This business of Kingdom living is about "now" Jesus says. It's about choices, every step we make. Transparency takes time for hope and trust to develop. This means time together, not time in meetings conferences and an endless parade of futurists books to read. We need to choose what we will do with our waking hours.. Quite frankly I see little time left for those authors and conference speakers to practice and/or prepare now for what they "see"on the horizon. It takes time & proximity in order to listen and to hear one another's struggles.
And consequently we see little"Shalom" or peaceful wholeness developing, rather continuous strife and confusion, blaming it on the devil. It's not a new thing for believers to allow God's Spirit to pour forth from within touching encounters that God gives us with neighbors, fellow sojourners, the hurting and healthy.
I don't really think anyone has a clue what the "emergent church" will look like . I don't expect it to look like an image seen from one's personal vantage point based upon projections tabulated by pollsters and futurists. We do know what it means to live and experience being "simply church" in context with the normative pattern Christ and the early Christ followers model in Scripture. Beyond that I suspect like one writer said to me recently,"It seems anything with emergent attached helps sales". Publishers won't accept his copy without a well known emergent futurist speaker's writing the introduction, based upon what will boost sales.
Our friend Eugene Peterson is right when he speaks of the polluting effect of sales talk in advancing God's Kingdom. I'm old enough to remember the "God is Dead" front cover of Newsweek in the late 60's forecasting the death of the Church. Bishop Pike was interviewed extensively on network news proclaiming God's death. No one forecasted the immediate Jesus People explosion which had Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel on the cover in the pacific ocean baptizing hundreds, or Ruth Carter Stapleton (Jimmy Carter's sister) being interviewed by networks in regards to her role in inner healing and the unforecasted charismatic renewal a few years later. No one knew what God would do then, and I think it's safe to say the same today.
Whatever the Church will look like that our kids and grandkids will worship with will probably look different outwardly but at it's core will have this same DNA of our forefathers, as found in the early Church. Yes, it will be a new generation with somewhat different language and dress, adapted to minister life to a somewhat different culture. But it will have the same "head", and as a "body" will be equipped with the appropriate gifts such as to communicate the Gospel. But thank God we don't have to try and figure it out! All we are called to do is be faithful, be filled daily with His Spirit, and trust and obey.
Isaiah 26:3 (KJV) speaks to this saying; "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed onthee: because he trusteth in thee." Or as the Message phrases it: "People with their minds set on you, you keep completely whole, Steady on their feet, because they keep at it and don't quit." This from the God that owns tomorrow and grants us strength & mercy for Today---Perfect Peace here is that "shalom" that speaks of transformation, health & a sound mind promised by God to us as we keep our minds and hearts focused on the now of today. .",
posted by Harold Behr at Simple Church Blog.
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