Giving Church One More Chance

Andrew DeYoung is a journalist and Christian who wants to "give church one more chance. To find a way of being a Christian that I can live with." He writes about his journey to several churches in the Twin Cities in an article called "Giving Church One More Chance: The Evolving Christian Landscape of the Twin Cities." The article is published at Twin Cities Runoff.

One of the churches that DeYoung visited is Trinity City Church. Here is that portion of the article:

This commitment to leaving things up for grabs hasn’t endeared emergent churches to everybody. Trinity City Church, for instance, a new church in St. Paul (the city this time), bears many superficial resemblances to emergent communities—including a younger-than-average membership, worship style that appeals to young adults, emphasis on social justice in an urban context, and a vibrant church community. Church members even have their own social network, called The Table. In spite of these similarities, Pastor Bryan Lair is hesitant to claim the label of “emergent.”

“The main thing the emerging church has brought to the table is asking good questions about the Christian faith in light of a changing culture,” says Lair. “But although we ask many of the same questions as the emerging church, and also have similar critiques of evangelicalism, we have differences in theology. We are extremely cautious about challenging the broad historic consensus of Christian theology.”

For churchgoers who like the emerging church’s innovations in worship but don’t care for a conversational approach to truth and authority, Trinity City Church and other communities like it are appealing alternatives. Trinity’s website contains a long list of accepted doctrines, and its slogan—“New Church. Vintage Jesus.”—signals an approach that pushes the envelope without departing from old-time religion. As Lair puts it, “We are philosophically progressive and theologically conservative.”

DeYoung also wisely notices the risk of starting new churches. New churches that are thriving one day are "all just a few handfuls of people who decide to do something else with their Sundays away from closing their doors forever. But on this Sunday, with these people, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that this is the way it should be, that all those centuries of cultural dominance were just a fluke, and that true religion always thrives at the margins, on the brink of death or rebirth."

Our prayer is for God to bring rebirth to our church community and city. To glorify Jesus by igniting a movement of the gospel for the joy of our city and all nations.

We also pray for Andrew, and others like him, who have this spiritual yearning in the heart. We pray that Jesus would satisfy your hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Thank you Andrew for visiting Trinity City Church on this journey.

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One note of clarification. Trinity City Church does not own the social network The Table. We, like many other churches, are using this great tool to communicate and connect our church community. For more information about The Table, and those who have worked so hard to bring this resource to the local church, visit tableproject.org.

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