A Different Perspective

John O’Keefe recently posted an article, “are we ready to be a movement?”

For the first time, I began to understand some of the legitmate claims for trying to avoid the “movement” label.

That being said, I think John is using a very strict definition of the word movement. For example, he writes:

in a movement, everyone needs to be on the same page, have the same focus, hold the same beliefs, follow the founder. all must follow the same direction and dictions of “the powers” that be. if, one questions the direction of the movement, they are “outside” the main stream and are seen as “anti-the movement.”

Is this the only movement we can expect?

The word games played around movement and conversation have become tiresome. The movement which has been occurring for quite some time regardless of what we call it shows that a movement can exist without everyone being on the same page, having the same focus, or following a single founder (who would that be any way?).

Now of course I could be accused of taking my definition of movement and forcing it on everyone else… but there is a better term to define what John and others are against: denomination. Sure, there have been modern movements which weren’t denominations, but most of them ended up that way.

A movement itself is not defined by organization, structure, leaders, or any modern construct. These things can be descriptive of a particular movement, but they do not make a movement. How would you fit the hippie movement into that definition for example?

This distinction is important because I’ve noticed… over and over and over and over again… this movement versus conversation fiasco. And after reading John O’Keefe’s article, and knowing that I agree with him about so many things, I came to realize there’s a huge communication block in this dicsussion. The insistence on using a narrow definition of movement and a broad definition of conversation has kept many from understanding the core issues.

I happen to agree with most of John’s article if I look at his points as warnings about becoming a certain type of movement. In fact, although in the first paragraph he has the careful disclaimer that he’s not ranting against “E”mergent, my concern is that our movement will become what he fears because one organization takes center stage and inadvertently marginalizes other voices. The movement of the emerging church does run the risk of becoming the same ole modern movement. If we decide the only way to have acceptance with Evangelicals (and that’s really who we’re mostly concerned with if we’re really honest) is to conform to their organizational patterns for money, support, and possible dialogue… then this movement is doomed.

We’re already a movement. Why don’t we focus our energy on contributing to the movement? Rather than thinking of the emerging church as a ship with a set destination or a train on tracks, think of the movement as more oozy… expanding without one single goal… with diverse parts moving differently within the greater movement as a whole.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.