If you are a Christian web surfer or a peruser of Christian print media, you
have no doubt seen or read something in regards to the "Emerging Church",
hereafter referred to as EC.  The EC movement is sweeping the globe and is
making serious headway into the American church culture. I won’t seek to define
what the EC is as there are as many definitions as there are EC churches, but if
you want a definition go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_Church.
There are many mainline, evangelical leaders that are threatened by the EC
movement and the culture that it espouses. I wouldn’t be totally honest if I
said that there weren’t some things that concern me about the EC, but I will
share them at a later time. I will say that I am intrigued and am investigating
this movement at a much deeper level and will write on the EC over the next few
days.

What I really want to share today is a movement among churches that has been
happening for a long period of time.  Many people have tried to catch it’s
essence in books, seminars and conferences, but today I introduce to the
Christian world the "Submerging Church" culture, hereafter referred to as SC.
This is a culture that is particularly being seen in America’s churches and it
is not good. As Brian McLaren has been tabbed the father of the EC, someday I
will be tabbed as the dummy who reinvented the SC. Let me describe to you the SC
as I see it in our culture.  I wish that I could say that the average mainline,
evangelical church is submerged and engaging their culture, but they are not. 
They are also not submerging their culture with the love of God through real
relationships that create true koininia.

Well, if these churches are not submerging their culture with the truth of
God what is the SC all about.  Let me first say that when I use the word
submerging, I am flat out saying that churches are going under even though their
doors are still open. They are submerged in religion, denominationalism, and
themselves. The SC is all about not rocking the boat in their local church, in
their denomination and most of all and sadly, the kingdom. After growing up in a
local church that did not engage the community we were in and pastoring churches
that were the same, I can say that I had my share of the SC and I am sick of it.
The SC is losing not one, but several generations of people who are not
challenged spiritually, relationally, and intellectually. WAKE UP those of you
who are a part of this growing SC culture. Your children and grandchildren want
to know and experience God, not just hear about Him! The SC is is more concerned
with territory than it is with mission.  It is all about what happens inside the
walls of their building they call the church instead of what happens outside
those walls that Jesus calls the mission field.

Whether the SC doesn’t want to admit it or maybe they just don’t see it, we
are living in a post-modern world where people want to break down all of the
components of life and in this case Christianity. Quickly, a postmodern view is
one that doesn’t look at Christianity as a logical, step by step process, but
one that is about experience over reasoning. That can be good and that can be
bad as it depends on how you approach it.

Will the SC ever become emergent in the sense of the word that it realizes
that it must encounter the culture that it seeks to convert? Will it emerge from
the depths of denominationalism and shallow religion? Only time will tell, but
you can take it to the bank that whatever is submerged will one day hit the
bottom and that is where it will decay and finally deteriorate.