Emerge or Submerge
Brother Yun (2002), a key leader among the house church movement in China, has been in and out of prison for the last twenty years for his bold, rebellious faith. Yun calls his fellow church members to live as resident aliens (1 Peter 2.11) whose hope is not in the here and now but in what lies ahead. This does not seem like a very effective “church growth” strategy at face value.
So, what if we ask the pragmatists’ question in response to the lack of cultural relevancy in the Chinese Church. Has it worked?
Nobody really knows how many Christians there are in China. Accurate statistics are hard to come by. However, Chinese Christ followers are thought to number 80 million. Some researchers put the figure at 100 million. In the face of sometimes terrifying government opposition, and culturally irrelevant lifestyles, people are committing themselves to a spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ at a rate averaging about 28,000 new converts a day (Barrett et. al., 2001).
The story is told of a pastor in a mountainous region of China who was imprisoned for 23 years. While in prison, he prayed for the 170 Christ followers in the country where he was from, even though he had no news of them. When he was released in 1986, he asked his son about them and was told that there were now 5000. He conducted a survey, which verified this figure. He resumed his labors, and two and a half years later there were 56,000 believers out of a population of 60,000 (Hails).
The phenomenal growth of the Chinese Church can be traced primarily to God’s sovereign grace. Chinese church leaders will be the first to tell you their growth as a national church lies only in the supernatural work of God in their midst. They’re quick to acknowledge the many weaknesses of their churches. By no means am I trying to set up the Chinese Church as the model we should all emulate. I find it interesting however, that when pressed to describe the contributing factors God has used to grow the Chinese church, Chinese believers point to the following predictors—the quality of life shown by Christians amidst adversity, the emphasis on prayer, the effect of miraculous healings, and the zeal for evangelism (Hails). Nowhere is there any mention of the desire to be culturally relevant and it’s role in their growth as a movement.
As I already mentioned, the Chinese church has seen its greatest growth as it has become most indigenously Chinese. Therefore, the Chinese church doesn’t seem to be much of a case against relevance. Clearly there’s an element of contextualization and relevance that must be factored into their growth. But there’s much about the Chinese Church that remains a living example of cultural “Irrelevance,” or perhaps better put—as an indigenous countercultural movement of God’s People who instead are forming a kingdom-culture rather than simply mirroring their mainstream culture. Indigenous expressions of God’s people that embody Jesus in a contextually understandable way must happen; but we must choose carefully which cultural realities to protest and which to embrace as we form a kingdom-oriented culture through the Church.
An Emerging Case: The Emergent Church in the USA
So how does the emergent movement fair in this issue of cultural relevance? Is their quest for relevance rooted in a desire to be a “relevant” countercultural community that embodies Christ’s presence? Or is it just another form of what the evangelical church has been for the last 30 years wherein we simply mimic American culture in “Christian forms.” There are several problems with my question. For one thing, it’s way too soon to answer this question. Furthermore, emergent churches are so divergent from one another. There’s not yet any single church that is seen as the model emergent church like Willow and Saddleback have been for the seeker movement.
At the same time, it’s helpful to explore how the emergent church is handling the issue of cultural relevance. A Christianity Today reader asserts that the emergent movement is just another expression of the evangelical church described earlier in this paper. Dave Fleming writes, “I agree that much of what is called ‘emergent’ is just the same ol’ evangelical trailer with new siding. A marketing strategy, if you will, to reach a new ‘target’. Much of what is occurring at the grass roots in churches…is an infatuation with cultural relevancy” (“Readers…” 2004).
It is hard to find a book about the emergent church with any more popularity than Kimball’s book, The Emerging Church. It’s easy to be endeared to Kimball’s heart for the young adults to whom he ministers. He demonstrates a good grasp of postmodern thought but seems more compelled to love and serve those in his ministry rather than to engage in endless philosophical debate.
What has often intrigued me however, is that so many leaders who clearly come from the first case study, the mainstream evangelical church, seem really excited about Kimball’s book. Perhaps this is because a significant part of the book focuses on worship, a primary area of focus for the seeker-sensitive church leader. Kimball gives ideas on multi-sensory worship, use of sacred space, and inclusion of symbolism and the arts in a way that has a “vintage-faith feel” (p. 134). Countless seeker-sensitive churches have begun marketing towards “postmoderns” by creating services specifically for them.
And what about emergent groups like Relevant, publisher of Relevant Magazine? Relevant publishes books, like Kary Oberbrunner’s (2004) book, The Journey toward Relevance. Oberbrunner writes, “You want to be relevant. There is no alternative. Irrelevancy is not an option. When has being obsolete, archaic, or ineffective ever been a viable choice?” (p. 12). The assumption of Relevant and their resources appears to be that cultural relevance is a given. It’s just a matter of how to flesh that out.
Category: Ministry, Winter 2007
Followers
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