Emerging Church

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Template:Cleanup-date The emerging church or emergent church is a diverse movement within Christianity that arose in the late 20th century as a reaction to the influence of modernism in Western Christianity. The movement is usually called a "conversation" by its proponents to emphasize its diffuse nature with contributions from many people and no explicitly defined leadership or direction. The emerging church seeks to deconstruct and reconstruct Christianity as its mainly Western members live in a postmodern culture. While practices and even core doctrine vary, most emergents can be recognized by the following values:

  • Missional living - Christians go out into the world to serve God rather than isolate themselves within communities of like-minded individuals.
  • Narrative theology - Teaching focuses on narrative presentations of faith and the Bible rather than systematic theology or biblical reductionism.
  • Christ-likeness - While not neglecting the study of scripture or the love of the church, Christians focus their lives on the worship and emulation of the person of Jesus Christ.
  • Authenticity - People in the postmodern culture seek real and authentic experiences in preference over scripted or superficial experiences. Emerging churches strive to be relevant to today's culture and daily life, whether it be through worship or service opportunities. The core Christian message is unchanged but emerging churches attempt, as the church has throughout the centuries, to find ways to reach God's people where they are to hear God's message of unconditional love.

Emergent Christians are predominantly found in Western Europe, North America, and the South Pacific. Some attend local independent churches that specifically identify themselves as being "emergent", while many others contribute to the conversation from within existing mainline denominations.

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Historical context

During recent centuries Western Christianity, like all of Western civilization, has been influenced significantly by modernism. In the 19th century modernist Protestant theologians sought to examine the individual narratives of the Bible and from them extract a set of underlying truths or "meta-narratives". By using methods borrowed from scientific reductionism it was hoped that a grand truth and worldview would be attained. In practice, however, the modernist approach led to additional schism within the Church (cf. liberal Christianity, Christian fundamentalism).

Postmodern church expression, on the other hand, encourages followers to deconstruct each element of their faith experience and reassemble the pieces according to his or her own unique journey of deconstruction.

One definition of the Emerging Church is that it is the collective term for the individuals who are emerging from this process of deconstruction and reconstruction of Christianity or for those who have joined groups/churches being led by such individuals.

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An alternate perspective

Alternatively, the Emerging Church may be seen as both a reaction to, and a continuation of the Saddleback/Willow Creek movement, which achieved such great success in the 1990s using a "seeker-friendly" approach. The "seeker-friendly" approach practiced ‘come-to-church’ evangelism while the emergent church thesis is ‘discover church’ evangelism, in which the powerful (and often challenging) symbols and practices of the early church are poured into the modern church.

Both models are marked by their goal of evangelism and by their willingness to retool the church experience as necessary to meet their goal. However, the resulting church experiences can be quite different. The Saddleback/Willow Creek movement sought to forego the "irrelevant trappings" of the traditional church, such as stained glass, liturgy and candles, while the Emerging Church movement tends to value these same symbols as sacred expressions of faith and creativity.

The Saddleback/Willow Creek movement is comfortable applying the tools of modern American marketing (focus groups, advertising, polling, etc.), to deliver a highly polished product to a baby boomer target demographic. In contrast, the emerging church movement recognizes that their own target audience -- post-baby boomers -- has already been bombarded and over-saturated with advertising and thus places a higher value on authentic personal interactions and a de-emphasis on "timeless truths".

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Structure and Commonality

While there is no co-ordinated organization behind the Emerging Church and no guarantee that the Emerging Church will mature into a coherent movement at all, the term is becoming increasingly common among leaders of Emerging Church groups and Emerging Church thinkers. Many of these leaders and thinkers have written books, articles and/or blogs on the subject using a shared terminology.

Emerging Church groups are typically observed to emphasize the following elements:

  • Highly creative approaches to worship and spiritual reflection. This can involve everything from the use of contemporary music and films to liturgy, as well as more ancient customs, with a goal of making the church more appealing to the unchurched, and those within the church.
  • A minimalist and decentralized organizational structure.
  • A flexible approach to theology wherein individual differences in belief and morality are accepted within reason.
  • A holistic view of the role of the church in society. This can mean anything from greater emphasis on fellowship in the structure of the group to a higher degree of emphasis on social action, community building or Christian outreach.
  • A desire to reanalyze the Bible within varying contexts with the goal of revealing a multiplicity of valid perspectives rather than a single valid interpretation.
  • A continual re-examination of theology.
  • A high value placed on creating communities built out of the creativity of those who are a part of each local body.
  • A belief in the journey of faith, both as individual and community.

The Emerging Church movement shares with the house church movement the willingness to challenge the structure and organization that have become traditional for the Church over many centuries. Many emerging churches are in fact also house churches.

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Ecclesiology / View of Church Structure

Reflecting its decentralized and local nature, the emerging church does not maintain a mutually agreed-on ecclesiology, or set of beliefs defining the specific role and nature of the church. Eschewing doctrine, the emerging church instead seeks merely to continue the mission of Christ, while deeply respecting the different expressions that the body of Christ may bring to that mission.

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Pioneers in the Emerging Church movement

The emerging church movement is highly decentralized so in no sense does any one person act as a spokesperson for the movement however the following people are often recognized as pioneers and important thinkers:

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Emerging Churches

The Emerging Church is not confined to one denomination or gathering. Emerging churches can range in denominational affiliation from the Anglican/Episcopal Church to the Southern Baptist Church; still others are best described as non-affiliated intentional communities or house churches.

The following sites list just a few of the emerging church websites found around the world:

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Emerging Blogs

Since the Emerging Church is eager to benefit from new technological opportunities, they often use blogs to spread their ideas. Directories of emergent blogs include:

A sampling of emergent blogs can be found at the aggregator Emerging Church Blogs.

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References

  • Burke, Spencer, et. al. "Our Response to Critics of Emergent" Emergent-US: The Blog, June 2, 2005; Gibbs, Eddie & Ryan Bolger. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Manuscript). Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005.
  • Carson, D. A. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church : Understanding a Movement and Its Implications. Zondervan, 2005.
  • Heaton, Terry. "10 Questions for Brian McLaren." http://donatacom.com/papers/10Q7.htm, last accessed July 5, 2003.
  • Hunsberger, George R., and Craig Van Gelder. The Church between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996, 1.
  • Jones, Andrew. "Are We a Movement?" TallSkinnyKiwi.com: The Blog, June 8, 2005, quoting an email to Ryan Bolger, Ph.D. from Dr. Paul Pierson on behalf of Jones.
  • Jones, Andrew. "What is Emergent?" TallSkinnyKiwi.com: The Blog, January 4, 2005.
  • Kimball, Dan Emerging Worship (emergentYS: 2004) ISBN 0310256445
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External links

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Links to critiques of the Emerging Church

Including articles, essays, audio/multimedia resources

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See also

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