Wednesday, March 10
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Emerging Church & Spiritual Formation
Was talking with a friend over lunch today, and I got an interesting question: is the spiritual formation movement tied to the emerging church movement? His reasoning behind the question was that many of the people that he knew were interested in spiritual formation were attending or at least tied to emerging churches or church with emergent tendencies in some way. My kneejerk reaction was to separate the two right off the bat. While the emerging church is something that seems to be a product of contemporary culture in my opinion (How many emerging church attendees did I just offend? Please raise your hands), true spiritual formation is just a trendy name for the process of sanctification, which has been examined and practiced for millenia. Yes, there certainly is bad spiritual formation that is born out of the current culture, but there's a real root to it in sanctification and ancient moral theology that is not the shallow or formulaic stuff some are wont to play with.
It just got me wondering if this is not an isolated incident. The emerging church movement began not long after the spiritual formation movement, and as both tend to look towards historical practices and ideas, they could get mixed together easily in one's mind. It may even be that both were born out of similar if not the same circumstances of dissatisfaction with church and Western Protestant Christianity as a whole. How many people out there have blurred the two together in their minds, and does this do damage to spiritual formation? It seems like something to bear in mind and consider when talking about or introducing either one
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Comments
IMO, the emerging church
IMO, the emerging church describes an era.. leaving behind all that seemed unhelpful in the modern era, looking back as far as possible to recover all that may have been lost over time, and carefully bringing forward the best that modern Christianity has to offer. The emerging church describes more a time and a conversation... and everyone I've ever talked to who is conversing and working through "what emerging means" is also convinced that something they can't name is coming.
And spiritual formation is the same thing Jesus did with the disciples, and countless others have done in countless ways for two millennia.
Emergent is a hinge that connects what was with what will be, whereas spiritual formation is part of the core of what it means to follow Christ. The term "discipleship" became watered down to a devotional and some Bible verses... and "sanctification" started looking more like a destination than a journey... and so the term "spiritual formation" has the benefit of carry on baggage... we know it to be the holistic process through which we are formed to be like Christ.
But call it what you will, spiritual formation results in transformation. When it becomes an intellectual exercise, we'd best look for a new term. When spiritual formation can be accomplished in twelve months, and we get a gold star when we're done the steps... when spiritual formation ceases to be a lifelong iterative process, it will have become emasculated like the terms sanctification and discipleship. May they be resurrected in the process of spiritual formation.
-vern-
Many of the people I know
Many of the people I know associated with the emerging church are long-time Christians who have, for one reason or another, got fed up with the contemporary church. The contemporary church, esp. those with numbers in the hundreds or thousands, tends to do a poor job with spiritual formation. This is natural, since there is no way to program thousands of different paths to God, even though the intended destination, Christlikeness, is the same. So the contemporary church throws out blanket statements (read your Bible, pray) that all followers should be doing but rarely addresses the specifics of what an individual should be doing as far as sanctification is concerned.
The emerging church can do a better job at sanctification because the numbers are, in general, more manageable so that paths may be drawn that are more specific to the individual worshipper. Also, the focus of the emerging church isn't really on the seeker or even the new believer, but more on the seasoned Christian. Therefore, gatherings need not be regularly focused on making the newbies feel comfortable and teaching can be more meat and less milk.
I do not think the emerging church and spiritual formation are necessarily tied together. However, I see that by the basic makeup of the emerging church versus the contemporary church, that the emerging church is probably doing a better job in regards to spiritual formation than the contemporary church.
Two Different Movements
I tend to think of these as different movments with different objectives. The emerging church may be engaged in similar practices, but I am not sure if it is rooted in the specific task of seeking to understand or assist others in the discernment of their life with God. I have a friend who has studied this movement as a sociologist extensively and has not communicated to me an association between the two. However, I can see that there are features that might lead people to believe otherwise. For example, the importance of authenticity, the rediscovery of tradition and ritual, and the existential nature of their worship.
Existential nature of worship
I would agree that they are very different movements. I'm just noting that apparently at least one peson has them intertwined in his head, and I'm wondering if that's more prevalent than just the one guy.
Hey, for clarification's sake, I'm not sure I track with you on what you mean by existential nature of worship. Care to elaborate?
Elaboration
Concerning the intertwining of the movements, I only know of one person who has thought about both movements and does not seem to combine the two. I am not sure if there is a prevalence of combining the two beyond this.
To elaborate, I simply meant that for the emergent church there is a similarity in their openness to personal/spiritual experiences which help explore and understand how the Spirit is at work in their lives as opposed to just taking only Scripture theoretically or intellectually to understand through the means of preaching and study of God's word. All the senses are engaged in their services through the mood or context created by use of lighting, artwork, media, and music. This tends to open up the possiblity of what the Spirit might use in the worship service. However, I am aware that the discernment question of "what is God doing right now?" will be helpful for those to not only look to these additionally means within worship for a certain experience. For instance, how might they interpret a "dry or average" service?
I am aware this is a temptation for any type of church service, as well.