuals typically do not choose their families and are connected to them whether they like it or not. One does not choose when to be a family member. People are part of a family when they are asleep, when they are at school, or when they are with friends. In addition, people do not even need to like their families. They are with them when the feelings are there or not. Whether a family meets one’s needs is rarely considered.
If a church begins to look like a family, then all its institutional practices will undergo change. Church as family is primarily about relationships. It is not about meetings, events or structures … People are part of [the] kingdom community even if they don’t get their needs met and often whether they feel like it or not” (Gibbs & Bolger, Emerging Churches, p.97).

Local Ecumenical Partnerships (LEPs) like Trinity Church, Rawdon, have long realised that true Christian community is about respecting and learning from one another, acknowledging the brokenness of our church communities, and seeking reconciliation in diversity. However, despite this undergirding of all they do, many LEPs still have much to learn from the emerging churches in terms of the practice of a community committed in relationship above all else. Because we will most “resemble the kingdom when [we] contain many differing perspectives yet remain committed in relationship” (Gibbs & Bolger, Emerging Churches, p.122).