Cell church and "Emerging Church"

For some time I've been tracking the so-called "emerging church" which is exploring the transition to ministry in a post-modern culture. One of the foundational values for emerging leaders is the hunger for genuine culture in our community.

"Leadership" magazine's blog "Out of Ur" has been running a couple of articles about the demise of "Axis" which was the post- modern arm of Willow Creek church, which functioned as a sub-congregation of the main church. It has recently been shut down.

The article is at:
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/07/axis_denied_wha.html

It currently has two parts.

Here is the quote that grabbed my attention:

But it is important to recognise that having an “intergenerational church” is not about just seeing people sit in the same worship service looking at each others back of their heads for 60-90 minutes. We do that in movie theatres and that is not community. Intergenerational relationships occur outside the worship gatherings, so focusing all our energy on the worship service to me does not produce an intergenerational church.

Hmmm.... sound familiar?

One of the interesting things about the cell church culture is that it addresses the issues of community that the emerging church is also trying to address. It comes from a different place, perhaps, but it is still addressing the fundamental question of how do we form genuine christian community in our culture?

Many cells also wrestle with the intergenerational issue. the difference is that by starting from the place of developing genuine
relationships in the small group, we can more readily model a community that is truly intergenerational as opposed to starting a post-modern "youth" community within a baby-boomer large meeting (or even a totally separate post-modern congregation) and expecting the two to somehow intersect.

There is an irony in the Willow Creek situation because if I recall correctly, it started as a youth group. Now it is having trouble reaching the values of the youth of the next generation.

I think that what I'm saying is this: if we get cell church values into our church DNA then we don't have to worry about how to meet a
particular cultural group's needs because the needs are met in the community of the group. You don't need gimmicks for each generation or each racial group- just be community.

Blessings

Keith