- Steve Knight aptly points out that the emerging church is not monolithic. The conversation is about “decentralization, distribution of power, growing from the grassroots, the power of collective individuals combining their voices/hearts/passions behind a common mission” (the missio Dei). Yup.
- Anthony Stiff notes that traditional churches may disdain emerging churches, but they may have created them. He writes,
What are the Emerging Churches? They are the by-product of a youth-ministry development and sucess story over the last 30 years, they exist because traditional churches have created little to no space in the social, pastoral, or financial expenses of their communities to reach 20’s and 30’s who have emerged from youth groups. What we have is a number of consecutive generations who have been weened very painfully from the suckles of an immersion style ministry of light trusses, sound boards, bands and dramas; of catchy messages, exciting trips where spiritual stories take shape, of community development groups where intimacy is built, of radical missional focuses, and relational evanglistic techniques. These 20’s and 30’s have been forced to translate immediately and seamlessly into a larger adult amalgam where many if not all of the old immersion culture they felt is now focused on an audience who are on a cultural map 20 years beyond their own.
I’m not sure I’d have put it quite that way, but I agree with the title thesis. My take would be not so strong on the youth group or the age-driven elements — it might be most evident in those age groups, but fundamentally, it’s really got nothing to do with age at all.
- Site link: Living Open Source is a blog about churches using Open Source software and materials, including a lot of web resources and WordPress how-to’s, as in the “Blogging your Church with WordPress” series.
Okay, I admit it, I want to link to Matt Stone on Jesus walks into a bar … in no small part because of the image.- The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations has been named one of Amazon’s Top Ten Business Books for 2006. The website, perhaps to make the point, makes ues of a wiki complete with a Community Portal that greets you with the words, “This is a totally open Wiki. We trust the community and appreciate your contributions, thoughts, ideas, and reflections.” Very cool… and take note that the page of More Starfish Examples neatly includes the example of Early Christianity. Nice to see someone Grok it.
- re::mix has posted a couple of MP3s of sessions with Michael Frost on their website. I haven’t listened yet, but they’d have to be good ;^)
- Meanwhile, Allelon posts a video of Alan Roxburgh interviewing Ryan Bolger, discussing the missional church and Allelon’s missional schools project. This one has also had a bit of a response from Mark DeVine… largely a series of questions with a critical tone toward the missional church, mostly about its view of scripture and mostly interchanging the missional church with the emerging church. In other words, he starts laying out questions for a future critique based on an erroneous presupposition.
- John LaGrou and I were emailing this past week, and I was very pleased to find out more about the man. Somewhere in the process, I noted that he a couple of weeks ago, he reviewed Thomas Hohstadt’s new book, Beyond the Emerging Church — the End and the Beginning of a Movement, which doesn’t appear to be listed on Amazon yet.
I appreciate the link. I am utterly riveted by the conversation regarding emerging, missional, and Acts29. Please notice the positive and hopeful things I say. I think if you read my post and my article referenced in my previous post, you will notice some nuance and some gratitude for some of the emphases I find in emerging. It is true that I am asking critical questions and that I likely will be critiquing in the future but that is by no means the whole picture. In my context I am viewed as way to friendly to this conversation. Again thanks for the link.
Mark,
Sorry, I should have been more clear that the tone was only mildly critical (as in criticism). A critical (as in critique) article that tends toward more constructive would be most welcome. My largest concern is that there seemed to be a tendency to equate the missional church with the emerging church, which is not a valid equation… a lot of the theology of the emerging church is neither here nor there in the emerging conversation, simply isn’t the emphasis.
Thanks for commenting here, would love further dialogue (though I’m a bit out of touch for the next day or so, so I might be a little slow on the uptake).
My thesis was pretty extreme on the weight it laid on youth-group culture…I hadn’t really seen anyone pull it out and mention its relevance so I decided to give it a go and see what responses I got. I was surprised to see a lot of agreement. But I’m definitely glad to see others like yourself saying that age is not even a necessary component to the ‘Conversation’.
Sometimes the best way to get people talking about something is to go to a radical extreme and let them work their way back from it. If you search a bit more in my category you’ll find a five part series on the missiology of the Emerging Churches where I lay down a much more nuanced picture.
Thanks Brother Maynard.
The youth ministry connection is absolutely, totally right on target. Wendy & I saw this happening with youth & youth adults as early as 1990, and have been in conversion mode ever since (conversion = converting old models that frankly aren’t working into something that, Lord willing, actually WILL).
I wrote some years ago that youth pastors may turn out to be the “prophets” of the future of ministry; I heard a chorus of “God help us!” from people who had only seen entertainment-based youth ministry, but I think that Anthony’s premise is spot on.