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When I hear of ambitious church planting strategies in the West, mainline denominations are not the first to come to mind (Fresh Expressions within the Anglican Church in the UK serving as the main exception). Happily, this week, I heard of another exception to the rule.

I had lunch with Jim Milley, Outreach and Equipping Pastor at La Canada Presbyterian (PCUSA). Jim is creating a network with the vision to plant 100 churches in the Los Angeles area and 1000 churches on the West Coast. A Fuller grad with mission experience in Africa, he thinks missionally about new expressions of church in the US. Instead of strategizing about ways to bring people back to traditional Presbyterian churches, Jim hopes to see new expressions of church created in the many cultures of LA and the West Coast.

If you are interested in planting churches on the West Coast or interested in talking to Jim further, he is gathering leaders together on February 14 for a first meeting. You can contact Jim at jmilley (at) network1000 (dot) org.

I had the opportunity to meet with a delightful group of Fuller grads from the early 1990s. About fifteen in number, these men and women serve as PCUSA pastors and once each year they get back together. I was invited to come and chat with them about my research interests. We had a great back and forth and the two hours went by really quickly — lots of laughter throughout. I spoke on the nine patterns of emerging churches. We talked about how the emerging practices are flowing into the denominational systems as a renewal movement. We talked a bit about the move of the church into new forms of social media. A rich time…

"My heart goes out to the Boomers,"  I muttered to myself, as I sat through a traditional service I visited recently. "They were raised with this stuff, and they ran away. I don’t blame them."

I’ve been pretty hard on the Boomers. They moved the church from the urban to the suburban, from the older church building to the suburban mega-complex, and they removed all symbols and rituals from worship and replaced them with praise choruses. What’s to like?

I’ve spent some time visiting some traditional denominations recently, and I have begun to develop some sympathy for the Boomers. These communities, upheld by the Silent Generation, participate in rituals that have lost their meaning. If meaning is what something is and does in the life of a community, then I see no meaning in these activities. In some of the places I’ve visited, these rituals were lifeless and unconnected to the rest of life. They did not communicate in the ‘real’ world at all, at least not in mine. This communion really does seem reduced to grape juice and bread. Bread of life? Not in that service!

So, maybe the Boomers did what they could in simply moving away from practices that no longer carried meaning.  They introduced rock and roll to church because none of the church music integrated their everyday life to God. They removed Communion because it was anything but that. They moved the church to the strip mall because that is where they lived. 
 
I constantly give credit to Emerging Churches for retrieving rituals and integrating them with popular culture — rooting the community in a tradition while fostering a contemporary vigor. The Eucharist, the Christian Calendar, Ignatian prayers, body prayers, the Jesus prayer, praying the hours, lectio divina, labyrinths, the use of icons, all have a home in Emerging Churches. The difference is that Emerging Churches integrate these rituals into their everyday lives, and these practices are now pregnant with meaning, both corporately and individually. But maybe Emerging Churches were able to do what they did because the Boomers cleared the way. Just maybe…