The Great Disappointment

Nicholas Fiedler (of Nick and Josh Podcast fame) shared an open, honest reflection on his disappointment with Emergent on his blog.

He mentions later in the comments that perhaps after spending 15 months abroad, he’s disappointed to see the conversation hasn’t moved anywhere from when he left. Understood.

Here are my comments:

Thanks for your thoughts Nick. I appreciate your honesty. As someone who’s just getting into this conversation you and others bring a breadth of knowledge and understanding from the beginning.

But I understand your frustration as well. While I don’t necessarily share your frustration with Emergent (perhaps because I haven’t invested as much), I feel the same frustration in other communities from time to time.

There is a time for conversation and a time for action. Perhaps after 10 years of conversation, it’s time for the later now.

I remember late last year when everyone wanted to jump up and say, “I’m the new national coordinator for Emergent Village.”

I loved it – priesthood of believers stuff! But then what?

Now that you’ve claimed your title – what are you doing and going to do with it?

Shane Claiborne reminds us, “Quit complaining about the Church you’ve experienced and start being the Church you’ve dreamed of.”

I’ve always taken that to be referring to the traditional, institutional church – but I think it can refer to the Emergent conversation just as quickly.

We can complain about leadership (or the lack there of) all day long – but what are WE doing? Are we going to point fingers or get out and something?

We all have visions of what we want to see – and not surprisingly – it’s something we can usually all agree on. So let’s create it! In our neighborhoods, in our communities around the world. Let’s inspire others not by our conversations and our finely worded blogs – but let’s inspire them by our actions.

Lindsay Cofield told me last year (something I go back to over and over and over again) “The simplest definition of Church is a group of Christ followers who believe, function and understand themselves to be the Body of Christ in their sphere of influence.”

If each of us took that to heart – it wouldn’t matter what happened with Emergent, any denomination, or any other group. We’d simply live out the Missio Dei. And Everything WOULD Change.

But of course “its easier to blame others than to look inward.”

UPDATE: Love this final comment from Josh Brown (not that I think the conversation has to end – just that it shares some of my sentiment)…

“i think the emerging church conversation would grow leaps in bounds if everybody would just shut up for a few months and quit blogging, tweeting, and podcasting. and start pouring big stout glasses of wine and having slow dinners with their neighbors.”

UPDATE 2: Tony Jones shares his thoughts on Nick’s post as well.