"Emerging Church": Help or Hindrance?

I’m a relative newcomer to the emerging conversation, but if I have to use a word to describe it I usually choose emerging over emergent. Emergent feels more like a brand to me while emerging feels less pinned down. Emergent feels prescriptive while emerging feels descriptive.

As an early emergent we did not have a name for it we called it Gen X. I think the emergent conversation is helpful but many of its roots are rebellious in nature.

Jacob Lee

Took me way too long to find out I wasn’t alone in my discontent. I was ready to leave building-based Christianity long behind. So—don’t change the name without leaving a few crumbs for us late comers to follow.

emerge |iˈmərj| verb [ intrans. ] “move out of or away from something and come into view”

I think as long as “emerging” was a verb, it was a helpful term for those of us whom it described. We were “moving out of or away from” institutions, cultures, religious structures, etc. that we were finding increasingly inadequate or problematic. What began to “come into view” was the number of people who shared our discomfort and relationships began to form.

Where the word began to become uncomfortable was its evolution into a noun: “Emerging Church”, “Emergent Service”, and maybe even the early clamor heard when “Emergent Village” was formed and events, books and other product “emerged.”

I do not necessarily have a problem with the “noun” expressions of emerging faith. I’ve bought many of the books and attended several of the events. Most of these nouns have broadened my spiritual imagination and provided new motivation to continue my journey following God in the way of Jesus. As long as the missional verbs continue to drive the institutional nouns, this will continue to be a helpful place.

Feel free to use my quote in any promotional manner. I can see it now:

Adam Moore says, “Emergent Village actually exists!”

Brilliant. :)

Joking aside, I do think this is a good conversation. I particularly like your comments Mike – I think this gets at what I was trying to say but in a much better way.

i think its a helpful identifier. my church is trying to catch up with the conversation. either to understand or discredit it. either way, emerging is a helpful word that points people in a certain direction.”emerging” is what made me anabaptist.

whatever we change it to, we’re going to have to figure out how to make the first letter a leaf…or else we’re totally screwed.

I like the word “emerging” – it expresses how I feel about my faith in some ways, as it is always moving, and coming into view. It also expresses how my little possee of people have approached following Jesus – in some “emerging” way.
When I was in seminary, an older professor talked about how the church often (if not always) has small pockets of people who are doing things differently. Over time, either those small pockets turn into big ones and become a substantial movement; or it stays a small pocket, but often with a vocal presence. Sure, it’s an imperfect moniker, but what isn’t?

I also embrace the word emergent/emerging. The definitions are quite descriptive of the movement, especially this one: arising as a natural or logical consequence. But I feel that the descriptor “missional” almost begs to follow it (after a – or a /). Mega-churches could be defined as an “emergent” church but most would never make the cut as “missional”, and I think that is an essential component of the movement. I also like the phrase coined by the late theologian Robert Webber, “Ancient-Future”. Doesn’t THAT reflect the nature of this movement well?

I have no real problems with any word you want to choose, but I don’t think that words can really describe what goes on in our hearts. “Emerge,” in all its variations, is being done to death these days, though. I’m less comfortable with “church,” since what’s going on looks more like the natural expression of what we create when the “church” we used to know no longer works.

I hope we are always emerging. Emerging connotes a process rather than a belief system, and isn’t that what a transforming relationship with God is all about? If Emerging is limited a status-symbol or a quantifiable position doctrinally or a style of worship, then yes, it will be soon outdated. Only if it refers to a Christ-follower who is emerging, or a community that is emerging as a way of life in the Spirit will the term be life-giving.

Sigh…

Gee, postmodern folks don’t like labels and are ready to jump ship on this one too now. Who would’ve thunk it?

I’m sorry, but this whole question is just way too predictable and really seems rather besides the point. Who cares what we call it? It is what it is. Let’s not be so commitment-phobic that we have to keep changing the words we use to describe it every few years. It just gets confusing and frankly makes us seem as wishy-washy as our critics want to claim that we are.

emergence is a powerful (bottom up) concept that exactly describes what is going on. read about it at wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

digest that and you will never again confuse a coffee and candles / gimmicks / next cool thing gathering with true emergence / an authentic emerging church.

the problems started when someone created a separate entry at wikipedia for the emerging church. instead of creating an additional application of the idea of emergence – we became separated from the root meaning – and started becoming a ghetto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_Church

same thing happened with postmodernism / postmodern theology. we’re loosing the richness of the body of thought that’s gone before us – and become a ghetto unto ourselves.

emergent is a brand name. i’m a fan of what’s going on here – but there is no such thing as an emergent church… unless emergent were to start / license its own gathering… or we’re talking in the past tense ;-)

As I said before I’m glad to discover I’m not alone. Sounds to me like we haven’t quite shaken our root need to “do” it right. My friend who hasn’t even heard of the “energning church” excpt through me has been talking a lot about God’s conversation with her. The topic: Being as she abides in Him. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be doing good where ever and when ever we can especially with regard to “the least of these” but our best efforts need His love as a bottom line or it becomes too easy to get off track—tied up in shouldhoods and self importance. Just a thought.