Post-Emergent Church Movement

Recently I've spending a lot of time thinking about the church. I've been to community churches, independent, southern baptist, Pentecostal, and especially dead ones. They all have their issues, whether it's leadership or doctrine, they all do have major issues.

Today I was reading online about this movement called the Post-Emergent Church Movement. Here read for yourself: http://crosebrough.typepad.com/postemergent/about_postemergent/index.html

I've spent a lot of time recently in churches that are not emergent, and I'd say that I like emergent much better. The worship is real and they definitely show God's love. The problem is that they don't go deep. They have very surface level theology, and honestly I hate that. This is where the Post-Emergent comes in.

The Post-Emergent is a movement where you take the authenticity of the people in the emergent church and returns to the authority of the Bible and where it stands. Many churches, especially that reject the emergent, do things because they've always done them. The problem with this is they are fake. People do stuff they don't know about and no one is real. This is evident because they live out of boxes. When they're at work they act one way, when at church another way, and even at Wal-mart they act a whole different way. When did Jesus call us to be Christians only at church? He didn't and I hope that churches that are this fake will wake up before they completely die and leave the area they are in without a light.

A few things that i hope die with this Post-Emergent Church Movement is the emergent church's way of arguing over things that really have no answer, and the decision that tolerance is the best way to reach people.
Why argue? I don't understand why argue about something until you come to the point where neither of you want to talk to each other anymore. Why can't we agree to disagree and agree that we both have valid points that we both don't agree with.
What's up with Tolerance? Ok, I agree that we should listen to other people's opinions, I'm saying that when it comes to what Christ said we shouldn't be tolerant. Jesus was very hard on sin, not the sinner. I can be very honest with someone about their sin, and still show them love. Let's return to that sort of stuff.

I can definitely see the pros and cons of this movement. Only time will tell if this movement will catch on. I believe that it will. I believe it will because a few words are key: Authenticity, Transparency, Love, Honesty, Trust, and most importantly Christ. These are things that define a person's life, a Community's atmosphere, a generation's impact, so why shouldn't they be things that signify a church?

It's gonna be awesome if this becomes a movement that produces churches that reflect these 6 things evenly. And, above that, that the people of these churches create in their own lives these 6 things for everyone to see. No boxes just open space.

God Rocks,
Josh

Now where do we go?

The question that I sit here thinking now is where do we go? Where exactly do I go from here. Since this whole situation of ... stuff started I've asked God many times "why aren't you doing anything", and "what's next." Since I first posted the entry to get the truth out, I've had people I didn't even know cared actually send me message after message about how they've seen God in me and it was the churches loss to lose someone like me. For those of you who have been sending me these message I thank you and want you to know that you've helped me a lot. It has been an honor serving you.

Something that I have been thinking about a lot lately is this. I think God brought me back here to learn from this situation, but most of all for Matt and Bailey. That friendship and counsel has greatly affected me and I thank God for all the time I had with them.

So now where do we go? Well God's calling has never changed and what God wants me to do has never changed. I must forgive those that have hurt me, and move on. This might sound rather unsympathetic, but it's not my call. I will continue to minister the people of WYBC and especially the students who have found my love. My heart for them hasn't changed just because I'm not allowed to minister to them at the church.

I have a call from God and a vision from God. I've been taught on how to be a student pastor and that plays into my vision. So now all I have to do is find the church that God wants me to be at. I'll be much more cautious about people's answers this time, but doesn't mean I don't keep up the ministry. Maybe this time I'll put my ambitions on paper so there isn't any questions on what I intend to do with God's generation of students.

Keep praying for me...I need all the help I can get
God Rocks,
Josh

Ministry...in a church?

In most churches that I've been, a ministry is kind of like an accessory. They seem to work like this. There's 2 kinds of churches: a wave church and a tree church.

I call them the wave Church and here's how a wave works. Waves start out small and builds as things get added (like ministries). The wave gets bigger and bigger, and the whole time the whole wave is working towards a goal. This goal is written and some that's not written. The written ones often apply to reaching their community or being well known in their area for something. The unwritten goals are things like, to have this number of people by the end of the year, and even things like making the people who brings in the money happy. So there are good things about this wave church. They don't usually have unnecessary ministries and are very specific on who they want to reach. The problem is the wave church is all going one direction. True they stay on direction, but they also are afraid to stretch out. They are very good at reaching one person, but miss everyone else. They also can't use anything that they haven't done before. In other words, it's not with the direction of the church.

The 2nd church is one I've called the tree Church. Here's how a tree church works. A tree grows by giving it substance, growing out branches, and constant pruning. In a tree church the tree grows. The trunk is the tree, it's the people. In a tree, the trunk doesn't change, but the branches go out from it. The branches are ministries, ways to meet peoples needs, and ways to reach people. This is one major way that a tree and a wave are different. Where a wave all works in one way, a tree works in multiple ways. The tree spreads out, covers a lot of different things, but still works for the same purpose. They all work toward the sun, and they also work to nourish whole tree. They reach many people, but it may look to some people like all the branches are not working toward the same purpose. It's up to those people in those branches to educate those on the outside. The tree church tries things new, and doesn't hold a whole lot of honor for tradition. A thing that most people don't understand about the tree is that pruning is necessary. If things don't work they get cut back. Even if an event or some program seems popular, but doesn't meet the purposes it's cut. Everything has a purpose.

There are 2 types of churches: wave vs tree. I've been in both kinds of churches. The wave works well for most older people, but ignores relevancy. They say "we do it this way because we've always done it that way." The tree church is for 30 somethings or younger. This group has the stigma of changing just for the point of change. They are very relevant, but also ignores some of the harder things from Christ in order to keep a relationship.

Neither are perfect, but both are used today...now it's up to you to decide which you should serve in. Jtw