Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Emerging Churchianity

Published by

Matt Stone

2009-03-08

burning-church What’s your understanding of the difference between churchianity and Christianity?

I was just reading Sally’s comments about being fed up with churchianity. Coincidence maybe, but I wrote some stuff to our mission team about churchianity earlier in the week. Maybe there is something in the air. In any case it prompts me to ask the question.

The thing is, while I value conversations about church and the new forms that are emerging, I think we’ve lost our way if church dominates our conversations. What’s far more essential, what’s far more important to be talking about, is Christ.

Conversations about emerging church are only going to appeal to the already churched. If we’re authentically interested in the unchurched then we need to have more open ears to their interests and how Jesus relates to them.

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9 responses to “Emerging Churchianity”

Sally

2009-03-08

Matt I totally agree! I think that is why I am so fed up with it!

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Steve Hayes

2009-03-08

The Church is the body of Christ, so talk of the church without Christ or Christ without the Church is largely meaningless. I take it that by “churchianity” you mean talking about the church without Christ. Both a headless body and a bodiless head are useless.

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Sally

2009-03-08

Absolutely Steve, you have hit the nail on the “head” so to speak….

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Matt Stone

2009-03-08

Interesting, I was thinking more in terms of the tail waggin the dog. Your image is the more biblical of course, but I like the way the other image so graphically potrays the priority.

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fernando

2009-03-10

Church is not Church.
I agree, in an abstract sense, that Christology demands Ecclesiology. But, the moment we say church, we are speaking both on a conceptual level and on a sociological level. The social reality is that churches are sometimes little more than self-propagating social programmes. Just because the idea of church is correct, doesn’t defend these practices that divorce us from mission and hospitality.

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Carlo

2009-03-10

i do appreciate how christians may need to use the blogosphere as a kind of catharsis to help the detox from a bad church experience.
the trouble is it seems many don’t really seem to have moved on from this place and have kind of got stuck there.
if the gospel is that Jesus is Lord, we really ought to talk about him a whole lot more indeed.

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Tony Maude

2009-03-10

To talk of the church without talking about Christ is, as Steve has already said, meaningless. How can you talk about the body of Christ without mentioning Christ? How can the church be the bride of Christ, preparing herself for him, if she doesn’t give him a moment’s thought? It doesn’t stop many churches, and many Christian “leaders” from trying though.
PS – just found your blog. It’s thought provoking. Thanks.

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Ovidiu

2009-03-12

If a church doesn’t really understands the meaning of Christ in it,if it doesn’t see that she is the body of Christ and each person is a part of it,it would be only an empty building without soul.
God bless you!

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Matt Stone

2009-03-13

Just in case I am misunderstood, I am not suggesting the emerging church talks of church without talking of Christ. I see no evidence of anything that extreme.
What I am questioning though is the balance, or what I see as a lack thereof. There is a lot more to theology than ecclesiology, there is a lot more to Christian practice than church life, why get so stuck on it then?
I think Carlo gets where I am coming from. I am sort of saying, I am tired with the catharsis, I am concerned the conversation has become stuck there. I would like to hear less talk of how we “should” engage with the world beyond the church, and more genuine talk “with” the world beyond the church. I long for the day when a Christian blog like this, that has lots of Pagan and Atheist and whatever readers engaging with it, is seen as boring and everyday, not strange and left field even amongst emergents.

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