great post by maggi the birthday girl on emergent thinkers vs celebrities. there are some great comments on the bottom of the post such as this one by mumcat
i have to admit I’m somewhat confused by the “emerging church” thing. Everything seems so full of buzzwords, powerpoint presentations, rock bands and personalia that I have difficulty figuring out what it is they believe, whether there is anything not specifically labelled “emerging” that has value, and where if anywhere folks over 30 can fit in with this — or if we should even want to (or try to).
Perhaps this is the wrong place to ask, but is “emerging church” limited to strictly the conservative/evangelical wing of Christianity or can others play too?
Maggi on Pomo Theology
Ever since Brian McLaren said “There won’t be postmodern churches” until there are postmodern theologies (and later recanted), I’ve been wondering what kinds of emerging (not Emergent with a capital E) theologies are out there if not postmodern. Maggi …
Emergo Theology
Is emerging church limited to strictly the
conservative/evangelical wing of Christianity?
Can others play too?
Just a few quick thoughts. As nobody has defined the Emerging Church – nor an emerging theology, if it actually exists, why should a…
What are you doing here!?!
It’s been great to discover Maggi’s blog, and hear from a perspective on the other side of the pond and the other end of the theological spectrum, especially in regards to the whole “What is the emerging church?” discussion. Sometimes…
I sometimes wonder if some expressions of the ’emerging church’ are communities of exclusion by the nature of how they define themselves. By playing U2 and a lot of popular music and use of images and art are they narrowly defining themselves as young and hip? How many of our grandparents would feel comfortable in the ’emerging church’? Surely we are interested in reaching out to ALL people and allowing them space to make authentic conections with God even if that means hymns. Difference and diversity (including catering for ALL ages) give us richness.
diversity is good. the problem is that what is currently on offer in church isn’t diverse. it’s culturally alien for lots of people and there’s the rub… my hunch is that we need a whole range of diverse expressions of church but alos need to find ways to unite around things that don’t involve musical taste as the defining factor.
I agree, and think that not uniting around things that don’t involve music could be expanded to include not uniting around things to do with ‘the arts’. I like the idea of a whole range of diverse expressions of the church but I wonder if it is possible to have immense age, gender, race and theological diversity in church whilst maintaining genuine community or do we need youth churches, conservative churches, elderly churches and emerging churches? Can a single church give voice to this sort of diversity in culturally relevant ways? I don’t think lots of different churches set up to suit lots of different groups of people is the best expression of the Triune God we worship?? Any thoughts?
i have grown up and still hang around in an anglican church where there is a model of different congregations. so grace is one congregation that has its own flavour but is part of the wider church there. it kind of works though more could be done on the overlaps. other churches (e.g. st thomas in sheffield) have expanded that idea further so that they have diversity in a network of cells and clusters (a group of cells). i haven’t actually been but they have an incredible number of types of cells but successfully manage to share the dna of being one church….
in london the most multicultural churches tend to be pentecostal ones – no idea why that is?…
Thanks for your examples, they’re very interesting. I’m involved in Baptist churches in NZ and they tend to be (huge generalisation) white middle class educated folks. I wonder if the multicultural effectiveness of pentecostal churches is that have traditionally (huge generalisation) been able to attract people from lower socio-economic backgrounds?? Have to openly admit that this more a stab in the dark than based on statistical evidence!!
you could be right – i don’t know….