What are the questions?

This is a complete 180 from the past.  20 years ago people wanted all the answers.  It was like that for probably 200 years.  Between the reformation & the start of the Revolutionary War it was all about discovery & argument, sometimes ending nice & sometimes ending in ashes.  Before that the Catholic Church just pretty much said "trust us, we know what we are doing".  Don't think about it, that's what Priests are for.  Not like they were married or anything so they had plenty of extra time to figure everything out for everyone.

When I first started to realize that we were entering a new age I have to admit, it was a bit scary.  My answers that had worked for the first few years of christian service just weren't working anymore.  In fact, some seemed rather ridiculous!

Now I'm more interested in right questions than right answers.  I've become completely okay with enjoying & even worshipping the "mystery" of God.  Just because I'm getting to know him does not mean I know everything about him.  I've been married awhile & I still don't know my wife completely.  We used to be so afraid of mystery.

What excites me now is that many young believers, even as they are leaving churches, are embracing the mystery of God as if its some kind of exciting, alluring, exhilarating, challenging & FUN journey.

Mystery was bad long ago because of superstition, and there probably is a little left over from that.  Mystery then was bad because of the enlightenment.  We're to enlightened not to have all the answers.  Then there has been the priest replacement, the bible.  When the going gets tough now & answers aren't coming people will simply say "well I just believe the bible".  Like that makes the mystery go away :-)

Now there is a new movement that has been going on for some time.  The Emergent Conversation or the Emergent Village has been around for awhile but I have just joined the fray recently.  Starting the journey towards progressiveness in the late 90's.  Really closing in the last few years.  This last year though, I've pretty much went "all in".

Words seem to mean allot.  But the problem is what do they mean to those who use them.  My friends started calling me liberal.  So I began to hang out with liberals.  Problem was I didn't fit in with the liberals any better than the conservatives.  THEN I learned of this other word.  Progressive.  I can't really define it for you but at least I've figured out that is where I fit.  I think its most about change & action working together to bring about the Kingdom of God.  At least when defined from a Christian standpoint.

So this will certainly be a progressive conversation we'll be having on this blog.  There might only be a few that ever read this but I'm not really writing this to change the world.  I'm writing to express & understand the changes that are going on in me and trying to find others that are on the same journey.  I want to know what questions others are asking.  I want to have a conversation about life, love & God.

They say the word Emergent came along because it was going to be like another reformation.  And that seems to be true.  They used that to describe that something new was emerging but we just didn't know what.  About every 500 years the church has a garage sale & gets rid of excess baggage & junk.  I think its time to let the new reformation begin (which in our new vernacular is "deconstructing") and begin to watch & enjoy being able to really see what emerges.