Emergence

I stumbled across an interview with Ed Stetzer today that was conducted by Preaching Magazine. It was about his new book called "Lost and Found" which is about reaching the younger unchurched--something that we have seen organically happen at Emergence.

There were some great thoughts in the interview.

Here's one that struck me:

Preaching Magazine: That's the caricature that some older, traditional evangelical pastors have of the young pastors: that what they're doing is Christianity-lite, topical preaching and so on. Yet what I'm finding as I talk to many of these younger pastors is the opposite. They are intensely biblical; whereas many traditional churches are doing a 20- or 25-minute expository sermon, these guys are doing 40, 45 minutes and more in intensive exposition of Scripture. So, it seems to me the trend seems to be moving not toward exposition in the traditional, classic sense that we have thought about it in recent years, but very much in terms of taking the Word of God, opening it up and applying it to people's lives.

Stetzer: Robert Webber, who died recently, offered some helpful categories. You used one of them: traditional evangelicals. In my denomination, that's probably the leadership right now and in many seminaries. For them, as far as preaching goes, that's going to be much more of a working through the text, verse-by-verse, bring in a lot of linguistic tools. That sort of thing.

Following that, Webber talks about the pragmatic evangelicals. Think in terms of the WillowBack world, my own little made-up word. The idea is that it's much more practical; some might use the word felt-need preaching; but what we've seen is that even many of the churches that became known for that don't do that anymore or do that to a lesser degree.

Webber talks about this emerging generation that he calls the younger evangelicals. Well, I don't know if we can use that term forever because they're not always going to be that young; but there's a desire to do preaching that is more text-engaging. I preached in November for a pastor friend of mine, Mark Driscoll; and I'm thinking, "I've got to bring an hour of in-depth biblical text." I don't preach an hour. When I preach, I'm a 40-minute preacher; but this church, one of the fastest growing churches in America, is led by a pastor who preaches every week for an hour, working through the text.

So I think it's a misnomer to say that emerging generations are not seriously wanting to engage in the Scripture. I find the opposite. My friends--these young pastors with whom I work with--they're very much engaged in it, and to the point where I'm looking at it and saying, "Man, I've got to step up for an hour to bring that."

I could not agree more--in the emerging generations, what has become clear is that they are hungry to search the Scriptures, and then decide if they believe it.

People ask Ryan and I all the time: what makes Emergence different? What "style" church are you? While they are looking for an easy answer, like "we turn up the volume and play rock music", the only answer we can give them normally shocks them: we teach through the Scripture. It isn't watered down. It isn't nicely wrapped with a bow. We don't do production well. What we do is open up the Bible and spend time diving deep.

Some people started coming to Emergence because they like the music. Some started coming because it was in a different kind of atmosphere. While those reasons may help someone find their way to our little community, it certainly doesn't keep people there. People keep coming back--they make it their home--because we teach the Bible with nothing held back.

I think the emerging generations are on to something--and I hope it stays that way. It is contagious. That same hunger for truth has caught on without regard to age or life stage--and frankly, I'm pretty pumped about it.

Merry Christmas.