Emergent Vineyard Part 3
The most exciting thing for me about the emergent Vineyard is thinking about what the Vineyard can contribute. One thing that has been written and talked about within the emergent movement especially is mission based strongly on Christology. What I think has been lacking is the work of the Holy Spirit. There have been a few people who have picked up on this. One that I found interesting was a comment that I got from our blog from Neil Cole and I’ll quote.
“I have actually thought about writing a book called “Confessions of an ex-non-charismatic”. Too many other things to write about right now though. I am actually hoping that by the time I can find the time to write it the book will no longer be relevant. Yes, the awakening to the constant presence and listening to the Spirit will shape your mission. No doubt. It was a big part of my transition to organic church. What was cool is that I went through it with a small band of brothers together so we are also shaped more communally in this not just individually. We all started asking questions together: Why were charismatic/pentecostal churches growing and multiplying while the cessationalists were not? Why can’t we listen to God’s voice today? We read Jack Deere’s books together and it set us free from some foolish doctrines that are frankly just not in the Bible. From there we started listening to God together and learning.”
Robby Mac calls it Charis-missional, I like the name. It dosn’t have that negative connotation of the ‘post’ in front of it. It describes why we have the gifts in the first place; to go out and make disciples using the gifts that God has given us. Not just using the gifts to edify one another in Church but to broadly use them in the context of everyday life.
I think that Gary Best in his book Supernaturally Natural gets the idea of using the gifts in every day life. Yet after doing the supernatural stuff, the (implied) expectation was for people to go to church. In contrast, Neil Cole would have done the supernatural thing and then said great lets do the church thing here in the pub!
Doing the supernatural stuff even though it takes boldness is the easy stuff for the Vineyard, its part and parcel of what it means to be a Vineyard. Yet most of the time I see it happening only within the church, and even when it is outside the church there is an expectation that people will come to church. Missional means we stay put, plant the church where we are, while still being supernatural.
nice post. just a quick question: if the “church-thing” in the pub is successful by the standards of the great commission, will that gathering eventually become a “church” where people then “go to”?
if so, is that good or bad?
Thanks for the comment Jason. It depends on who the people are. I’d like to think if people did come it would be the context of people who already go to the pub. That part of the comming together they find a language of brokeness, forgiveness, redemption which can only be found over the counter for them in that time and place. So yes I’d like to think that it is a church. If they become followers of Christ then that is a good thing I’d say!
How it looks, or grows thats well, maybe that is another post! We are only in the infancy at our church of doing this stuff, but it is exciting. There is another Vineyard church in Sydney who is doing the Neil Cole stuff, but is alot futher down the track, us so maybe I will blog on his experince as well, at a latter stage.