It's a sunday. A day marked out throughout western history as a day of respite from the rat-race. As part of a church that dissolved into conversation and friendship (both good and godly things) 2 years ago I have begun to miss the Sunday routine. I thought, like many, that pairing back the routines and making life together somehow entirely voluntaristic and dependent on the whim of individuals of great enterprise would be liberating. Actually, for a while, it was. Now, as I embrace the faltering first months of my 5th decade on God's earth, I realise that my sinful laziness and childish ignorance of my own condition means I need to do some things just because they are a good thing to practice/repeat. I mean that Sunday is looking more and more traditional again. I am part of an emergent church, yet, to voice disquiet about this: I am deeply concerned that some parts of the emergent movement are moving into a radical individualism and obsession with passing all christian practices through the filter of postmodern critique. Postmodernism being one thing, postmodernity quite another. and both are as much representations of the age (which we need to be wary of) as they are anything to do with the many Christian traditions that form the postmodern church. Can we reclaim the sacrificial cross of Christ in all this? I am afraid that I haven't got the energy to keep reinventing church life and pratice. Does giving up meeting, rather than liberate, actually mean the end of church? And how on earth are decisions made without leadership? To be continued.....