I’m a [former]/[post] evangelical, thoroughly dissatisfied with the shallowness of the evangelical church and seeking a church experience where there is a sense of history that goes back more than 30 years, if it even goes back that far.

I’m looking for something that goes deeper than substitutionary atonement and the Four Spiritual Laws, and to my considerable surprise, I find that I’m looking more and more at the Presbyterian Church I was raised in as something to emulate — I just wish the mainline churches I’ve had experience with were a little more spiritually connected and less of a “This is what we do every Sunday” sort of experience.

I am the son of an Assemblies of God pastor. A very sane and not-crazy-not-heretical pastor. Long story short, Bible College taught me Church History and Theology while I was burning out on mainstream Evangelical culture.

From there I turned to a local Episcopal Church (charismatic/evangelical) and haven’t been happier to be a Christian in a very very long time.

So I don’t know about you guys, but if John Crowder were to ever walk up to the podium at the church I go to … well … I’d be done with evangelicalism for good and I’d be sitting in a Lutheran or Episcopalian church the next Sunday. Thankfully, I’m 90% sure we wouldn’t let Crowder at the podium at my church. Unfortunately, if you look at his list of speaking engagements, other evangelical churches are letting him in.

http://www.alittleleaven.com/2009/01/blasphemy-in-the-church.html

I always appreciate your posts about what mainlines are doing well and where they are failing. I know you identify as a post-evangelical who is coming from the evangelical tradition and looking to mine the broader church for riches and that’s the audience you’re writing to, but myself and I suspect a few other readers of yours are coming the other way. I’m a low-church Anglican getting a little lower all the time as I look to learn from what the evangelical tradition has done well. The post-evangelicals and the post-mainlines need to collaborate more. Are there post-mainlines? There should be. For the people who love the ancient and serious church but are frustrated by the new religious moralism and the flimsy stand for Christ and Him crucified. Anyways, thanks for the encouragement and prodding.

Can you elaborate a little on that last statement?

Thanks,
Austin

“I’d go a lot of places with infant baptism right now if I could bring along the rest of the Christian tradition.”

Where to go?

Virginia and North Carolina. First Baptists in small towns, esp with educated congregations.

The Disciples (Christian) are an option for a lot of people. Same with EFC.

I’d go a lot of places with infant baptism right now if I could bring along the rest of the Christian tradition.

peace

ms

I’m a baptist in a rural applachian free style (to put it mildly) church. Over the last five years I have been able to structure some thigns some what. We do the Lord’s Prayer, I have added a scripture reading in addition to the sermon text. I have preached the RCL for the last three years even though I’m sure they do not know what that is. I had a fairly scripted Lord’s Supper, but it’s still a struggle. Most of my congregation are willing to follow, but any suggestion that the songs should be thought about before the “Spirit Leads” or if “gasp” we did a responsive reading, I have a small very vocal minority that would rather burn the building down than do it.

My question is two fold.

1. How do baptist reclaim some of the lost beauty of worship? Most of the more formal bapitst churches are Reformed and I am not one who thinks Calvins writings are innerant.

2. Where else can a baptist go? All other churches that have high worship are either 1. Liberal social baptist churches i.e. CBF or denominations that still hold to infant baptism. It’s sort of hard for a convinced baptist, no matter how fed up with shallow worship, to overlook that.

Any help or suggestions from anyone?

Thanks,
austin

My Rector described us as “a Bible believing, evangelical, anglo-catholic, episcopal parish”. Extremely high church, old liturgy with the permission of the bishop. Thank God that we get along with him better than many churches in the diocese colser to his theology. I’ll never go back.

And yet, there are those who want to “hipify” our services to entice others to come. The Rector is having none of it. Still, we are flatlined in growth and at 55, I’m close to the median age here.

Question: HOW DO I GET WORD OUT TO FRUSTRATED EVANGELICALS THAT WE EXIST AND WANT YOU TO JOIN US?

You see, most of my friends and former peers like the new and some have left my old church (once relatively “high” for Baptists, now a little this, a little that; “I will spew you out…”, but I digress.) for hipper stuff. A little help?

If things don’t pan out at the baptist church we’re at we are planning to consider several differnt church bodies in the area – AMiA, Christian (DOC) and a non-denom. that is liturgical in style with communion as it’s focal point in the service but has more contempo music insted of sacred though that is used some. The Christian (DOC) church might be an issue since some are so liberal that they could just as easily be a UCC even
though the two aren’t related in their history – don’t know if we can find a conservative one of those anywhere but there is one that might fit the bill but would require a little more research. The AMiA is a definately going to be checked out.

Continuing the journey….