"We can understand religions as always-contested and ever-changing maps that orient devotees as they move spatially and temporally. Religions are partial, tentative, and continually redrawn sketches of where we are, where we've been, and where we're going."

Thomas Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion.

This is a book I've been looking forward to every since I saw that it was coming out. InterVarsity Press has released the first chapter of the book and so far it is living up to its expectations. (You can download the first chapter here.)

Jim has been around (and within) the Emerging conversation before it was even known as such. What he offers is a fair (although I wouldn't say completely unbiased, as nothing is) perspectives of the flaws in traditional church (i.e. Post Baby Boomer Seeker churches) and the rise of Gen X and the upheaval of modern culture and how this rise has affected the culture in which 'church' takes place. He recognizes there has been a shift and seeks to reconcile the church's ministry. He also recognizes the Emerging church has done a lot of good things in the way of being relevant to culture, but has lacked a deeper theological/biblical root and denominational oversight (that is a sort of accountability to something larger than itself).

I consider myself part of this Emerging conversation, whatever that means. I find the Emerging perspective to be a breath of fresh air when it comes to ecclesiology and 'being' church, something many Post Baby Boomer churches have sufficiently lacked. It will be interesting to here his argument fully fleshed out, as I'm especially interested in what it he finds lacking in the Emerging church.

As far as his specific arguments (about the grievances of the Emerging church), I don't want to flesh them out just yet because I haven't read the book in its entirety. I will wait until I get my hands on a copy before I comment on it.

If you've read the chapter, what do you think?

Wes

I’ve got to get this off of my chest. The pressure is building, and I’m afraid the tipping point is approaching and I’m not quite sure what will happen when the point is reached. I don’t know if I can take it, I don’t know if my friends and family can take it, I don’t know if you can take it, I don’t know if we can take it together.

It’s like you can take shit and everything, even when its being hurled at you constantly. But there reaches a point when you just throw down in defiance: “Enough!”

I never wanted this day to come. I envisioned it, but I never wanted it to get here. I want to be close to you. I want to feel your warmth, and match the rhythm of my breathing with yours. I want to compare our heart beats and try and sync them, beat on beat.

But you’re never there.

You’re off bickering at someone else. Trying to please someone else. Trying to get something else done.

I stand at the door knocking and your busy debating on what color the seats need to be. And how we can get those numbers in our contemporary service to rise. You’re too busy trying to figure out the next gimmick, and I’m outside waiting for you to realize I’m standing at your door waiting for you to go outside with me.

You’re stuck to a building.

I want to come inside and be part of it, but you keep on giving me the middle finger because I don’t have enough influence or power or cash.

So I come inside. I try to fit in, I try to play your game. I try to keep a level head, but the more I try to stay calm and quiet and just go along the more I realize that this just isn’t how it should be. We shouldn’t be inside bickering over all these meaningless things. The breadth of what we’re sent to do here can’t be contained in brick and mortar.

I’m tired of your politics. I’m tired of your hierarchies. I’m tired of your budget cuts and your ‘loyalty.’ I’m tired because I feel so small and I’m trying to put all my weight and force into moving a Kingdom when if you focused your energies and your resources we could move it together and it would be spectacular and kingdoms would fall and chains would break.

See, I haven’t been tricked into your ploy. I’ve seen what you can look like, what we can accomplish together. I’ve caught wind of that beautiful scent. I’ve felt the chains fall.

I’ve heard the sound of the joyful, and I’ve seen the jubilant in their rejoicing. I’ve heard the stories. But when I look around me, I don’t see it. I see what could be, I see beauty on the verge of breaking free.

What are you afraid of? What holds you back?

There are some who, like me, have fought against you and have wrestled you trying to understand what’s going on in your brain. Perplexed, but we wrestle. We don’t know where you go at night, but we can only imagine. We stay at home, waiting in the living room for you to return. Just before sunrise you walk in, head hung low and we know where you’ve been. Out on the town.

There are those who throw you out of the house right then-and-there. There are those who, when hurt by you throw you out and want nothing to do with you for the rest of their lives. I don’t blame them at all. They trusted you with their life and you betrayed them. You say you’re just trying to get by, and that little sacrifices have to be made. You try to make excuses. But they don’t listen to you.

I can’t leave you alone. I can’t abandon you, for that’s only a worse thing. I have to believe things can be better between us. That we can get along, that we can walk out of this holding hands and look at each other and say: “What’s next?”

I don’t know when that time will come, but I want to pledge my love for you. I don’t know what it will take for us to be better, but I’m never going to leave you. I’ll always be with you. It’ll take longer than my lifetime, this is sure. And I won’t be the only one. Others will come alongside us for this journey of healing and redemption and hope.

I’m not any better of a person for this, because this isn’t about me. This is about us. You who have left church for whatever reason, I know your pain. We’re so sorry for what you’ve felt, and we want to show you the better part of the story.

We will be the light to the world, and we need to rekindle the flame that burns for us.

"I have a dream that one day the church of Jesus Christ will rise up to her God-given calling and begin to live out the true meaning of her identity–which is, the very heartthrob of God Almighty–the fiancée of the King of all Kings. I have a dream that Jesus Christ will one day be Head of His church again. Not in pious rhetoric, but in reality. I have a dream that groups of Christians everywhere will begin to flesh out the New Testament reality that the church is a living organism and not an institutional organization. I have a dream that the clergy/laity divine will someday be an antique of church history, and the Lord Jesus Himself will replace the moss-laden system of human hierarchy that has usurped His authority among His people. I have a dream that multitudes of God's people will no longer tolerate those man-made systems that have put them in religious bondage and under a pile of guilt, duty, condemnation, making them slaves to authoritarian systems and leaders. I have a dream that the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ will be the focus, the mainstay, and the pursuit of every Christian and every church. And that God's dear people will no longer be obsessed with spiritual and religious things to the point of division. But that their obsession and pursuit would be a person–the Lord Jesus Christ. I have a dream that countless churches will be transformed from high-powered business organizations into spiritual families–authentic Christ-centered communities–where members know one another intimately, love one another unconditionally, bleed for one another deeply, and rejoice with one another unfailingly."

Frank Viola, author of Re:imagining Church

Peniel is the hebrew for 'Face of God.' It's the name of a group a couple friends and I started. We set out with the vision of 'being' a church in a different way than what is normally held. This week we had a prayer labyrinth (we borrowed a portable one made out of canvas from Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara). We set it up in the dance room and spent some solid time praying and journeying together. It was great. The only thing, I wish labyrinths were bigger. So that groups could walk through. Like huge paths. That'd be sweet. Maybe one day.