As our society and culture move ever faster, the rate at which "buzz words" and "memes" become old and tired also increases exponentially. The "emerging" church? That's so ten years ago. If it hasn't emerged already, like a wildly-colored, tatooed caterpillar from its coccoon, then it deserves to be eaten by the next sharp-eyed robin that comes along. Gobble that thing up, and don't let the piercings scratch your throat on the way down. If a new Church can't run around on its own five minutes after it's born, then it's going to be taken down by a hungry cheetah. I've seen the YouTube clips uploaded from the Discovery Channel. Haven't you? 
  
And stop insisting that you're "relevant." Please stop. If you are, in fact, relevant, we'll pick up on it. I don't need to see the name tag on the greeter at the front door of the alternative space you're meeting in, "Hello, My Name Is Relevant." I don't need to hear it namedropped in the sermon, or the message, or whatever chunk of text you're downloading to your audience. I get it. I'm really familiar with the freeware template; everyone's been using a version of it for millennia. This Church Template is a Thomas Edison wax cylinder that you keep trying to stuff into your Blu-Ray Disc player. And five minutes from now, people will be saying, "Blu-Ray? Are you kidding me? That's such a tired technological reference." I should have just said Betamax or LaserDisc. That's how quickly the formats of our perception shift.  

You can't keep up with the rate of change, Mister Church. We can't even keep up with the rate of change. Everything is blurring, speeding, melting from the friction of change. We're burning out on New. They don't even repair us any more, they just throw us away and replace us. We're all made overseas by multi-national corporations. We don't know where our food is grown, we don't know if our food is grown, we don't what the difference between food and non-food is. We're all hungry and we're starving because the food goes out of warranty before it reaches our mouths. And the Church is claiming to be relevant and new? The Church actually *wants* to be relevant and new? Are you off your nut?  
  
I don't want the Church to be relevant and new and fresh and trendy and Olsen Twins and sparkle motion. 
  
I want you to stop publishing the mountains of inspirational books that I see spilling from the shelves at every big box bookstore.

I want you to stop competing on the same level as shopping malls and movie theaters and the Internet.

I want you to stop producing knock-offs and substitutes and copies of mainstream culture.

I want you to stop the "sneaky deep" marketing to my demographic.

 I want you to get your hands out of my emotional assets.

I want you to stop trying to get us to come to your crib, where all the magic happens. 

Really.

I want you to give everyone a free ticket for inviolable, respectful space. 
  
I want you to be still, but not mute. 
  
I want you to be fluent in the language of listening. 
  
I want you to be ageless and agefull. 
  
I want you to be as biorhythmic as breath, as autonomic as my heart beat. 
  
I want you to be as forgettable as air before the urgent moment of drowning.

I want you to be as thin as the membrane between grief and joy. 
  
I want you to glimmer silently, supersaturated with God. 
  
I want so much that's promised, and not deliverable.