Last Saturday morning I led a breakout session on “Emerging Church” for the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship meeting here in my hometown of Owensboro. It was supposed to be a dialogue, but I figured some of the people wouldn’t know enough about Emerging Church to participate in a dialogue. So I began with introductions, asking each person to tell a little about their interest and/or involvement in Emerging Church. The exercise confirmed my suspicions. Several said they didn’t know much (or anything) about it. One person said, “I saw the phrase for the first time about 15 minutes ago when I was trying to decide which breakout to attend. Since I’d never even heard about it I figured I could learn something in here. So here I am.”

After the introductions I gave a brief (and very insufficient to the gigantic task) overview of Emerging Church. I admitted my limitations from the outset, including my lack of expertise (is anybody an expert on Emerging Church?), the problem of generalization, and the fact that it is still emerging and evolving. It’s like trying to describe a butterfly while looking at a caterpillar, without quite knowing what caterpillars become.

In order to facilitate the dialogue part of my task, I posted 4 large yellow post-its on the wall. They were titled: Hopeful Signs, Burning Questions, Vital Concerns, and Tentative Observations. It took more than a bit of prompting, but soon most everyone was writing something on the wall post-its. And it was enough to get the discussion started.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get around to talking about very many of the comments, although I hope to do so here over the next several days. Let me begin with the one that was in LARGE LETTERS:

ARE WE THROWING OUT THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER?

This is a valid concern, especially if you value the traditions and practices of the church that you have known for your whole life. You don’t question those traditions and practices . . . and you don’t really understand anyone who does. It feels like a rejection of what you hold dear. It feels threatening, and irreverent, and more than a little personal. You might feel like reverting to an old middle school tactic: “What’s your problem, Punk?”

Truth be told, much of what I’ve read from the Emerging Church movement is critical of the institutional church. . . including what we’ve written here. And respectfully asking the question: “Are we throwing out the baby?” is a big improvement over the middle school version, even if it is asked in all capitals.

So, here’s my question: What exactly is the baby we need to careful not to throw out?