The article below rings true to what I’m hearing and encountering. Am I just hopelessly biased or are others seeing similar signs?

Peace and hope,

Nathan

_____________________________________ Nathan Nettleton

from the “Biblical Recorder”, North Carolina Baptist State Convention

Friday, Dec. 13, 2002

Emerging church makes ‘contemporary’ obsolete

By Norman Jameson

LAKE HICKORY – Church leaders struggling to blend “traditional” and “contemporary” styles into their worship learned from blended worship guru Robert Webber that a third style already is making “contemporary” obsolete.Webber, president of the Institute for Worship Studies and emeritus professor of theology at Wheaton College, told two dozen N.C. pastors and worship leaders at the Hollifield Leadership Center that the “emergent” church is gaining ground from the impetus of “20 something” Christians who find worship comfort in ancient rituals.To these serious young Christians, “contemporary worship” is too loud, too intimate and uses language too romantic in reference to God. They prefer majesty, mystery and awe in worship, and they want their worshipping companions to be their community, Webber said.These young Christians, said Webber, who is also the Myers Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary, reject the “huge Wal-Mart church with something for everyone” in favor of very small churches in which they find community. They reject the suburban lifestyle and churches spawned by the “great disruption” after World War II that pulled people into ever more isolated, individualistic and consumerist lifestyles.”Community” is very important to the emerging church. Oddly, perhaps, community is not found in worship, Webber said. Instead, people who have found community in shared experiences then meet together to worship.Worship in the emerging church touches the ancient. One of Webber’s books is Ancient-Future Faith. He says young Christian adults in this post-modern, post-denominational era are “sick of the noise” of contemporary worship. They also reject the false “intimacy” in worship that says we can have a personal, love relationship with God. Instead, they point in worship toward the transcendent, unknowable, mystical God.”Worship as a program or performance is unbiblical,” Webber said. “Romanticism is junior high stuff. Don’t tell me how you feel after worship. Tell me if you’re obedient.”This attitude leads to a radical Christian life that is countercultural, in that it is intergenerational, cross-cultural, urban and committed to the plight of the poor. Their approach to evangelism is a process and journey, rather than the mass evangelism and instant conversion of the traditional evangelicals, or the seeker evangelism of the contemporary or pragmatic evangelicals.The seminar was part of an ongoing series in which Hollifield brings nationally prominent thinkers to the retreat center on Lake Hickory for learning experiences.Most participants in the seminar expected to find answers to satisfy the diverse elements in their churches that debate traditional and contemporary modes of worship. The main comfort they found from Webber was that younger Christians are actually turning back toward what can be considered “traditional worship.” It’s the worship style they grew up with and as they return to the church, it’s most comforting, he said. While “traditional” evangelical worshippers cling to their style as if it were handed down on tablets from Mt. Sinai, it actually dates only to about 1950, Webber said. The “contemporary” style that threatened to usurp traditional dates only from about 1970. Those for whom traditional worship is most comfortable, are print oriented. They like programs, prayer books and hymnals. The contemporary worshippers are broadcast and performance oriented. The emergent church group is oriented toward the Internet and participatory worship. These 20-somethings are “connectors” Webber said. They connect to history, to people of all stripes, they create multiple networks, are intergenerational and cross cultural in their thinking and like a geographically tight community. Their philosophy would prompt a return to a parish church, a faith community responsible for a small, geographically defined area of their community.In all the struggle over styles of worship, Webber cautioned participants to remember content is the most important worship feature. Substance should never be subjugated to style.In the emergent church, “the minister’s primary responsibility is not to run the church, but to be Jesus among us,” Webber said. Twenty-somethings reject absolutely the CEO leadership model of the contemporary church, and emphasize the radical, servant style Christianity of Jesus.

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Two quick comments, or three:

As one of Robert Webber’s ‘Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail’ I too identify a trend there. That book, published about 25 years ago rang all kinds of bells with me. His The Biblical Foundations of Christian Worship is also an important contribution to this debate…

Now, two provocative questions from ‘left field’:

[1] Who are the subjects of this trend? They are, in my experience, (mostly)

middle-aged and older aesthetic/theological sophisticates, some of whom are migrating from the ‘Free/Pentecostal’ churches to mainline churches where there is a more serious approach to tradition, liturgy etc.

How many are there, and how is this to be measured in numerical terms? Ahhh… there’s the rub. It’s like asking, ‘Is there a migration from Fox FM to ABC FM?’ Well, there may be, a little, but it’s not an avalanche.

Item from yesterday’s paper: ‘Australia’s mainstream Christian churches may be gone within 15 years, senior Anglican officials believe…’ And from Dr. Philip Hughes of the Christian Research Association: ‘If present trends continue, The Uniting Church will be in serious trouble within 20 years!’

Reminds me of the time I first went to New York. The Presbyterians were meeting in Assembly, and a statistician said, ‘If present trends continue, there will only be one Presbyterian left in New York in the year 2000. And _she _ will be well-educated, black, and wealthy.’ The stunned Assembly broke up with laughter when one young clergyman asked the ‘expert’: ‘Could you please tell me who she is, so that I can invite her to join my congregation?’

Of course, the demise of mainline denominations has been predicted often before…

Item: In terms of ‘voting with their feet’ there are now more people in Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches in Australia each Sunday, than in Anglican Churches (CRA again)…

[2] Re modes of worship: if we are to relate to the living God ‘with all that is within us’ I’ve found it helpful to consider the six or so ‘worship modes’ the people of God have exercised throughout Biblical and subsequent history. To list them somewhat simplistically: ‘Temple’ (centring on Sacrifice/Eucharist), ‘Synagogue’ (Word/Revelation); Festival (charismatic worship), eremitical/desert/solitary worship; worship as work/whole of life; worship in small/home groups… We encounter a different ‘aspect’ (there’s got to be a better word than ‘attribute’) of who God is for us in each of these modes…

Finally, on a personal note, I’d appreciate your prayers as I’ve just taken up an interim Senior Pastor (part-time) role with the Glen Eira Christian Community Church (was Ormond Baptist, then Caulfield Baptist)… We’re doing a lot of thinking about these issues… I’ve appreciated the feedback to Nathan’s excellent offering from Webber…

Rowland Croucher

January 1, 2003.