Monday, May 07, 2007

what's up with all this terminology?

ter·mi·nol·o·gy (tûr'mə-nŏl'ə-jē) Pronunciation Key n. pl. ter·mi·nol·o·gies The vocabulary of technical terms used in a particular field, subject, science, or art; nomenclature.

Churches these days are full of what I call the "system". This is disheartening to me because this said "system" puts a lot of things in a box. God doesn't like boxes. Jesus fought against this same system. However on the other hand, terminology is used in the most basic means of communication. You wouldn't really understand what I was typing if we didn't put it in terms that make sense to you. So where is that line drawn?

I just watched a video on the Missional Church Movement and the Emergent vs. Emerging Churches. In the western culture church there are too many terms to be put up next to a church. Missional, Emergent, Reformed, Reformed-Charismatic, Emerging. When did it become so important to make a church just one of these things? I submit to you that the church today is maybe supposed to be all of these things. That we do focus on God being a sovereign and supreme being who is the author and finisher of our lives, that he does desire us to move with His Holy Spirit in an outward expression (charismatic, if you will), that He does desire us to be community oriented or "missional"... the ideal church should be all of these things, and more. So why give a church just one term? Why just one name?

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