Clearly, every pastor wants God's work to be done. Every Christian wants that, and it satisfies them to see it happen. So as a pastor doing church work, seeing it divinely touched as God's work brings a great deal of work satisfaction. Of course, it is no surprise to anyone of faith that this is not always the case, and is often quite contrary to the reality of many Pastors and church workers. The "emergent church" has gorged on the plentiful bounty born out of the frustration brought on by this, and has become discontent with discontent. The church is frustrated that God isn't dropping pillars of fire out of the sky or moving their mountains. The pastor is frustrated that the church isn't picking up their Bibles or moving their feet. And so all of them in one accord decide to abandon all of the problems inherited through their tradition and their doctrine and head to greener pastures. Or greener pastors.
One thing that really excited me about going to college was outfits. Glorious, mismatching, eclectic outfits. As a high schooler, I remember seeing college students wearing a bizarre mishmash of mismatching clothes that they pulled out of their closet and put on with the confidence and abandon that just made it work. You can imagine my elation when I graduated from the shackles of prep/jock/skater cookie-cutter molds of pre-collegiate expectation and evolved into a realm of wardrobe nirvana where "unique" is in, and "conformity" is out. I could finally be cool on my own terms. It was utopia.
Then I graduated again.
As adults, we all have a fairly firm grasp (with the exception of Phil Dunphy) that we're really not cool, and there's nothing we can wear to change that. Because of this, my wardrobe has defaulted to conformity. What I wear now is no longer rooted in defiance, nor in conformity, nor in coolness. Reality has reduced me to such a man who may be found buying plain, printless t-shirts. Style is not my primary concern; I am content to be clothed. All of the textile pioneering I accomplished in college is now negated by the inevitable constraints of age.
Typical to a youth of the emergent generation, I have had my qualms with the church. I have had my dreams of change. And for the most part, as with my wardrobe, I have ended up right where I began.
Emergence has held up the apostolic church as a symbol of perfection, and even pre-emergence, it was popular to idolize Acts 2 and all the remarkable things the Holy Spirit was doing in the church in that moment. Despite having such a limited glimpse into that spectacular ecosystem, that snapshot has sparked thousands of dreams of church leaders and Jesus-followers who want "the real thing" and think they've found the formula for it. This image enlightens us that we've messed it all up, need to hit the reset button, and finally get it right like they did, (also, replacing antiquated word-ingredients like "transgression" and "born-again" and "saved" with fresh word-ingredients like "doing life" and "narrative" and "conversation" seems to help.)
All the while, we ignore that in Acts 2, people are just about 20 years from getting it all wrong again.
About 55 AD, probably less than a decade after Jesus died and the Holy Spirit reinvented religion as the world knew it, the apostle Paul penned out some letters that are now canonized under the names Galatians and Corinthians (just to select a few.) His primary concern in these letters is to address the mess that people have made of the Gospel, and how in need of his wise leadership, and more importantly, God's Spirit and direction, they really are. Other epistles share the same theme. As it turns out, people in the celebrated churches of historic spiritual inception really messed things up and made each other unhappy. Now being past the honeymoon phase of modern "emergence," many "pioneers" are realizing the same thing. They're seeing that they left "the system" to create...a system...that is starting to become..."the system."
I distinctly noticed the real irony of my collegiate clothing adventures when I returned to a college campus a few weeks ago and noticed so many students reliving this distinct phase of wardrobe liberation just as I had done, only now being able to comprehend what is in store for them. I wanted to reach out and draw them into a fatherly embrace and peacefully whisper in their ear "you don't have to try. It's all going to be ok." (In retrospect, it's probably best that I didn't as a series of predictable misunderstandings would have required someone to post bail for me.)
So my question for the spiritually discontent is this: What is it you are trying to reinvent? No doubt some systems function better than others, but are you convinced that there is anything under the sun that is not doomed to the failure of the human touch? I had to graduate a few times in my faith before I really felt at peace with some of the scars on the face of the church that are so obvious, only a Father could love her. Yet I am certain He still does. So whether you're a part of a messed up church, or whether you're dreaming of and creating something new that is going to eventually become a messed up church, I hope the Father's love of you and your messed up self and your messed up system gives you peace.
Even after you've graduated enough times to find that there is nothing new under the sun.
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