THE WAVE IS HERE

I have been a Christian for over 25 years. I have seen a number of waves come and go. The present wave is the Emerging Church which is different from the past waves. It seems to be gathering momentum as more and more get on board. Will it sweep the world?

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About 25 years ago, not long after I had become a Christian, I was visiting with an elderly gentleman who had been a Christian for most of his life. We were discussing the current wave sweeping Christianity at that time. A portion of the fellowship we belonged to was being swept into the Toronto Blessing wave that was the reintroduction of the Latter Rain wave that took place in the late 1940’s.

I will never forget the words this man used to describe what was happening to the body of Christ. “Satan’s plan to deceive the world impacts the church like waves crashing against the shore,” he said. “As we get closer and closer to the return of Christ waves of deception will be more frequent and influence more and more people,” he continued.

Then he shared this statement that is still etched into my mind. “There is a wave that is coming before Jesus returns that will sweep the world,” he said. But before this final wave of apostasy hits there will be other significant waves preparing the way for the final wave.”

Twenty-five years have passed and this man’s words have proven to be prophetic and true. The waves currently breaking are preparing the church for the Last Days apostasy that Jesus and Paul foretold. The Emerging Church, I believe, is one of the preparatory waves.

Leonard Sweet, author of Soul Tsunami strongly supports the idea that a major spiritual awakening is just ahead and that we are currently experiencing a wave that will change the world. As he stated in his book:

God is birthing the greatest spiritual awakening in the history of the church. God is calling you to midwife the birth. Are you going to show up? [1]

According to Sweet, the “spiritual awakening” is a wave that is impacting the postmodern generation and is characterized by a hunger for experience. He wrote:

A spiritual tsunami has hit postmodern culture. This wave will build without breaking for decades to come. The wave is this: People want to know God. They want less to know about religion than to know God. People want to experience the “Beyond” in the “Within.” Postmoderns want something more than new products; they want new experiences, especially new experiences of the divine. [2]

Numerous books published in the Emergent category have been endorsed by Sweet. He is looked upon as a major leader in the promotion of the Emergent Church. In 1991, he wrote a book titled Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic. A statement he made on page 69 of this book is a good summation of his view of what he believes the Christian faith will become in the future: 

Faith is not simply intellectual understanding, or an act of human intention, or following some “how-to” salvation manual, or ascent to creedal formulations. Faith is not a matter of doing or even being, but an experience of becoming. Experiencing is faith’s most fundamental activity. [3]  

As we will see, “experience” alone is becoming the foundation for the Emerging Church.

I am Roger Oakland. This has been a biblical perspective to help understand the times.

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