The Emerging Church

While you may not have heard the terms "The Emerging Church" and "Emergent Churches" before, these are two ways of describing a new way to be a church that are getting a lot of press. Some folks come and peak at our website and see us as part of this movement which arose largely among evangelical churches disatisfied with some things about that Christian movement. Yet while we are not intentionally, self-awarely so, there are some points of connection to be sure.

A recent article in Christianity Today Five Streams of the Emerging Church will fill you in on the details. The author of that article notes five themes found in emerging churches as:

• Prophetic (or at least provocative)
• Postmodern
• Praxis-oriented (how the faith is lived out)
• Post Evangelical
• Political

Clearly King of Peace does not reflect all of these themes, but I think our way of being the Body of Christ in Camden County is not unrelated to the Emerging Church. There is also a line in the article which I think does reflect King of Peace. It says,

Emerging upholds faith seeking understanding,
and trust preceding the apprehension
or comprehension of gospel truths.

I had to read that a couple of times to get it. Faith seeking understanding I know as a medieval quote from a time when faithful Christians came to realize they could use their God given reason to probe more and deepend their understanding. And then the part about reaching out in love and establishing trust with people before they have come to faith is also something we strive for even if we may miss sometimes. If I understand the above correctly, I think it is a fair description of our congregation even though we don't hit all five of the streams noted above.

So what is probably most true is that King of Peace is not an emerging church or part of the Emergent movement, but in our own way we reflect some of what those post-evangelical churches are up to.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor