Emerging Pastor

This semester at college I'm studying an advanced preaching subject, it's all about preaching to the post-modern world and understanding what that means as far as traditional preaching styles and their assumptions go.

One thing I have heard in church meetings has been complaints that the people aren't coming in because we're not preaching 'em like we used to. To that they mean either some real fire and brimstone or some Billy Graham style evangelical message. I've started to see the same thinking begin to creep into my church because one of the services is faltering.

It seems to me that when a church finds itself in a state of decline it does what every other organization does, tries to recapture the past. It remembers the good old days when people were stacked to the rafters and the tithes were bountiful. They look back and say, well we used to sing hymns and preach the Word of God (usually a complaint about the style of preaching not the content) and the people flocked in.

Thinking like this is both right and wrong! It's right thinking because it recognizes that people have changed, they have moved address and we need to change along with them. It's wrong thinking to then say, well we'll just move back into the past and people will follow.

An emerging pastor has the responsibility to track down their post-modern sheep and understand their thinking to reach them in a way that both honours God and listens to people.

Interested in that kind of job?

Up till now I've been very careful not to speak to much about the emerging / emergent church. It is a deliberate act because while the site has the word emerging in the title it is not about either of these movements, it is about my ministry journey.

I have read quite a lot about the emerging church and love books by Brian McLaren and Mark Driscol. I certainly don't agree with everything they say but there is an important dialogue going on about what is church and it's a dialogue I want to be involved in.

Part of the emerging church movement is to take the post modern deconstructionist approach to doctrine and exegete it in light of how it’s historical context.

Quite apart from my theological studies I was challenged to read through Luther’s 95 theses and I was surprised to discover that this ye olde reformer was really a deconstructionist himself. The reforming and emerging concepts are close enough to call the same. It is the idea of growing closer to God through understanding and living in a right relationship with Him.

Being a devoted Protestant I've never actually read through all of Luthers 95 theses' and I'm betting that you haven't either, so I’m going to post a few every week until we get through them and allow you to offer commentary along with me.

I may paraphrase some of the theses' into more modern terminology but you can read something fairly authentic over at spurgen. Unless you can read German, your not going to get the original.