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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
The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 6
The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 7
The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 8
The Emerging Church: A Postmodern Reformation 9
2003
In 2003, Kimball’s seminal book, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for Emerging Generations, further advanced the momentum of the emerging church. In the first part of his book, Kimball walks the reader through post-Christian, post-seeker-sensitive, and postmodern discussions in laymen’s terms. He closes the first section by describing the difference between a consumer church and a missional church:
A consumer church is seen as a dispenser of religious goods and services. People come to church to be fed, to have their needs met through quality programs, and to have the professionals teach their children about God. “I go to church…â€
A missional church is seen as a body of people sent on a mission who gather in community for worship, encouragement, and teaching from the Word that supplements what they are feeding themselves through the week. “I am the church…†[1]
In the second part of his book, he describes how to reconstruct a post-seeker-sensitive, “vintage Christianity†church for emerging generations, asserting that “churches need to make some holistic fundamental shifts and decision to truly engage the emerging culture.†[2] Kimball illustrates such things as redesigning your worship gathering [3]; rediscovering depth and theology in our preaching [4]; and approaching evangelism [5], spiritual formation [6], and leadership [7] in radically different ways.
Also published in 2003 was the multi-author book, The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives, edited by Sweet and contributed by McLaren, McManus, Fredrica Mathewes-Green, Michael Horton, and Andy Crouch. Sweet’s introduction in The Church in Emerging Culture is believed to be one of the first attempts to formulate an emerging church categorical matrix. He uses the imagery of “clearings†to describe ways “in which twenty-first century leaders are laboring.†Sweet says, “The language of ‘clearing’ is another way of talking about ‘kingdom.’†[8]
The first “clearing†is depicted as a “garden†where the message and methods are preserved. The second “clearing†is described as a “park†where the message is protected but the methods are evolving. The “glen†is the third “clearing†where the message is developing and the methods are conserved. The last “clearing†is the “meadow†where the message and methods are evolving. [9]
2005
Released in early 2005 was the first prominent critique of the emerging church movement, Becoming Conversant With the Emergent Church: Understanding a Movement and its Implications, by professor and author, D.A. Carson. Though most of the book is a critique of the movement, Carson does mention a generalization that could serve as a taxonomy for the movement: protest. [10]
The book was received with stinging protest by Emergent supporters, but some welcomed its assessment like professor and author Mark Devine, “Carson’s book involves an analysis of only a couple of sub-sections of the movement. But very important sub-sections they are and Carson’s analysis of them is, I believe, right on.†[11] Devine continues, “Far from the mean, reductionistic treatment of McLaren some have charged him with, Carson is very thorough, fair, and even seems to look for every opportunity to praise McLaren where he can.†[12]
In 2005, Gibbs and Ryan Bolger released the first academic-level book on the emerging church movement; an intently comprehensive and objective look at the international advance of doing ministry in the postmodern era called Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Culture, put out by Baker Academic. At the time, it was and for many, still is, the most extensive treatment of the movement.
Emerging Churches continued where Kimball left off by further specifying distinctives of the movement in nine overarching ideas:
1. Identifying with Jesus
2. Transforming secular space
3. Living as community
4. Welcoming the stranger
5. Serving with generosity
6. Participating as producers
7. Creating as created beings
8. Leading as a body
9. Merging ancient and contemporary spiritualities [13]
Tucked away in Emerging Churches is a little known taxonomy offered by Pagitt on the emerging church. Pagitt sees three types of responses to the current context:
1) a return to the Reformation (e.g. Mars Hill in Seattle); 2) deep systematic changes, but Christianity and the church are still in the center and theological changes are not needed (e.g. University Baptist in Waco); and 3) seeing the church as not necessarily the center of God’s intentions; God is working in the world, and the church has the option to join God or not. (e.g. Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis). This third approach focuses more on the kingdom than on the church and characterizes what Pagitt would classify as “emerging.†[14]
[1] Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Emergent YS, 2003), 95.
[2] Ibid., 105.
[3] Ibid., 112-178
[4] Ibid., 171-196.
[5] Ibid., 198-210.
[6] Ibid., 210-224.
[7] Ibid., 227-241.
[8] Leonard Sweet ed., The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives (Grand Rapids, MI/El Cajon, CA: Zondervan/YS Emergent, 2003), 19.
[9] Ibid., 22-38.
[10] D.A Carson, Becoming Conversant With the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and its Implications (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 14.
[11] Mark Devine, “Emerging Church: Confessional Caressing of Carson,†Devine Theology; available from http://www.theologyprof.com/emerging-church-confessional-caressing-of-carson/; Internet; accessed 14 December 2007.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 5.
[14] Ibid., 42.
