There’s an updated Wikipedia definition for the emerging church now, thanks to the conversations and efforts of a number of folk who undertook to fix the off-base definition that evolved from the original. Although perhaps some tweaks remain to be done, the definition now offers a good history and overview of the emerging church. HT to TSK, who also highlights an excellent quote in the definition from Chris Seay: “It should be clear we are championing the gospel and missional values, not what (some) describe as ‘ministry intentionally influenced by postmodern theory.’”
Meanwhile, John O’Keefe wonders if we’re ready to be a movement. (HT: Ooze) The Wikipedia definition grapples with this as well, but as I’ve said a couple of times before, the emerging church probably is a movement, but because it’s a postmodern movement, it doesn’t fit the classical pattern of a modern movement — hence some of the confusion.
Elsewhere, as has been blogged about for a week or so, the emerging church is getting more mainstream press on PBS, which looks interesting as far as I’ve read so far. Kim Lawton interviews Scot McKnight, Don Carson, Doug Pagitt, Diana Butler Bass, and others. Check your local listings for Part 2’s airing times.
The aforementioned post by Andrew Jones (TSK) also provides this:
As for the concept of “post-emerging” (Ginkworld [i.e., John O’Keefe again]), it may be helpful to think of emerging church in 3 stages:
1. Submerging – those going deep into culture to listen, think, pray, and share the gospel among the emerging culture.
2. Emerging – When the new church structures begin to rise up and take shape organically inside the culture, a process that will often be described as having “emergent characteristics” and displaying “emergent behavior”.
3. Converging – When the new church structures begin to connect to the other existing structures, local and global, and form part of the web that is the body of Christ.
Of course, if you present these options to churches, they will normally choose the one that is most advanced and complete, no matter where they are in this process. But it might help those who have been going 15 years and are now part of the church fabric, despite growing up with emerging culture people.
So after all this, I figure we can toss in a new term… the “emerging church progression.” Is it a conversation? A movement? We don’t know, we’re just happy to be progressing.
I resonated with the Chris Seay quote … and feel if that’s the emphasis then we won’t be 1. Held Captive in discussions or debates revolving “postmodernism” 2. Open up a more global conversation especially with societies like mine which probably can’t relate to postmodern theory or would at least frame our situation differently.
All sounds very familiar. Phenomenon is about the best word I can think of to describe it. It encompasses everything that’s going on without saying that it’s all one homogeneous thing. It’s a phenomenon which has within it several streams. The problem, as I am seeing it now, is that it seems the public media and many others, have adopted “Emergent” – capital E, orginization, as “the emerging church” or at least the “official” spokeswhatever for it. This is unfortunate. While many in it’s ranks do a good job of pointing out that it’s not all them, it is still becoming unclearly plain to all who look on that Emergent IS the emerging church – much like Sinn Fein to the IRA – just an analogy.
Trouble is, it’s not. Much of what’s going on in the emerging church scene has no real connection to Emergent. Again, that’s not to say they’re evil. I’m not sure I’m all hyped about their present course, but it’s not my course. It’s not me. The only reason I would be concerned about it at all is because I get lumped in with it, as do we all. Anyway, I just thought I’d throw all that up on you there. Ha! Sorry for the mess. Peace.
Right. Sivin, I appreciate your comments wrt postmodernism in your own cultural context… I’ve wondered about this facet of the emerging church in non-Western culture. In Western contexts, postmodernism is one of the driving forces toward emerging models — what would you say is the prime driver in your context?
btw, I’m also wondering about a theory for why the modern forms of church (Western models) are still growing fairly rapidly in non-Western cultures, whereas in the West, they seem to have plateaued (to some, that would be a charitable description). Perhaps this observation excepts China, which has never really had a Western church model — evidently to their benefit. What I’m wondering is if some of these non-Western cultures haven’t fully come to grips with modernity yet, and in that context the modern church model works just fine. If that is the case however, I expect those cultures to come to terms with modernity pretty quickly, and move past it into postmodernity within a fairly short timeframe. Any thoughts on this idea?
Alan, I appreciated your work a while back on describing three streams or flavours of emerging church — very similar to a description of the same sort by Robbymac which came out independently around the same time… which just served to underscore the descriptions as highly accurate imo.
I agree the EV/EC blurriness is highly unfortunate. I wouldn’t go as far as Bob Hyatt and suggest they change their name, but it would be helpful if they started using the full name and calling themselves “Emergent Village” (per the web url), which would help point out that it’s not the same thing as all things emergent. I think we’ve all bogged about this before, and we all will again — but hopefully the message will start getting through soon… otherwise it’ll start looking like they really do purport to speak for the whole EC, which would just be arrogant. I don’t think any of them really see it this way, so it’d be nice to find a way to keep being clear about it.
I’m glad you appreciate the work we’ve done over at wikipedia. Thanks.
Aaron
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