Yes, you can and should lead your people out of the building. We worship together as the body of Christ, we do discipleship together as the body of Christ; why not serve the greater community as the body of Christ. Jesus set this example in John 5. His reason? Read verse 17- "My Father is working {the thing that, by the way, was prohibited} and I myself are working"
Good point!

my concern is that emergent is becoming a platform for dialogue instead of a dream-weaver of futurist architecture. Below is what i am challenging my community with in moving beyond rhetoric and the salvo's a self defense and into a merger with the mind of God that creates tomorrow's dawn. Christianity is at its core a revolutionary enterprise, and with the shadowy sweep of every new era must turn first upon itself and act with ruthless focus and re-alignment with a bloody cross, and the myriad paradoxes and enigmas of consequences stemming from that singular event. Confronted there with the mission of life, all must turn inwardly deeply to find the resolve necessary to forge forth a new faith upon the anvil of our souls. And while some would barter peace with modernity and seek a dole at the religious table of ecumenism; perhaps there are some who also must dare seeming treason to bring fire and flag to those who see the future as something less bargained with or reasoned through…as met and matched. Emergent has come to stand upon the turning page of history. The former paradigms are fading, and their ridicule and vacuous impact are increasingly unacceptable ashes in our mouths and minds. Stale rhetoric, and a seeming betrayal of the revolution leaves many of us waiting for those few brave souls who will dare to make war upon both the past and the future and create the epicenter of a new soular fire. And while the decorum of a moderate dialogue is a part of the maturing of the movement, there must also be room for roar and lightening to come forth from those who know they are prophets sent to declare the doom and dream which is to come. Christianity in America is already captive…to syncretism, consumerism, and isolationism. And the hypocrisy levels have been toxic for a good long time. A massive mystical hospice caught in the black-death of postmodernism, and while so many blame postmodernism for things…we all know that is a joke. PM [whatever the hell that is or isn’t] can’t be blamed for anything-it is neutral but simply real. It is our systems which cannot contain it, and indeed our “religion” has been the black death perhaps of our culture. No matter what perspective one takes, we all know something is fatally wrong with Christianity in America. These are the truest and simplest realities to find, evaluate, and embrace. But deconstruction and cynicism are the delicacies of cowards and the weak minded. To be an architect of the future takes an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual commitment, resolve, and razor focus that most simply cannot withstand. Like teenagers that play with concepts of anarchy…they someday find themselves in the wasteland of their apocalypse suddenly caught in the embers realizing in amazement that now they must create civilization. Tyler Durden is fun, but he is a boy and nothing more. It will take the steely gaze of a new Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena; a new Benedict and Francis to weave the dream of what could be into existence. And who will rise above pettiness and speculation to construct the dawn? Who has the balls, or ovaries for such adventures and accountability? Socratic dialogue and speculation form the first phase of such a shift. And while these deconstructions and foundational upheavals are necessary they are only the fires which bring the former institutions into awakenment and enlightenment or ruin. Look down the road my sisters and brothers at the brave new world we are called by fate, destiny, and life to create. For all of our minds must broaden far beyond the space of what is wrong into the huge responsibility of what shall be. This is where we need to tremble and be refined and focused into the best we can be. We see our children in the new ways we are thinking, feeling, and living out our Christianity and we grow timid. Without all the safe rigging of the past we plunge forward into eclectic and speculative realms unsure where they will conclude or collude into. We seek wisdom in the ancient as we speed into the millennium matrix of our digital future. But we must be a sober and decisive generation lest we lose the soul of the gospel in the souls of our grandchildren; and we must be a reflective and actioning catalyst lest we see the gospel die in America as all indicators seem to be showing. The fact is the dinosaurs are dying, and while we might all like the applause of a nice eulogy; perhaps there is also room for the anger that drives some to spit on their graves. Not all generations are handed such tasks. What we say and do, like it or not, is racing into the blueprints of the future. The great 3rd millennium cathedral is already being built by our lives…like it or not. And if it is to withstand the friendly fire of the existing institutions, the onslaughts of evil, and the prides of our own choosing are as yet unknown. What is known is that our minds must boil with hot adrenaline to scorch out the pretence of our pettiness and call us forth to spiritual audacity and moral grandeur; our hearts must be no less unhinged than those who stepped into the coliseums and faced down the mobs with the pure resolved granite of agape love; and our lives need be marines of conquest through the armaments of love and justice in such a way that the farce of Christianity would give way to the epic love-parade that Lewis wrote about so forcefully in Narnia. Days like these make men into Huss and Luther…or Judas. Cowards stockpile excuses in warehouses they empty when they face their fears. Burn them down, and leave yourself nothing save Christ alone. In the rumbles of epoch the very fabric of culture is being cannibalized and replaced and only the epic adventurer will be able to survive and thrive in the coming days. We ask so many questions: what will church be; theology be; blah blah blah. Dream it, and make it happen! Fail a thousand times with the Edison bulbs of possibilities, until the filament finally emerges which will withstand the currents of Christ and light the new days. Case study existence with the God of the cosmos and while shattering the old we must start to construct our Mars Hills for the future dialogues and our Mosaics of art that declare and decorate the bridegroom’s visage. I guess to make it plain: Ranting was the childhood of emergent; dialogue its puberty; but now we must make a Church and turn the dreams of God into the habitation of our lives. Either we do that and die trying…or like Europe we will become the museum of a religion which has hauntings but is dead
An interesting letter for sure. I am wondering why the author didn't leave his name and location? Editor