I'm tired of Emerging....

I recently got in touch with an old friend, Larry Wilson, a writer I've known for 15 years. He and his new wife, Susan Isaacs both have great blogs. Larry writes a lot about the emerging church, and he and Susan recently wrote about an emerging church they attended in L.A. where they live. I love their passion and honesty.

I'm fascinated by the emerging church and post-modern discussion. I've read all of Brian McLaren's books. I've visited churches that call themselves "emerging". My friends and I have discussed post-modernity and the church for hours and hours. I've even read a "Derrida for dummies" book to get a snapshot of the French philosopher who started the whole idea of deconstructionism and postmodernity.

I'm encouraged that there's a discussion going on in the evangelical community to address "how we do church" in light of a shifting way of seeing truth.

The problem is: I'm tired of emerging. I've been doing it for a long time. Way back in the early 90's, I met this guy named Dave Fitch. He went to this church I was attending and invited me to a Bible study/gathering with some people. I was new to Chicago, working at Moody magazine, and trying to find myself and figure out my faith. The motley group of Christians who went to this Bible study became My Tribe. Dave was the sort-of, reluctant leader, who was getting a PhD at Garrett Theological Seminary. He started talking about postmodernity. About the church. About a new way of seeing. He changed my life--and my faith. Thanks to him and My Tribe, my faith came alive. It was scary having the foundations of my faith shaken. To have someone question the way I was reading scripture. For a while I didn't know what I believed. But then I realized that God is much bigger than our human philosophies and ponderings. And that we had been putting him in a modernistic box. The picture of God I had grown up with was framed in a 2 inch square frame. We had him all figured out. It made us feel good to understand him, to have him framed and hanging on the wall so we could just look up and admire him. The problem was, it made God so small our faith shriveled.

Well, My Tribe tried to start a church in the mid-90s. It was called Metanoia and I guess you could say it was an emerging church. We tried to figure out how to do church in a new way. It worked for a while. Some great things come from that little gathering. We grew as Christians. We discovered new, more meaningful ways to worship. We became a community with ties that, to this day, cannot be broken because we experienced God in a way that was so powerful we will never forget. But like most emerging things, there were struggles and growing pains and then some of our members got called to other places, and at one point we decided to fold up the chairs and move on.

So I went back to my old "modern" church until I couldn't take it anymore. For a few years I attended a smaller church filled with hip, young 20-somethings who called themselved "emerging". They lit candles, had cool haircuts, provided a space where you could paint or write poetry during worship, shunned the overly-produced worship bands in favor of a just a guy with a guitar, and were reaching out to the community through service projects. For a while it was refreshing and I was worshipping and meeting God there. It wasn't all bad. But then came the sermons. The verse, by verse, by verse, by verse Expository Preaching kind of sermons. I swear, this should be a new form of torture. Forget water-boarding....just expose the terrorists to a Sunday Morning Expository Preaching and they'll spill all of their secrets after an hour. I realized that this wasn't really a Postmodern, emerging church. It was just a Modern church dressed in Postmodern clothes from Urban Outfitters.

Then I got married to David McCracken and he and I tried to find a church together. I took him to the Urban Outfitters church, which he promptly renamed the "Hangin' Out With God" church after one of the pastors told us we were just going to "hang out with God". We decided it wasn't the place for us. Plus, it made us feel really old. So we looked for a new church, and after a few months decided to try out a Catholic church we'd been hearing about. It's not a typical Catholic church. Friends from my old church call it the "evangelical Catholic church". The minute we stepped into the building, we were smitten. The building is the oldest public building in Chicago, built by Irish immigrants. The intricate, beautifully painted designs on the ceiling, the stained glass windows, the marble floors, the robes, the liturgy, the communion....where we all say in unison, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but just say the word and I shall be healed." I love it all. And I'm so relieved to have stepped out of the turmoil of figuring out "how to do church." At least for now. (Although I think returning to the "ancient" forms of worship is part of the emerging movement....so maybe I'm still emerging after all. Isn't there a book called Ancient-Future Faith?)

Brian McLaren says that during this transition time from Modernity -- into who knows what -- the church will probably take around 100 years to make the transition. To find its way. To figure out a new way of doing things to address the needs of a postmodern world. To shake off all of the pictures of God in 2-inch picture frames. So I guess that means I won't be around when the church finally settles into a postmodern stride. I just know that I need a break from emerging, because emerging is painful and takes a lot of energy. I don't want to keep figuring out "how to do church." I just want to "do church." To worship God. To experience him at a deeper level.

So I'll be lingering on the fringes, reading books, browsing blogs, keeping up-to-date on the latest emerging trends. But on Sundays I'll be headed to the Catholic Church to hear the scripture readings, reciting the Nicene Creed, and taking communion. And hopefully meeting God there.