“. . . a rich combination of education, inspiration, provocation, and stimulation.” —Brian D. McLaren Author, A New Kind of Christianity
Zach Roberts, ed.
Baptist Studies/Culture
The time has come for particular confessional tribes within Christianity to reflect on what the burgeoning emergence of the church means to them. Baptimergent is an excellent model of what that reflection can be—plus it’s got chapters by some of my favorite people in the world. This is a great resource for Baptists and non-Baptists. —Tony Jones Author, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier Emergent Baptists are those who believe there is more to God, Jesus, and God’s kingdom than modern Christianity and its denominational categories have been able to define. Emergent Baptists believe it is incumbent upon us to participate in—and write—the narrative for our time and place. Like generations before us, we hope to take what our forefathers and mothers gave us and fashion something from it that is our own. This book contains some of our first efforts at doing so. Zach Roberts lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, Jenn, and their two children, Landyn and Harrison. With degrees from Bluefield College and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Zach will complete his D.Min. in Gospel & Culture at Columbia Theological Seminary in 2010. He is currently the Associate Pastor for Education at Ridge Road Baptist Church in Raleigh.
BAPTIMERGENT
Contributors Cathy Payne Anderson Rick Bennett Amy Canosa Tim Conder Ed Cyzewski Tripp Fuller Mike Gregg Greg Jarrell Wanda Kidd Jeanie McGowan Perry Lee Radford Michael Raimer-Goodman Zach Roberts Christina Whitehouse-Suggs
Chapter 5
GIVE US EARS TO HEAR Wanda Kidd
A CHURCH CONVERSATION Not long ago I was asked to be on a panel at a traditional First Baptist Church in a small southern town. The topic was the Emergent Church phenomenon. My role was to speak to the trends that I saw in college ministry and to try to interpret how this new way of thinking affects the local congregation. Four of us sat on the small stage: the pastor, who facilitated the event; the associate pastor, who had served on staff for fifteen years; a recent college graduate from a Baptist college who had done her senior thesis on emergent church issues and trends; and me, a consultant for collegiate ministry with a statewide Baptist group. The audience was made up of a variety of ages and perspectives. It was the second in a series of three sessions hosted by this church to look at some of the issues facing mainline churches. In many ways, the fact that the church offered this opportunity for their congregation was proactive because these conversations have been slow to take place in the southern part of the United States. Long known as the Bible Belt, this area of the South has been resistant to confronting what is happening to the rest of the country in relation to declining interest in organized religion. We have been slow in looking at the issues because we have continued to meet our church budgets, hire multiple staff, take youth groups to camp, and put an army of people on the ground in a matter of hours to help feed, clean, and rebuild in the face of a natural disaster. Eventually, however, we must notice that even in the last bastion of sacred church tradition, the Sunday morning congregational makeup is largely senior adult, and the age disparity appears to grow wider each week. There is evidence that the exodus begins with high school students and continues until at least their late twenties, but more often than not, it lasts until they are in their thirties. If they return to church at all, they are usually moti-
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vated by their children reaching the traditional Sunday school ages of three and four. However, that trend is only applicable to young people who have been reared in the church, and that population has diminished steadily for the last forty years. Eventually, people in the pews have begun to acknowledge that something is different, and that they must take action. If not, everything they have known and grown will vanish. That is a sad and terrifying thought to most of the people who have built and maintained the religious monolith, their spiritual and social mainstay throughout their lives and the lives of previous generations. These realities and emotions were alive and present in our group that summer evening. There was skepticism on the part of young people who came longing for something I am not even sure they had words to express. I believe they were there because they ached to resolve the dissonance they felt within themselves about their faith; they desired to stay connected to the church of their parents and grandparents and yearned to feel something personal and vibrant in their relationship with Christ. Also present that evening were frustrated senior adults who wanted to know how these young people could resolve their issues and move on. Alongside those who asked “how” were grandparents who wanted to stay connected to their grandchildren but had no language to talk to them about issues of faith. People caught between rounded out the group. They were both children of the frustrated senior adults and parents of the estranged younger generation and were simply trying to figure out how to survive in this tumultuous time of transition. For