A couple weeks back I shared a series of posts on on what I saw as the defining characteristics of the emerging Christian movement.
And Wednesday, I found that Urban Theologian (HT @knightopia) shared nine practices of the emerging church, according to Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger in their book “Remembering Our Future: Explorations in Deep Church.”
If you are unclear about what an emerging church is, Gibbs and Bolger define emerging churches as “missional communities arising from within postmodern culture and consisting of followers of Jesus who are seeking to be faithful to their place and time.†The nine “practices†are:
- identifying with the life of Jesus and emphasizing, the kingdom of God as opposed to church or denomination
- engagement with contemporary ’secular’ culture both at a popular and local level so that it is reflected in and transformed through worship
- emphasizing personal relationship and community over and above institutions, structure and bureaucratic forms of organization
- welcoming the stranger primarily in the form of humble openness to other faiths and culture at large
- holistic service to the wider society with an emphasis on such embodied action as a gift as distinct from a consumer service or evangelistic technique
- participating in and taking responsibility for worship as producers rather than passive consumers
- an emphasis on art and creativity as a central part of Christian witness
- encouraging all-member ministry and collective or team forms of leadership
- an emphasis on spiritual disciplines and liturgical practice both individually and corporately.
That seems like a great list to me — whether it’s describing emerging Christianity or Rotary Club — call it whatever you want but it seems like something I’d want to be a part of.
Are we being too divisive when we have to label the way we’re doing church as something new (i.e. emergent/emerging or missional)? Could this not become a dream for the Church itself? Is it too late to strip the denominations and labels away and just simply BE the Church?
“Stop complaining about the Church you’ve experienced and start becoming the Church you dream of.”
What do you think? Think we could all rally around these practices? Could we become a New Humanity with these shared practices?
