Last night Alex invited me to go with him to a forum on the Emergent Church @ Rancho Community Church. I was initially hesitant about going to this forum because I thought it would be very one sided and that it would just be an emergent church bashing. To my surprise it was very informative and respectfully done.
The first part of the forum was a powerpoint presentation on the basic beliefs of the "Emergent Conversation". It listed the good things that they do as well as the dangers that present themselves. I felt that the time frame given to study the Emergent Conversation wasn't given justice. To wrap up a synopsis of the movement in about 20 min can be dangerous. I understand the time constraints but still. I felt that with every arguement of what was dangerous, it was always compared to truth. Well what truth are specifically talking about? It was kind of lazy. Not everything that the emerging churches do or believe or are seeking is an attack on truth. For the second part of the forum it was open to questions and discussions. I didn't feel like there were any profound questions, just reservations about if their church was headed that way. Given the people that were there are predominantly uber conservative, there was still a large sense of ignorance. But I walked away with a tremendous respect for the leadership at Rancho. Although I did not completely agree with everything that was said, generalities being presented but all in all it was well rounded.
My fear (not spurred from this forum) that as we seek to inform ourselves of other practices of Christianity, we will only use such information to load our arsenal and point out why everyone else is wrong. Where's the love?
Feel free to comment on your thoughts of the emergent church.