them the mantra of life was “Whatever makes you happy,” and the stressful truth was that no one was happy. The dialogue was predictable. We talked about worship styles and postmodernism. Some asked questions about how to grow the church and attract young people to come to church. Some wondered why other churches were growing and they were not. I have been present for many such conversations in the past decade, but as this conversation came to a close, an interchange caught my attention. A lovely older man who was obviously a respected member of the congregation stood to speak. He put his hands in his pockets, and I saw the people adjust in their seats, preparing for what he had to say. He mentioned that when he was in Florida during WWII, he attended First Baptist Church and walked the aisle at the end of his first service there because that is what his church covenant told him to do. He said the people were welcoming and loving, and he knew he had found a safe place to form community while he was stationed there for three months. Furthermore (I
GIVE US EARS TO HEAR
59
paraphrase here), he could not understand why the youth of today did not simply join a church, invest their lives, and move along. Many thoughts and emotions washed over me as I listened. There was a strong, fragrant memory of that reality of trust during my childhood and youth in church, but I immediately juxtaposed that memory with the rending of trust during my middle years in church. I wanted to weep as I listened to Mr. Billy speak of his understanding of church and then watched the faces of the young people in the audience who knew little to nothing of that reality in their lives. While I sat in my nostalgic haze, a voice beside me cut to the reality of the unvarnished issue of the evening. The associate pastor, who had a respectful and honest relationship with this older man, said, “It is wonderful that you had that experience, Billy, but I don’t hear that you truly want to have a conversation with young people. What I hear is that you will listen to them so that you can tell them why they are wrong and how they should feel about the church, and until they feel the way that you do, they will continue to be wrong.” He continued by saying that this was not conversation and that nothing would be changed, solved, or moved forward until ideas like Mr. Billy’s changed. I was stunned. For one thing, I was impressed that a person in leadership courageously and respectfully verbalized a deep conviction in a public forum to the person with whom he disagreed. I was equally delighted with the elder gentleman’s gracious acceptance of the differing opinion. My second thought was a sense of grief that this was such a rare occurrence. Immediately on the heels of that thought was a strong awareness once again of the shortage and necessity of listening to the “whys” rather than the “hows” when speaking to young adults about issues of faith, fear, and trust. Not long after that evening, I stopped by that church and talked to the associate pastor. I told him how I was struck by his exchange with Mr. Billy. He laughed and said he and Billy had a trusting relationship that allowed them to speak truth to each other. He gave me several examples of past discussions that had brought them to a level of honesty. As I turned to leave, my friend stopped me with a question. He said, “Do you think young adults are looking for the type of trust that Billy spoke about?” Without hesitation, I said, “I think they want it more than ever, only they don’t know what it looks like or how to go about obtaining it.” He shook his head and said, “We’re really in trouble, aren’t we?” That realization hung in the air as we parted.
“. . . a rich combination of education, inspiration, provocation, and stimulation.” —Brian D. McLaren Author, A New Kind of Christianity
Zach Roberts, ed.
Baptist Studies/Culture
The time has come for particular confessional tribes within Christianity to reflect on what the burgeoning emergence of the church means to them. Baptimergent is an excellent model of what that reflection can be—plus it’s got chapters by some of my favorite people in the world. This is a great resource for Baptists and non-Baptists. —Tony Jones Author, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier Emergent Baptists are those who believe there is more to God, Jesus, and God’s kingdom than modern Christianity and its denominational categories have been able to define. Emergent Baptists believe it is incumbent upon us to participate in—and write—the narrative for our time and place. Like generations before us, we hope to take what our forefathers and mothers gave us and fashion something from it that is our own. This book contains some of our first efforts at doing so. Zach Roberts lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, Jenn, and their two children, Landyn and Harrison. With degrees from Bluefield College and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Zach will complete his D.Min. in Gospel & Culture at Columbia Theological Seminary in 2010. He is currently the Associate Pastor for Education at Ridge Road Baptist Church in Raleigh.
BAPTIMERGENT
Contributors Cathy Payne Anderson Rick Bennett Amy Canosa Tim Conder Ed Cyzewski Tripp Fuller Mike Gregg Greg Jarrell Wanda Kidd Jeanie McGowan Perry Lee Radford Michael Raimer-Goodman Zach Roberts Christina Whitehouse-Suggs