I've recently decided that I am not an "emergent" Christian. I'd like to tell you why, but first let me tell you a little story. I love all of Wes Anderson's films, but for me The Royal Tenenbaums definitely takes the cake. In the film, Royal (played marvelously by Gene Hackman) finds himself down on his luck and decides to try to make amends with his wife and estranged (and strange) family.

As the plot unfolds, we discover how bizarre, not to mention hilarious, Royal's family is: Chas recently lost his wife and—paranoid about losing his two sons—becomes an extreme safety freak and moves the family back home; Margot—the adopted daughter—is a washed-up playwright, is married to an absent psychologist and is having an affair with the family's childhood friend, Eli Cash; the youngest son, Richie, threw away his tennis career because he was in love with his adopted sister Margot. Royal pretends to be dying of cancer and moves in with his ex-wife, all the kids come home, and comedy ensues.

"So what?" you say. "What does this have to do with the emergent Christian movement?" I'll admit, not a lot at first look. But as emergent Christianity has become more and more popular, I've found myself becoming more and more uncomfortable with this nagging feeling that I couldn't quite pin down. Then I realized the Church is supposed to be a family. And my church family is the Tenenbaums.

You see, the Tenenbaums are the most-screwed up family you'll ever meet, and I think that's why we like them so much. When we see their dysfunctionality, we laugh because they represent all of the problems we have in our own families, but to such an exaggerated degree that our dilemmas seem so insignificant by comparison. In fact, there comes a point in the film when you start to wonder if the Tenenbaums should just give up, go their separate ways and never speak to each other again. Richie, who is my favorite character, gets to a place where he decides to cut his wrists; his family is so screwed up that the only way he can get away is to end his life. Fortunately for the Tenebaums, his suicide is a failure, and when he recovers, he is able to recognize something that his family has been blind to. Though they may all be a mess, they are a family, and as a family they stick together. It's more important for them to love each other, idiosyncrasies and all, in order to keep that family alive.

Now my church family is every bit is problematic as the Tenebaums: We've had our share of bad parenting, we've felt like we've been unfairly treated, and we certainly have siblings who are completely wacko. On top of that, my church is pretty conservative. Wait, that's downplaying it. It is far too conservative, and I'm probably too liberal. I've gone to other churches and fellowships where I feel like I've "gotten more out of" the worship experiences, and where I've felt that my gifts could maybe be put to better use (I'm a worship leader, often playing opposite an organ).

Nevertheless, it is a family, and I've got the same choice Richie Tenenbaum had. 1) I can try to get out of the family altogether, 2) I can move to find a new family, a family that might suit me better, or 3) I can stick with my real family, a family that is loaded with mistakes but is held together through the love of Christ. Because when you stop to think about it, a family really should be all about commitment and sticking together. It's not about what I can get out of it; it's about what I put into it.

Can you imagine if you had a friend who only spent time with her family when she got gifts or if everyone cared about what she wanted first. Of course, as Christians we would most likely think that our friend was behaving ridiculously. We're supposed to do that for others, not demand it for ourselves. Why, then, do we leave a church when we feel that our needs aren't being met? Isn't this the same thing? But this is exactly what I see happening with so much of the emerging Church movement. Churchgoers (our age especially) are defecting en masse from traditional churches in favor of whatever local buzz church might be offering the coolest programs at the time. The problem is that our generation is cutting itself off from our spiritual parents. We are emancipating ourselves, and losing so much of our heritage in the process.

Maybe I'm overstating or exaggerating the problem—I can only talk about what I see in my community and my church. But our eagerness in simply abandoning our more conservative and traditional churches, to me, seems to be a bad sign. On the other hand, I'm not suggesting that you just sit miserably in an old church, putting up with the narrow-mindedness that can often be found there. That's not what Richie Tenenbaum would do. Instead, let's join them with love, mistakes and all, contribute where we're needed and pray without ceasing for our crazy family. Because I'd like my family to stay together, even if we're all messed up.

Traynor Hansen loves (in descending order) his wife Tricia, listening to music (Sufjan Stevens) and reading 19th-Century English poetry (Coleridge). He is an English student at the U of Washington and would rather read works of the dead than of the living.