EXPERIENCE DRIVEN CHRISTIANITY

If I were asked to choose one word to describe the Emerging Church, it would be “experience.” Leonard Sweet, states this clearly: “It is one thing to talk about God. It is quite another thing to experience God.” So what kinds of experiences are being promoted as a means of introducing our generation to God?

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Dan Kimball is the author of The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations. Kimball founded a church called Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California. Kimball makes the following statement in the introduction of his book about the need for Christianity to change and the Emerging Church to provide the leadership for this change:

I believe with all my heart that this discussion about the fast-changing culture and the emerging church must take place. While many of us have been preparing sermons and keeping busy with the internal affairs of our churches, something alarming has been happening on the outside. What once was a Christian nation with a Judeo-Christian worldview is quickly becoming a post Christian, unchurched, unreached nation. New generations are arising all around us without any Christian influence. So we must rethink virtually everything we are doing in our ministries. [1]

It is a fact that the spiritual climate in North America has changed radically over the past number of years just as Dan Kimball has stated. Kimball uses the term “post-Christian era” to describe the days in which we are living. He sincerely believes that the Emerging Church and the experiences it provides will be the best way to reach our present generation.

One of the arguments for promoting the Emerging Church in the post-modern era goes something like this: while the seeker-friendly era was successful in bringing a generation of “baby-boomers” to Jesus, that time is past. Now we need to find new innovative methods that will reach the present generation for Jesus.

Michael Slaughter, in his book Unlearning Church: Just When You Thought You Had Leadership All Figured Out describes the move away from the seeker-friendly-non-offensive style of Christianity towards a mystical-experiential brand in the following way:

In the seeker age, the church tried to make its teachings and its services more user-friendly, practical, and accessible, and to market them to the un-churched. In the post-seeker age Future Churches are not as concerned with marketing services for unbelievers or entertaining believers as they are in ushering people, believers and unbelievers alike, into the presence of God. Intentionally, they do not water down their teachings or ratchet down the intensity of the service to make it more appealing to unbelievers. [2]

In order to “appeal to believers and unbelievers” and “usher them into the “presence of God”, a number of innovative ideas are being promoted by Emerging Church leaders. Kimball devotes a major portion of his book to these ideas, some of which include the following:

“Overcoming the Fear of Multi-sensory Worship and Teaching” [3]

“Creating a Sacred Space for Vintage Worship” [4]

“Expecting the Spiritual” [5]

“Creating Experiential Multi-sensory Worship Gatherings” [6]

Note the emphasis on “multi-sensory,” “sacred space” and “vintage worship”. What is this all about? For the answer to that question you will have to tune in tomorrow.

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

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