Restating our Name

Several months ago Vicar N8 Peregoy asked me to clarify what I meant by this website, by the term “Emerging LCMS,” and what I was doing blogging and having others blog altogether. At that point, the blog had slowly slipped on my list of priorities, but due to recent events in my life (mostly the fact that I am now open to a call), I now have some free time on my hands and hope to revive the blog, and finally do some of the things I was thinking about doing earlier.

First, I want to address N8’s concerns. He asked three very pertinent questions:

Does this mean we associate and align ourselves with the emergent church movement (denomination)?
Does this mean that we aim to point out the “emergent” features of Lutheranism?
Or is it a time reference, noting the newest generation of Lutherans who are leading the church into the heart of the 21^st century?

The simple answers to these questions are No, Sometimes, and Yes. But let me explain…

I fear that some people stumble onto this site, take one look at the name, and think that I have completely taken the side of Erwin McManus, Brian McLaren, and Dan Kimball and this is my pitiful attempt to lead the LCMS along that direction. That is NOT my intention at all. First and foremost that I do not intend to rethink or reshape the theology or doctrine of the LCMS, I do not want to throw out the liturgy, I do not want to turn the world upside down.

My main intention for this website is to explore some of the freedom we have by taking a closer look at the Bible and Book of Concord, and reshaping our understanding of theology in a manner that speaks the truth of Christ clearly and uncompromisingly to our world today. There are some ideas which are bubbling to the surface in the Emergent movement which I would like to pull out of their theological underpinnings and which I think fit very well with what Lutherans have been saying for years (approximately 500 years, in some cases.) I think it is high time we highlight some different aspects of our faith that have been lost over the years to the non-sacramental influences of most American Protestantism, and the emergent church movement has been doing some of that work for us.

In my previous article, “New Translations,” I suggested that we need to rethink the way we communicate our faith. I suggested that the message of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is not represented as clearly as it could be, and that it is the mission of the church to do so. I noticed yesterday that by the mailboxes of my apartment was a flyer of a missionary from Nigeria who is leading a revival right here in Orange County. I find it shocking that our “Christian” nation is in such need of other foreign missionaries.

I think it should be obvious by the fact that our Lutheran churches are, in many cases, becoming more vacant, that there are things we can do better. The end goal, I believe, is the same for us as it is for all Lutherans: to share the gospel with people by the means of God’s word and sacraments, and without compromising the integrity of scripture. I think that there are ways we can be savvy to the means of communication used in the world today, especially in the uses of media, images, and narrative in the way we share our message. We could even use guitars in worship! (Insert collective gasp, rumblings of heresy here, then look up Psalm 150:4 and the other seven Psalms which are introduced as “with stringed instruments.”)

My goal for this blog is to explore the way we can do this and the way people are doing this already, so this site can be a resource for people who want to reach the next generation and share the gospel. Just like the church had to change from Hebrew to Greek, and my German Lutheran immigrant ancestors had to eventually assimilate to an English-speaking culture, there are ways we can translate the truth of the Gospel for this next generation without compromising its integrity. Whether or not we feel like we have been called to lead our church into the future, there are people depending on us to show them the way, the truth, and the life.