God Must Laugh

The congregation I serve is a part of the NACCC, but I read a lot of books coming out of the emerging church conversation. (More info at Emergent Village) I’m trying to foster a connection between these two groups. Why?

Basically, I’m hoping that ongoing engagement with Emergent will help the NA remember itself. The folks engaged in the emergent conversation are intuitively practicing the kind of free fellowship that was the hallmark of congregational (also called federal) theology. Unfortunately today, the Congregational movement is fractured. The UU, the CCCC, the UCC, and the NACCC all claim roots in that heritage.

Given the choice, obviously, I’d pick the NA, but even here we are commonly less than Congregational; We are independent. On a personal level this sounds like, “I’m a congregationalist. That means I can believe whatever I want.” On a congregational level this sounds like, “We’re a congregational church, that means no one can tell us what to do.”

That’s garbage. (In the “We’re too nice to translate skubalon correctly” sense of the word.)

Sometimes people explain it by saying, “We’re an association, not a denomination.” Translated, that means, “We work together because we choose to love each other, not because we’re bound by some top-down structure.” Unfortunately, most people hear it more like, “We’re not like THOSE people. We’re the REAL congregationalists.”

What we have (that we often fail to recognize/remember/use) is an incredible history of people trying to work out a federal/covenant bond in real life. Over the years, they discovered a lot of what doesn’t work, and a few things that work surprisingly well. They uncovered a pretty amazing balance between the autonomy of the local church and that church’s free and loving responsibility to live in relationship with her sister churches.

With their emphasis on relationships and networking, the emerging churches are discovering and practicing some of those same ways of being Christian. Perhaps by living with them, the NA can remember itself. Perhaps in remembering itself the NA can uncover some of the hidden gems of practical, lived theology that made Congregationalism a robust and faithful way. Perhaps those gems might even be of use to a fledgling group like emergent as it continues to define itself.