Recap: Emergent values for a church planting mode

this is a frist stab, about four hours of wordsmithing. i'm posting it in loose draft form in hopes that i can get some feedback. this would be an emergent values set for a church plant. this takes my last 7 Values Set and distills them, and fills in some missing holes, and more importantly, fits everything on a single page.
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Recap: Emergent values for a church planting mode
paul soupiset

1. Unity amidst diversity.

~ We value the whole Church as the body and bride of Jesus Christ our Lord and long for a recovered apostolic tradition.

~ We seek to recover a Spirit-led, healing unity that allows for the Church’s myriad differences and complexity.

~ We value and welcome people regardless of where they are in their spiritual journey, offering them a safe place.

~ We welcome the diversity of our God-given humanity. We value a spirituality which seeks not to conform nor limit but seeks to embrace the mosaic of race, gender, age, giftedness, wealth, poverty, ethnicity, language and culture. Our leadership must also reflect this diversity.

2. Experiencing God in worship.

~ We value worship that is God-centered.

~ We value proclaiming the story of God, remembering thankfully His saving history, His action to rescue and renew Creation, and anticipating His final redemption. We seek to embody God-centered worship through a liturgy of shared lives, the apostles’ teaching, the sacraments, prayer, silence and meditation, the proclamation of the Word, incorporation of the creative arts, poetry, parables, laments, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs —and other participatory, scriptural means.

~ We value freedom in worship and seek to cultivate engaged worshippers that are authentic, participatory, contemplative and multi-sensory.

~ We value worship which honors, communicates and invites us to particpate in the Holy Trinity. Our worship aims to reflect the mystery and trancendence of God the Father; to proclaim the story and bear witness to the incarnation and redemptive acts of God the Son in Jesus; experience the presence of God the Spirit through community and symbol.

3. A missional community.

~ We value neighbors. We strive to prefer others before self.

~ We seek to be a missional community, distinctive yet culturally-engaged and culturally-sensitive. We seek to be a permeable community that never insulates, protects nor isolates itself from life in the world. We value the laity of the church as the primary means to accomplish the messy, work of the kingdom, reproducing believers, fostering spiritual disciplines, and multiplying churches.

~ We value Jesus Christ’s call to follow Himself back into the margins of society to proclaim and embody the Gospel. We value sharing the gospel primarily by telling our stories with sympathy, patience, and creativity to an audience for whom our examples, terms, language, prayer might be a foreign tongue. God can use our stories in transformational ways.

4. Authenticity.

~ We value honesty, brokenness and confession before Holy God, desiring to be similarly transparent with and accountable to others about our inmost struggles, doubts, thoughts, hopes, transgressions and struggles. We will regard others’ stories and confessions with grace, patience, confidentiality, and love, emphasizing healing and inward transformation.

~ We seek to recover an ethos of mystery and paradox, living with hard questions that have no easy answers, and to live within and minister amidst the tension that Jesus Christ told us to expect.

5. A (generous) orthodox Tradition.

~ We value and affirm the view of God as laid out in the Nicene Creed, which is rooted in sacred scripture.

~ We value the inherited Tradition of the church, including the classic spiritual disciplines: meditation, prayer, fasting, study, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, and the observance of the christian calendar.

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Comments

[Sivin Kit]

I like what I read here and resonate with all of it!

[herpesdoc]

Paul, My first reading of this is that it is rather non-emergent in the sense that it is not terribly different from what i would expect in any genuine orthodox christian church. My former church in Nashville, an evangelical Episcopalian church, would have resonated very well with almost everything you've said here.

My second thought is: how is any of this postmodern? All of it seems to appeal to a foundational epistemology, with the foundation being the whole of the Christian church throughout history. It is clearly onjective in its basis. It is not ultra-modern, in that it certainly values the non-rational, social aspects of human knowing. But neither does it jettison any of the "good" parts of modernism that I so adore.

SO...I guess what I'm saying is I think you may have toned it down a little too much. The distinctives of the more detailed series seems to have been muddled. Alternatively, maybe the volume was up a notch too high in the earlier posts, and you are now compensating?

Just an off-the-cuff response. If it's not helpful, feel free to disregard it.

I'll come back in the next few days and read it again and see if my thoughts are different.

[Mary Follen]

...consider, please, inclusive language for God....

[p soup]

thanks, mary. i will and have been.
seriously, thanks for the comment. - paul

[celeste]

i'll be excited about "emergent" churches when the inclusive language includes sexuality and other forms of spirituality, without including those, you're still a fear-based church.
i suppose that's why i'm a united church of christ member. because UCC *is* an inclusive, Christ-centered, love based, and emergent church.