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The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 1
The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 2
The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 3
The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 4
The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 5
Out of the milieu of postmodernism and its impact on culture (post-Christian) and the church (post-Evangelical and post-seeker-sensitive), an innovative church paradigm has begun to materialize know as the emerging church.
WHAT IS THE EMERGING CHURCH?
Though the latter part of this paper with deal with emerging church classification and its accompanying distinctives, a broad definition of the emerging church will give some helpful context. Popularly, the term “emerging church†has been applied to high-profile, youth-oriented congregations that have gained attention on account of their rapid numerical growth; their ability to attract – or retain – twentysomethings; their contemporary worship, which draws from popular music; and their ability to promote themselves to the Christian subculture through websites and by word of mouth.
More generally, emerging church is a catchall term. Jonny Baker, author of Alternative Worship , says, “…I think the term ‘emerging church’ is nothing more than a way of expressing that we need new forms of church that relate to the emerging culture.†[1] Kimball states:
For me, the term “the emerging church” simply meant churches who were focusing on the mission of Jesus and thinking about the Kingdom in our emerging culture. It meant churches who were rethinking what it means to be the church in our emerging culture. It meant churches who were “being the church” instead of “going to church” in our emerging culture. [2]
Andrew Jones, blogger at Tall Skinny Kiwi, says the emerging church is:
1. A nod to the newness of the movement and its fluidity
2. Coming up out the previous wave of ministry, but not necessarily in protest to it
3. Displays characteristics of emergent behavior that are evident in any system when chaos finds order through self-organization and other emergent criteria.
4. Ministry that is a biblically informed contextual response to the local emerging cultural context – something similar to what the wider church used to call youth culture, Gen X culture, postmodern culture, etc.
5. Addressing issues of culture as well as mindset (postmodern) and life-stage (youth, Gen X) [3]
THE DAWNING OF THE NORTH AMERICAN EMERGING CHURCH
As described earlier, Kimball alleges that in the year 2000, postmodernism was a legitimized epoch due to the palpable evidence of postmodern philosophy in culture. If Kimball’s observation is true, there were precursors to the advent of the full-fledged expression of postmodernism, and thus the emerging church.
It is believed that the advent of emerging churches in North America began as Gen-X churches – congregations ministering specifically to the generation of individuals born between 1965 – 1980. The first known Gen-X church in the U.S. began in 1986 with Dieter Zander and NewSong in Pomona, California. In 1993, a second version appeared known as “church-within-a-church.†The distinction from a Gen-X church was that it was financially supported by a megachurch. [4]
About this time in the early 90s, Brad Cecil, an evangelical pastor, was attending a conference on the postmodern philosophy of Jacques Derrida at Villanova University with John Caputo – who at the time was professor of philosophy there. Upon hearing that there was an evangelical pastor in attendance, Caputo took particular note of the seeming interest in postmodernism by the evangelical world.
Also during this time, the next phase of an emerging church groundswell began to take shape. Mark Driscoll was planting Mars Hill Church in Seattle; Doug Pagitt was a youth pastor at megachurch Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, MN; Ron Johnson was planting Pathways in Denver; Tim Keel was planting Jacob’s Well in Kansas City; Andrew Jones was ministering to Goth kids in Portland; Chris Seay was planting University Baptist Church in Waco [5]; Dan Kimball was transitioning from a “church-within-a-church†at Santa Cruz Bible Fellowship to the “sister-hybrid-church;†[6] Erwin McManus had accepted a call to Church on Brady later to become Mosaic; and Rob Bell was at megachurch Calvary Church in Grand Rapids. [7]
In 1993, Leighton Ford Ministries and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship jointly held a Consultation on Evangelizing Generation X, the first conference on Gen-X ministry in the U.S. Additionally, George Barna, Kevin Ford and Tim Celek, and Dieter Zander focused on reaching Busters, or Gen-Xers through ministry strategy. [8]
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[1] Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 41.
[2] Dan Kimball, “Origins of the term ‘emergent’ and ‘emerging’: part 1″; available from http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2006/04/origin_of_the_t.html; Internet; accessed 14 December 2007.
[3] Andrew Jones, “What I Mean When I Say “Emerging-Missional” Church,†Tall Skinny Kiwi; available from http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2006/02/what_i_mean_whe.html; Internet; accessed 14 December 2007.
[4] Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 30.
[5] Darrin Patrick, “The Emerging Church: Discerning a Missional Milieu,†Francis A. Schaeffer Institute Lecture Series, Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO, October 2007.
[6] Dan Kimball, Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations (Grand Rapids, MI/El Cajon, CA: Zondervan/YS Emergent, 2004), 174.
[7] Patrick, “The Emerging Church,†FSI Lecture Series, 2007.
[8] Bolger and Gibbs, Emerging Churches, 32.
