I love the church that I'm serving. I will admit that Mercy Church has been a hard place to describe to people though as I've had conversations with friends (both from within and outside of the church). We, as people, tend to like to use labels to help us better identify and categorize the world around us, but we, as a church, don't tend to fit neatly into the boxes provided by current church labels.
Mercy is the combination of a church plant from the Christian and Missionary Alliance and a traditional Mennonite congregation with 50 years of history in Sioux Falls, SD. We merged the two congregations nearly two years ago and are actually fully affiliated with two different denominations. Our hope is that this shows a desire to break down walls between churches, denominations and generations in order to better represent the unity of believers in the Kingdom of God.
The diversity of where we come from is pretty broad. Not only Alliance and Mennonite, but we have leadership with background ranging from Assemblies of God to United Methodist and members with background in Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic and Faith Church traditions (among others) all gathering together to worship and fellowship together. We also strive to be a place where people that are simply exploring Christ would be able to belong even before they believe. Because of this diversity, it's difficult to know what labels to attach and if they will be helpful or harmful.
I think this page does a good job of summing up where we're coming from in terms of doctrine and we're very much about connecting in meaningful relationship with one another through service and fellowship. I think it's a little harder for us to define ourselves stylistically.
The first service is definitely traditional and, therefore, a bit easier to identify. Believe it or not, this service is growing in both numbers and generational diversity. The second service has tried on a few labels, but still hasn't found anything that fits comfortably. Contemporary works for some people, but conjures up images of poorly done, 1980's choruses for others (myself included). Emerging works for some, but has taken a beating in some Christian circles because of a few leaders within the emerging movement whose teaching skews toward a more liberal theology. Fortunately, those few teachers do not represent the whole of the emerging movement. Unfortunately, so much emphasis has been placed on them that the term "emerging" has become synonymous with heresy in some circles.
Amy had a conversation with a student this week and let the term "emerging church" slip and his reaction was immediately one of distrust. We had the conversation a year ago at Mercy Church about the use of the term as well and several of our own members had a strong reaction against it.
There's a tendency with any kind of movement for a strong initial push followed by a period of course correction and mini-reform that help keep it from running too far out of bounds. I think the emerging church is in that correction period, but I fear that it may not be given much of a chance by some people (who would resonate with a lot of its core values) because of the way that it has been negatively portrayed in some circles.
So if we're not "contemporary" and we're not "emerging", what are we? We're using the term "renewal service" for the time being. We are contemporary in the fact that we use a band of instruments and musical styles that are more contemporary to our culture. We are emerging in the fact that we use ancient/future approaches to worship that encourage the use of historic creeds and lectionary materials and are moving toward the use of multiple response mechanisms in our worship (song, prayer, stations, communion) in order to help people connect to God in a way that is most natural to their personality and wiring.
Whatever we are, I'm loving the way that God is shaping and challenging us to live authentic faith in a diverse community. I'm also loving watching real people undergo real life change as we encounter Jesus together.
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