Nassau's "Emerging Church"

This past Sunday, Marleen and I visited the "Emerging" church on the Island. I didn't quite know what to expect, but apparently it was one of the main churches that a lot of the Americans go. It was quite a culture shock to walk into the sanctuary (a gym) darkened with spot lights on slim attractive young singers on a stage. Behind them was a drummer with dreadlocks, a keyboard players without shoes, and a bass player. One could tell there was some money in the congregation.

As I surveyed the congregation, it was half black and white. The senior pastor was away, so a guest pastor from somewhere in Michigan was speaking. He was quite a suave, good looking, guy with a dark tan, jeans and flip flops. His sermon was all about Nicodemus..."Hey Nick, you are on the right track man!"... "So what's up with this cat Jesus?"...need I say more? I wasn't a big fan.

Then they had 'communion', but without any preface, prayer, or introduction. Though I was pained by the total lack of reverence and knew that the church most likely was memorialist in its 'sacramental theology' I went up and took the elements as a demonstration of my solidarity and recognition that they are indeed a part of the Bride of Christ, though I may not agree with a lot of what they are doing. 

After the service we were invited by one of the congregants, Dr. David Allen and his wife for lunch. Marleen had just met him that week at a education forum, and he was VERY interested in our school. His house was right on the water with a picture perfect view from his living room couch of the waves just a few meters away.

G.K. Chesterton once said, "You can tell a lot about a person from their bookshelf". This was certainly the case with Dr. Allen. "You could start a Classical school right out of your house, Dr. Allen!" I told him. Though he got a doctorate from Harvard Medical school in psychiatry, he seemed to be a very well rounded person with lots of books in philosophy, theology, and classic literature.  He grew up in the Bahamas and then went to school at St. Andrews in Scotland, and met his wife Viki at L'Abri in Switzerland in the late 1960s. She was a charismatic classicist from Berkely, California. She ended up going on and getting a PhD in Washington DC. They both are published authors and Viki teaches at the College of the Bahamas.

Needless to say, it was a very interesting conversation through the afternoon with lots of wine refills, critiques of the sermon, and tangents into politics, local news, educational philosophy--all the while a nice sea breeze was blowing through the sliding doors.

At the end of the afternoon, David said, "I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'd like to start a little Sunday evening get together where we pray and read Scripture and fellowship. I was thinking this might be something that people like Ben here would like to do." Then Viki piped in, "It would be kind of like a mini-L'Abri." I assured him I would be there next week! Though I doubt I'll be back to the "emerging" church any time soon.