twenty-three

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I’ve begun going through "An Emergent Manifesto of Hope", a compilation of writings by leaders in the emerging church. This book has been a refreshing and thought-provoking read thus far. I’m planning to discuss it with a couple of INN small group leaders that I meet with regularly, hopefully finding a good conversation with them.

While I can’t reflect on each chapter, because there are so many good ideas and I’m moving through it rather quickly, I’ll try to respond at least a couple times to chapters that stick out. The first of such responses is to Mark Scandrette’s chapter "Growing Pains – The Messy and Fertile Process of Becoming". I really appreciated Scandrette’s approach to the process of faith, rather than the immediate conversion to faith, a story that resounds deeply within me.

As we talk about emerging into a new era of faith, we hear many
conversations about church style or discussions over developing
theologies that fit in the postmodern world. However, in the midst of
this, the simplest form of emergence may be right in front of us – our
own emergence into faith. How many of us would tell our stories like
Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus, like a blinding light that
struck us and left us with a newfound sense of purpose? Some may, but
many of us more easily find our stories in the gradual emergence of
growth and process, one step forward, two steps back, slowly developing
and learning what it means to follow Christ.

"Author
and spiritual director Evan Howard suggests that spiritual conversion,
rather than being a singular event, is more accurately described as a
series of distinctive epiphanies (for example, a conversion to
the role of the Spirit, a conversion to social justice, a conversion to
contemplative practices and so on). These are not conversions from one
system to another; they make up the gradual complementary and holistic
renewal of the soul…When we experience the deconstruction of our
faith, we are in good company with many of the characters of ancient
Scripture, whose expectations of what it meant to follow God were
constantly being challenged or subverted. Our constructions of faith
and practice are dismantled and, at times, destroyed so that we can
approximate a more coherent and integrative orthopraxis — good theology and good living."

As
I come into contact with more of the emerging conversation, I am more
convinced that my story, my development of faith fits very nicely
within it’s dialog. This acclimation and discovery of the faith self
into an ever-forming orthopraxis makes perfect sense to me. I do not
speak of my faith as a great conversion story, but rather as a
development, a growing understanding of Christ’s interaction with
different aspects of my life, with different demands upon the pieces of
my soul, all leading towards the hopeful unification of my self into
who I am created to be.

This chapter goes on to develop the idea of individual emergence
into how communities emerge and grow and where the future will take us,
as we model this act of recreation with every failure and lesson
learned together. As I seek to apply this to my Presbyterian background
and my place in ministry with the INN, I see God’s creativity playing
out through the renewal of our church and ministry as we learn to be
more aligned with God’s direction for us in the present and for the
future.

"The road ahead is a companion journey of conversation
More quest than destination
because sometimes the question
and the answer
are one and the same

So down the Emmaus Road we go together
and we are met
and in the presence of a stranger
our hearts are strangely warmed."
- Mark Scandrette