Syncretism or Contextualization?

HatchSpace:

In other words, is the emerging church movement a vital example of contextualizing the gospel, or is it a syncretism

This is a great question and I assume that the answer is far from easy. Like most things, I believe that the overall picture of the emerging church is a mixed-bag with some crossing the line to syncretism and others doing a great job of contextualization.

One thing that some critiques of the emergent church discussion miss is the fact that our culture is changing and that clearly the church is losing ground in the modern culture. Because of technology, younger generation's minds are wired differently and therefore require a different style of teaching and learning. Unfortunately the church is often slow to address these changes.

My two churches can serve as a great example here. They both are very traditional or in Len Sweet's lingo, immigrant. They both have hymns which are spread throughout the service. They both have traditional liturgy and nobody knows why it's there. They both emphasize the sermon (much to my delight). Yet there is very little energy in the service. Most of those coming to church are 55 and over. Attracting young families to this type of worship service is difficult if not impossible. Slowly but surely these two churches will die for failure to contextualize the message to the younger population.