Every Church Is An Emerging Church
Yesterday I attended a workshop led by Eddie Gibbs, co-author of the book 'Emerging Churches.' It's interesting that Eddie is 69 years old, has been ordained for 44 years, but he says the problem is, "the world for which I was trained no longer exists." He says we need to keep emerging with "fresh expressions of the church" to have a voice in the ever-changing culture we live in (I thought it was neat he used the exact words "fresh expressions of the church" - just like in our header). :)
What was even more interesting is one of the very first things he said was: "EVERY CHURCH IS AN EMERGING CHURCH." He stated that "An emerging church is a church that realizes it has not yet arrived." He also says, in the aforementioned book (p.43): "The church universal is an emerging church, for as the body of Christ here on earth, it awaits with eager anticipation the return of its Lord. As such, it is a church always in the process of becoming. It has never arrived in any final way. It is a pilgrim church, living the present reality of the reign of God in its provisional form until its consummation. It "emerges" as it engages the complex mosaic of cultures represented by the peoples of the earth. In so doing, it is morphed in those cultures and exerts a redemptive influence within them."
His definition - both in the workshop and his book (pp. 44-45) - is: "Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses the nine practices. Emerging churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities."
I haven't read the book yet, and didn't take real good notes (darnit), but I offer this as some basic information on emerging churches; and I would be interested in your opinion - do you agree that 'every church is an emerging church'?
posted by dan at 8:10 AM
3 Comments:
Dan,
I know that Scot McKnight is a fan of that book. He relies on it in his article, "Five Streams of the Emerging Church."
Sadly, for me too, I haven't read it yet.
The book of Acts begins with an implication "in my former book...I wrote about all that Jesus bgan to do and to teach...." Meaning, IMO, that Acts is the record of what Jesus continued to do and to teach through the church. That would suggest that every church should be an emerging church continuing to do the work of Jesus on earth. However, Jesus wrote letters to 7 churches near the end of the 1st century and a few of them seemed to merging instead of emerging. That being said I agree that every church has emerging DNA.
Thanks for the benefit our your seminar, Dan. When you finish the book please post more.
How would "proclaiming the Word of God" fit into those nine criteria?
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