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The emerging church or '''emergent church''' is a diverse movement within Christianity that arose in the late 20th century as a reaction to the influence of Modernism in Western Christianity. The movement is usually called a "conversation" by its proponents to emphasize its diffuse nature with contributions from many people and no explicitly defined leadership or direction. The emerging church seeks to Deconstruct and reconstruct Christianity as its mainly Western members live in a postmodern culture. While practices and even core doctrine vary, most emergents can be recognized by the following values: ; Authenticity : People in the postmodern culture seek real and authentic experiences in preference over scripted or superficial experiences. Emerging churches strive to be relevant to today's culture and daily life, whether it be through worship or service opportunities. The core Christian message is unchanged but emerging churches attempt, as the church has throughout the centuries, to find ways to reach God's people where they are to hear God's message of unconditional love. ; Missional Living : Christians go out into the world to serve God rather than isolate themselves within communities of like-minded individuals. ; or biblical Reductionism . ; Christ-likeness : While not neglecting the study of Scripture or the love of the church, Christians focus their lives on the worship and emulation of the person of Jesus Christ . Emergent Christians are predominantly found in Western Europe , North America , and the South Pacific . Some attend local independent churches that specifically identify themselves as being "emergent", while many others contribute to the conversation from within existing Mainline Denominations . HISTORICAL CONTEXT During recent centuries Western Christianity , like all of Western Civilization , has been influenced significantly by Modernism . In the 19th century Protestant Theologians applied principles of Scientific Reductionism to the Bible text in an effort to derive the true text and the underlying meaning as well as to establish proven " Meta-narrative s" (cf. Textual Criticism ). The result was not a unification of theology but rather an additional schism within the Church, resulting in the oppositional worldviews of Liberal Christianity and Christian Fundamentalism . The apparent antagonism between science and faith, unknown in antiquity, presents a novel challenge to the Church. The Postmodern Church resolves this issue by encouraging followers to deconstruct each element of their faith experience and reassemble the pieces according to his or her own unique journey of Deconstruction . In practical terms this faith trajectory may be seen in the young believer who is brought up in a Fundamentalist tradition and encounters the oppositional arguments in early adulthood. He can choose sides, he can reject both sides, or he can construct his own personal faith, but this will involve deconstructing his childhood faith {Link without Title} The Emerging Church provides a supportive environment for this process of deconstruction and reconstruction. The resulting theology is, necessarily, heterogenous and potentially divisive. The response of the Emerging Church is to seek unity through borrowing from the early Church a variety of symbols, practices, and experiences that form a common heritage and a unifying experience. From this perspective, the Emerging Church may be seens as relatively Mystical and traditional while both liberal Christianity and Fundamentalism may be viewed as modern and hyper-rational. The Emerging Church may also be seen as both a ''reaction to'', and a ''continuation of'' the Saddleback / Willow Creek movement, which achieved such great success in the 1990s using a "seeker-friendly" approach. The "seeker-friendly" approach practiced ‘''come-to-church’'' evangelism while the emergent church thesis is ‘''discover church''’ evangelism, in which the powerful (and often challenging) symbols and practices of the early church are poured into the modern church. Both models are marked by their goal of evangelism and by their willingness to retool the church experience as necessary to meet their goal. However, the resulting church experiences can be quite different. The Saddleback/Willow Creek movement sought to forego the "irrelevant trappings" of the traditional church, such as Stained Glass , Liturgy and candles, while the Emerging Church movement tends to value these same symbols as sacred expressions of faith and creativity. The Saddleback/Willow Creek movement is comfortable applying the tools of modern American Marketing ( Focus Group s, Advertising , Polling , etc.), to deliver a highly polished product to a Baby Boomer target Demographic . In contrast, the emerging church movement recognizes that their own target audience -- post-baby boomers -- has already been bombarded and over-saturated with advertising and thus places a higher value on authentic personal interactions and a de-emphasis on "timeless truths". STRUCTURE AND COMMONALITY While there is no co-ordinated organization behind the Emerging Church and no guarantee that the Emerging Church will mature into a coherent movement at all, the term is becoming increasingly common among leaders of Emerging Church groups and Emerging Church thinkers. Many of these leaders and thinkers have written books, articles and/or Blog s on the subject using a shared terminology. Emerging Church groups are typically observed to emphasize the following elements:
The Emerging Church movement shares with the House Church movement the willingness to challenge the structure and organization that have become traditional for the Church over many centuries. Many emerging churches are in fact also house churches. ECCLESIOLOGY / VIEW OF CHURCH STRUCTURE Reflecting its decentralized and local nature, the emerging church does not maintain a mutually agreed-on Ecclesiology , or set of beliefs defining the specific role and nature of the church. Eschewing Doctrine , the emerging church instead seeks merely to continue the mission of Christ, while deeply respecting the different expressions that the Body Of Christ may bring to that mission. COMPARISON TO OTHER MOVEMENTS It is useful to compare the Emerging Church with other Christian movements which emphasize foundational Christianity and inner experience. The Taizé Community in France also offers a neo-traditional experience of Christianity in which traditional symbols such as candles and crosses have intensified importance. Taizé, however, places relatively less emphasis on Scripture and a greater emphasis on meditation and the experiences derived from the monastic life. The Emerging Church, in turn, places a greater value on Multimedia -based creative expression (and would consider Religious Order s an anachronism, if they considered them at all). An important difference is that the Emerging Church seeks to be relevant and accessible within the larger society, while the Taizé Community offers an alternative to the surrounding culture. The Religious Society Of Friends , although not born out of the conflicts of modernism, has nonetheless influenced the Emerging Church through thinkers such as Dallas Willard . The Quakers also reject church hierarchy while valuing the sacred as a personal experience. However the Quakers have developed a formal theology of the Inner Light , whereas the Emerging Church does not wish to establish novel theologies of any kind. All three of these groups are ecumenical in their outlook, value tradition and inward trans-rational experience, and seek to revitalize the faith. The Emerging Church stands out by its close association with post-modernism and by it's emphasis on accessibility, as well as its ideal of interacting with the surrounding culture rather than escaping it. PIONEERS IN THE EMERGING CHURCH MOVEMENT The emerging church movement is highly decentralized so in no sense does any one person act as a spokesperson for the movement however the following people are often recognized as pioneers and important thinkers:
EMERGING CHURCH CHURCHES The Emerging Church is not confined to one denomination or gathering. Emerging churches can range in denominational affiliation from the Anglican / Episcopal Church to the Southern Baptist Church ; still others are best described as non-affiliated intentional communities or house churches. The following sites list just a few of the emerging church websites found around the world:
EMERGING CHURCH BLOGS Since the Emerging Church is eager to benefit from new technological opportunities, they often use blogs to spread their ideas. Directories of emergent blogs include: A sampling of emergent blogs can be found at the aggregator Emerging Church Blogs . SEE ALSO REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS
LINKS TO CRITIQUES OF THE EMERGING CHURCH Including articles, essays, audio/multimedia resources
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