Characteristics of Emerging Churches

Been pondering what makes churches (ministries?) emerging.  Here are what a couple books point to:

Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures
Eddie Gibbs, Ryan K. Bolger

Identifying with Jesus
Transforming Secular Space
Living as Community
Welcoming the Stranger
Serving with Generosity
Participating as Producers
Creating as Created Beings
Leading as a Body
Merging Ancient and Contemporary Spiritualities

An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches
Ray S. Anderson

It’s about Theology, not Geography
It’s about Christ, not just Christology
It’s about the Spirit, not just Spirituality
It’s about the Right Gospel, not just the Right Polity
It’s about Kingdom Living, not Kingdom Building
It’s about the Work of God, not just the Word of God
It’s about the Law of Love, not the Letter of the Law
It’s about the Community of the Spirit, not just the Gifts of the Spirit
It’s about Mission, not just Ministry
It’s about the Church ahead of Us, not only the Church behind Us

My Spiritual Autobiography from September 9, 1999

I wrote this in 1999 as part of the Servant Leadership School process.  Very interesting to look back at looking back.  My life through the lens of a younger me.  I wonder what the younger me would make of the current me.  Would I be surprised?  Or am I all too predictable in my maturations and consternations?  Here it is, unedited:

In a sense my spiritual journey began with my dad’s father.  He was a Red Bird Mission Pastor/Educator and my earliest ideas of ministry and service come from time spent with my grandparents in the eastern mountains of Kentucky.  I can’t remember a sermon my Grandfather preached or a specific conversation about faith, religion, Jesus, or the like, but I sensed love for others and their needs that only Christ could give.

My parents as well modeled a quiet blend of service, leadership, tradition, and faith that continues to intrigue me.  My mother and father served in a multitude of ways at the Paris, KY First UM church at which we were members.  They were anything but expressive about their faith, but I will never forget the hours spent at the church cleaning, painting, teaching, helping…..  well, just serving.

I suppose something must have stuck because my mom writes in June of 1980, when I was four, “He asked me how he could get to heaven.  I told him to say Jesus come into my heart and forgive me of all the bad things I did, he did and gave his life to Jesus”.

My teenage years were an interesting time of struggling and not even knowing it.  I think I fit the proverbial mold of a “sophomore” a  wise fool.  Prior to my freshman year of high school I attended a Christian music concert and made a more conscious to follow Christ and be more bold about my faith.  I became deeply involved with my church youth group, district youth events, and especially church camp.  I believe it was the relationships and experiences I had a camp that began to shape the identity I was forming of myself.  Unfortunately, I got a bit carried away and decide that my faith in Christ made me, in some way, better than others in my school.  Looking back I see the trap of legalism and pride in which I was stuck.

During my 4.5 years at Asbury College God began to do some renovations in my life.  Through friends, professors, counselors, and chapel speakers God was churning my life to a point of brokenness and openness to His Grace and peace such that I had never experienced.  By the time I graduated I felt I could truly say that I knew Him in a personal and intimate way.  I felt His call to come to Hamilton First to serve as Christian Education and Youth Director and I have felt nothing but confirmation of that call since I’ve been here (even when I feel like I want to quit).  I sense He is now preparing me to continue my service here and begin to consider what will lay ahead in the future for ministry and family.

Class notes – John Wesley Theology for Today

JW’s two points of tension with the established church:

• preaching of the word – issue of truth
• gathering of faithful – issue of fellowship
• cause of said tension
  • goal of christian experience:  holiness of heart and life
  • goal not possible without all marks of the church
• ecclesiolae in ecclesia (small churches within the church) providing a “leaven of holiness”

JW’s ideal church

• gathering of faithful
• preaching of pure word
• administering sacraments
• out of these 3 flow >>> holiness of heart/life >>> evangelism/social concerns

Actual models of church in JW’s day

• Church of England
  • focus – historical institution
  • concept – traditional
  • essentials practiced – admin. sacraments
  • other values – ties with early church, order of worship, BoC, order of ministry, orthodox theology (39 articles of religion)
• Free Church
  • focus – living faith
  • concept – functional
  • essentials practiced – gathering the faithful, preaching pure word

JW’s solution for the church

• Church of England – sacraments, theology, order
  • Methodist societies – gathering faithful, preaching word
  • JW’s view:  Ecclesiolae in Ecclesia (little churches in the church)

Question:  Was it inevitable that the Ecclesiolae would leave the Ecclesia and become their own Ecclesia?

• JW’s concern was meeting people’s spiritual needs – where it could be done within existing churches that was fine, but where it could not then start a new church/structure.

Characteristics of the Church

1. Unity (koinonia)
2. Holiness
3. Catholicity (universality)
4. Apostolicity (succession of apostolic doctrines – not structures)

Theology of Pastoral Care (or Theology of the Christian Life)

• intentional activity for ongoing spiritual growth (discipleship)
• JW journal – August 1763:
  • “Thursday, 25–l was more convinced than ever that the preaching like an apostle, without joining
    together those that are awakened and training them up in the ways of God, is only begetting children
    for the murderer. How much preaching has there been for these twenty years all over Fembrokeshirel
    But no regular societies, no discipline, no order or connection; and the consequence is that nine in
    ten of the once-awakened are now faster asleep than ever.”
• Large Group meeting – the Soceity
  • origin
  • conditions
    • avoid every kind of evil
    • do good
    • attend all the ordinances of God
• Small Group Fellowships
  • Bands
    • Origin
    • Purpose/Conditions for membership
    • organizations and activity

Thinking about Modalities and Sodalities

(PDF link)

The harmony between the modality and the sodality achieved by the Roman Church is perhaps the most significant characteristic of this phase of the world Christian movement …

The first structure in the New Testament scene is thus what is often called the New Testament Church. It was essentially built along Jewish synagogue lines, embracing the community of the faithful in any given place. The defining characteristic of this structure is that it included old and young, male and female. Note, too, that Paul was willing to build such fellowships out of former Jews as well as non-Jewish Greeks. …

Thus, on the one hand, the structure we call the New Testament church is a prototype of all subsequent Christian fellowships where old and young, male and female are gathered together as normal biological families in aggregate. On the other hand, Paul’s missionary band can be considered a prototype of all subsequent missionary endeavors organized out of committed, experienced workers who affiliated themselves as a second decision beyond membership in the first structure.

Note well the additional commitment. Note also that the structure that resulted was something definitely more than the extended outreach of the Antioch church. No matter what we think the structure was, we know that it was not simply the Antioch church operating at a distance from its home base. It
was something else, something different. We will consider the missionary band the second of the two redemptive structures in New Testament times.

From The Two Structures by Ralph D. Winter