Print pdf Print Email

printer-friendly email a friend

Emergent Church: Clergyman finds lessons for worship services

Written: 5/2/2008

__________________________________________________________

Worship ideas for young adults

A new DVD resource for ministry with young adults and young families is available. The Young Adult Commission and Board of Laity developed the presentation on emerging worship. The resource is offered in response to the question: Where are the young adults/ young families? The DVD, "Emerging Narrative," offers options for worship. To view the DVD, contact a district superintendent or district lay leader. Find more information online at www.okumcministries.org/YoungAdult.

Special service is May 29

On May 29 at Annual Conference, a Service of Word and Table in the Emergent Worship Style is scheduled. The service will begin at 7 p.m. in Jubilee Hall at Tulsa-Boston Avenue UMC.
__________________________________________________________ 

By Holly McCray

Contextualization. Relational. Movement. Holistic. Ancient. They are thought-filled words.

Don't abandon this story because of the size of those words. They help frame a definition of "Emergent Church."

Jack Terrell Wilkes"We can learn from the tools and ideas that are being expressed in the Emergent Church to do emerging worship," said Jack Terrell- Wilkes, Conference leader of Ministerial Recruitment/Nurture and associate pastor at OKC-Nichols Hills church.

He was a presenter at the 2008 Lay Leadership Focus Day, April 5 at OKC-St. Luke's, sponsored by the Conference Board of Laity.

"Emergent Church really is a movement," Rev. Terrell-Wilkes said. The term is not interchangeable with contemporary worship or praise music, he said. Those words describe styles of services, and Emergent Church is a broader term.

Terrell-Wilkes said, "Shifting from institutional maintenance to movement-building is a deeper shift than what we realize. The mustard seed story or the ripple in a pond describes movement."

He listed points that help define the movement. Its theology began to emerge in the 1980s in Europe, fueled by Christian laypeople. A seminal book is "The Rise and Fall of the 9 o'clock Service."

The clergyman said the Emergent Church movement includes:

  • Contextualization. Christians reclaim faith expressions for themselves within their own cultural settings. "A cowboy church service could be an emerging service."
  • A response to Western cultural shifts in society and cultural changes. "We live in a gray world, and the Holy Spirit is leading us."
  • Reconsideration of inherited institutional church forms and structures, based on the core mission of going outside the church's doors. "We all need bones in order to stand, but it has its place in time. It's not as static, more in flux; it's dictated based upon the mission."
  • Rediscovery of ancient and other Christian traditions as resources for the present moment. "The Emergent Church would actually critique the traditional church as not being traditional enough."
  • A paradigm shift from a centralized focus to decentralized and relational. Clergy and laity journey together, a new version of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. "The best way you can evangelize is to be the best Christian that you can be. Then people will ask you why you do this, and it becomes relational."
  • Embodiment of the multiple intelligence theory. Movement is not only linear. "We're all leaders. The pastor leads but is not in front. If you are a shepherd, you're often not going to be in front; there's always a sheep running forward."
  • Holistic understanding of faith. This incorporates piety, mercy, and justice. "We move into a Wesley understanding of the whole body."
  • Reclaiming the arts and creativity. "I see worship more as an art (than as a production), as a twist" to push people to think about their faith and then express it in the world.

Terrell-Wilkes said liturgy is crucial in Emergent Church worship, but sometimes seen as bizarre. Prayer stations and creativity in the Communion service are important.

"We have moved from a print world to a digital world, an image-based world," he said. He summarized Emergent Church worship as "a pastiche--a blending of all things. It may include a Wesley prayer, a pastor in full regalia, and techno music; it could be an organ and deejay duet."

He said Emergent Church rejects labels and searches for authenticity. An example: conservative and liberal are labels. "If I can just label you, I don't have to deal with you. But if we are open to a conversation, we are open to being changed. There is some critique, but I feel it's a family conversation. You argue a little, but you love each other."

Where do United Methodists fit in this theology? Terrell-Wilkes views the movement as deeply Wesleyan. "Personal holiness and social holiness together--that's us."

Editor's note: The Young Adult Council plans an emerging worship event on Nov. 6-8 in Oklahoma City. Find out more at: www.postmodernaccent.info.