Categories: uncategorized
Date: 18 July 2005 16:39:42
Part of what is seen as important in so called emergent initiatives is the idea of meeting people where they are (or rather as David Sheppard put it in Bias to the Poor - in an excellent book which predates the current term emergent - serving people where they are), this relates not only to geographic location, but also cultural and spiritual location. It's a worthwhile thing, but something I think the church finds it difficult to do.
However this weekend I encountered an example of excellent practice. There were an emergent group at Guildfest who were providing an ambient chill out environment, free massages (v. welcome when festie back kicked in), drinks and food and in possibly the coolest (as in temperature wise) tent on the site. It was all v.low key type missional stuff done well.
It did raise an important question in my mind, which I didn't think of until afterwards - and am not sure it would have been appropriate to ask. If we help facilitate people becoming conscious of God where they are, what/ who do we then feed them onto, if appropriate? I mean I guess that the system at the moment is set to feed people into the institutional church eventually or into networks (but do these networks exist?). However, these institutions are ones that are important and appropriate (I no way wish to knock the institutional church which I feel has an important role) yet these institutions somehow appear to be saying to people we'll meet you where you are but we then expect you to travel in our cultural direction.
I know this is not a new problem in many ways, the history of the church began with debate about how to facilitate gentiles into what had been a Jewish based cultural set up, but I realised this weekend it may be becoming important again today. I'm also aware this is an issue practitioners in this field must have been looking at, but it needs to be an issue that we all address. I mean in our networked society it is increasingly likely that people could bump into God (for want of a better term) in one location and then choose to investigate further in another. How do we deal with this?
I know loads of questions, but well encountering the good practice has got me thinking.