Wow! What an honor! I've been asked to add some posts to this blog and boy am I excited! Let me introduce myself first since you have no idea who I am....
My name is RaVae Erickson and I am part of the Emergent Church....well, I like to think I am anyway!
Logen is much more theological than I am, and according to him I am part of the emergent church-that's good enough for me!
I use "we" language a LOT. The majority of the time I do this (let's say around 99% of the time) I am referring to my husband and myself. We have been married for 4 years after dating for three, after being best friends for two years before that...yikes! I've known him for almost a decade! We aren't perfect, but we try to be honest with one another. We also have an adorable (not that I'm biased or anything) baby girl who is eight months old.
This first post I will try to tell you A little bit about our "church" story....
Hubbin attended a baptist "church" where he loved the speaking style of the pastor and I attended a "church" where I loved their small scale modern worship (and the speaking was pretty good too). The pastor left Hubbin's "church," so he started coming with me. Shortly thereafter we were both hurt by the way the people in my small (think 20 people) "church" were treating him-as if he was an outcast and an unclean leper!
We left that "church" and were lost for a long time....we eventually found "cowboy church" where we both loved the honesty of the pastors. That was the first time I have ever heard a pastor say from the pulpit, "hey I screwed up this week, I did xyz."
BUT, and this is a BIG BUT, there was no community. There was no fellowship. We could go for months without talking to anyone at "church," and that, is just not right.
That realization was the first step in our leaving typical American "churches" and searching for something better, something more, something deeper....
This post is quite long, so I think I will leave you with this and give you part two soon!
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
-Hebrews 10:23-25 (NASB)
Great post RaVae. Explaining the emergent church is so hard, like I've often said its like nailing Jello to the wall :-) But it is a loose group of people that have been through things like you have or who've seen that the church just isn't anything like Christ sometimes. Though there do seem to be some great believers in many churches, overall churches in America are missing Jesus altogether.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being an author to this blog. I think if I can get the authors I want we'll range from liberal to progressive to traditional to even kind of buddhist (I'm not sure how Rachel describes herself but she is a dear friend) ALL of us though seem to have something in common in that we have seen the church NOT be Christlike or doing & loving as Jesus would. We have ALL began to see that the Bible, though awesome & holy, has contradictions all over the place. And that is okay. THis is a spiritual journey to know a mysterious & wonderful Divine Creator.
Thanks again so much RaVae!!
PS. Brooke is my favorite kid. I've never started to look forward to being a Grandpa till Brooke. So RaVae is NOT being biased, Brooke ROCKS.