The Gent Church

I am back East so I am far removed from all this conversation on the Emergent Church. There is no such thing in my neck o' the woods. Its just plain ol' church - "basement style," as my friend Matt calls it.

Insofar as the Emergent Church assumes its qualities and characteristics from the very definition* of the word "emergent", we would garner that the Emergent Church is something that has arisen quite unexpectedly and calls for prompt action. It has emerged or risen up out of its surroundings and is certainly newly formed and prominent. In this case, "surroundings" should probably be considered Tradition and not Culture.

I thought (and I am not alone), why not have a Convergent Church as well as an Emerging one? "Converging" might be that appropriate step towards unity with a distinct movement toward one particular point. A Convergent Church could be that godly Ecumenism with a Spirit-led convergence and congruency in form, function and development.

With all this Emerging and Converging, we are bound to spring forth with a Resurgent Church - rising again into Life, activity and prominence.

Of course, as the Evangelical community begins to re-emphasize Baptism we might be called the Submergent Church.

Or with all of our aspirations to clean up society and the world through Morals and Ethics, we could be called the Detergent Church.

But in this day and age, I am looking for an Insurgent Church. Not a revolt against authority and government per se, but against the Prince of the Air, against God-less culture, against wickedness, injustice and impurity; a revolt against the status quo, pew-packing and stagnation. Insurgent!

In this case, we would be neither Emergent or Convergent but rather a Divergent Church - with a distinct movement away from the Ways of the World and growing different in both form and practice.

Alas, we are not overly Insurgent nor Divergent. And... gone are the days when we were the Urgent Church - calling people to Christ and immediate action and loudly proclaiming that "Today is the day of repentance!"

So my contribution to the Gent Church conversation will be this: whether we be Urgent, Submergent, Resurgent, Detergent, Divergent, Convergent or Emergent, let us at least be Church.

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* All definitions taken from Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary.