What is the EmmausLife? This idea started with a group of 8 people. We called ourselves, Emmaus Austin. If someone asked, "what or who is emmaus austin" we didn't really have an answer. We were a group of people who served in our community, we shared our lives (literally, I live in a big city, and my front door hasn't been locked since the day we moved in...people come and go as they please), we studied scripture together, we ALL contributed to the common good of the community, and we held each other accountable (really, in other words, we were in each other's junk). We were semi-open, in that others could be apart, but they had to be apart of the whole or they weren't welcome, it's not like we kicked them out, but the truth is, we were so committed to who we were at a DNA level, that if others weren't that, and weren't evolving into that, they felt very uncomfortable and left - I'm not talking about being homogenized, we were very diverse, but in our core values, we were homogeneous.

Those who claimed to follow Christ and wanted to be apart had to be givers, they had to be servants, they had to commit to being a student of scripture, they had to contribute to the whole. It's just the way it was. It was not a set of values that a small group of leaders came up with and expected just the finer-leaders to live by, we all did. Some called us a church, others called us a home-church, and others didn't know. If we were a church, then our method or model really could have been descirebed as such:

we lowered the bar on being a church, and raised the bar on being a disciple...if you didn't want your junk messed with, you would feel very uncomfortable here...if you were looking for a place to be 'fed' you were going to starve, as we all 'fed' each other...if you were looking for a place to do a monthly project so you could hit your volunteer quota, then you would have left, because we would have demanded too much...

Some say, "that's too harsh, that's legalistic..." and by the time they made it to the legalistic point, they started sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher to us...The truth is, we had a conviction of what it meant to be a Christian, and we thought the bigger sin was to compromise that. If our way of community was too much for someone, God bless them, we would point out another church for them that they would feel more comfortable in...in fact, the original 8 grew to about 30, then we would drop to about 12, and grow to about 25, and then back down to 14 or so...then we felt like God asked us to merge with another church plant in the area...Someone asked, "then what happens to us, the soul of emmaus austin, isn't the bigger church..." and before I could answer someone else said, "if emmaus hasn't become a lifestyle that can be lived in whatever context, then we never really got it anyway, and it was a facade..." Thus we came up with the Emmaus Life. Now, while I fully agreed at the time with the person who came with the rebuttal, I'm not so sure I completely agree with her now, for the most part I do, but not completely, and I think she would agree with me now.

Here's the deal, it's not that the Emmaus Life is impossible to live in a larger expression of the local church, its just that it is much harder. The truth is, we all ONLY have 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year. Meaning, our lives are limited-period. And in that 24 hours or 7 days, you can only afford to give your time to so many elements. When the larger expression of the local church happens, then you have a lot more elements vying of your attention, and the Emmaus Life becomes a fight to maintain. I have to agree with Seth Godin, when you being to quantify something, you begin to strip it of its value. Anyway, the merger has been a beautiful thing, and given the chance to redo it, we would have done it again, the rest of the story is for another time.

The Emmaus Life, as you probably guessed, came from pulling out the principles of Jesus from the Emmaus story in Luke 24 (read it). Basically, this is church life gone simple. There was no worrying about setting the mood with the right lighting, so people would feel comfortable in worship, and thus come back. There was not worrying about if we did the right amount of advertisement to promote the next event in an understandable way. There was no flashing a church logo or brand. It's just a story of Jesus walking with two oppressed, depressed, lonely, broken, hurt (I think you get it, you could keep adding words) individuals: he listened to their story, he spoke their language, he walked the path they were walking, he ate with them, and then with a deep understanding of scriptures he revealed himself to them...through that, their lives were transformed, and without going through a church program, they naturally reacted by running back to their own, and sharing the same transforming truths...that's the story. The truth is, when we have too many things vying for our attention, this story is hard to live out. But if we read the scriptures for what they say - our focus would truly be on GOing rather than building a place for people to arrive. Isn't it funny that while Jesus never asks us to build, plant, or grow a church, in fact, he assures us, that he will, he commands us to GO! Go what? Go walk as Jesus walked on the Road to Emmaus! So, what road are you called to walk on? Is it with a specific people group in a different nation? Is it with a certain group in your city, the homeless, the AIDS community, the poor? What ever it is, do not let the demands of your 'Christian' life make you settle for the pseudo-missional-life to them - live the Emmaus Life!