Emerging Church

Back in 2003 I was preaching in Redhill and Seaford (in the UK), using an article by Andrew Walls as my starting point:

- Did a Gentile need to become a Jew to become a Christian? No!
- Did a Barbarian need to become a Greek to become a Christian? No!
- Does an African need to become a Brit to become a Christian? No!
- Does a Tatar need to become a Russian to become a Christian? No!
- Does a post-modern hip-hop rocker need to become respectable and middle-class to become a Christian? You what mate!

In an article in Christianity (March 2004) Laurence Singlehurst writes that we need to think about reaching Britain as a missionary might think. Well, since I am a misionary I can think in that way. In fact, one of my main activities is encouraging peoples to express their faith using the forms of the culture God has given them. God created a beautiful diversity of languages and cultures - each one a vehicle of his praise and worship. Nothing gives me greater joy than to see a people using their own language and their own culture to worship God and to get to know him better.

If we don't contextualise the Gospel, the Gospel will never take root in that culture and amongst that people. It will always remain the religion of the foreigner, the outsider.

What's this got to do with Emerging Church? Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that what "emerging church" is doing is expressing the Gospel in contemporary post-modern western culture. And this is as different from the Gospel contextualised in 1960s modern culture as Celtic monks were different from the early Greek Church Fathers. Same Gospel. Same faith. But wrapped up in a different culture.

Michael