The Emerging Church is a label that has been used to refer to a particular subset of Christians who are rethinking Christianity against the backdrop of Postmodernism. In order to explain fully what it is, it is necessary to look at what it is moving away from.

During recent centuries, Christianity was influenced significantly by Modernism in the sense that it sought to take the individual narratives of the Bible and drill down towards a set of underlying truths, or meta-narrative, that underpinned them all. This scientific reductionism of underlying truths was then packaged up into a Christian worldview that members of the Church were expected to adopt. These worldviews often contained a lot of cultural baggage as well as theological stances. While disagreements regarding these worldviews were common, this generally resulted in the creation of other denominations with their own distinct but equally modernist Christian worldviews rather than a questioning of modernism itself.

By contrast, Postmodernism has been characterised by the deconstruction of modernist worldviews. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this article, however, it is clear that Christianity has been influenced by this. Individual Christians who choose to reject the particular Christian worldview that they have previously held are now more likely to subsequently question the very idea of a modernist Christian worldview rather than create an alternative one. This has led to a climate where many individual Christians are deconstructing each area of their Christian faith and analysing it piece by piece. Each individual experiences his or her own unique journey through this deconstruction process. One observed phenomenon is that many Christians subsequently start to reconstruct their Christianity thus finding a faith that, while basically Christian, is often distinct from the more established churches. One definition of the Emerging Church is that it is the collective noun for the individuals who are emerging from this process of deconstruction and reconstruction of Christianity, or those who have joined groups being led by such individuals.

While there is no single co-ordinated organization behind the emerging church globally, and no guarantee that the Emerging Church will mature into a coherent movement at all, the term is becoming increasingly common currency among both leaders of Emerging Church groups and Emerging Church thinkers. Many of these leaders and thinkers have written books, articles and/or blogs on the subject.

So far, Emerging Church groups have typically contained some or all of the following elements:

• Highly creative approaches to worship and spiritual reflection, as compared to many American churches in recent years. This can involve everything from the use of contemporary music and films through to liturgy or other more ancient customs.
• A minimalist and decentralised organisational structure.
• A flexible approach to theology whereby individual differences in belief and morality are accepted within reason.
• A holistic approach to the role of the church in society. This can mean anything from greater emphasis on fellowship in the structure of the group to a higher degree of emphasis on social action, community building or Christian outreach.
• A desire to reanalyize the Bible against the context into which it was written, in search of a reconstructed theology that is free from Modernist baggage.

The Emerging Church movement is closely related to the House Church movement in that both of them are challenging traditional notions of how the Church should be organized. Not all House Churches are as influenced by Postmodern philosophy as the Emerging Church, but many Emerging Churches are also House Churches.

External links

Examples of Emerging Churches

• Kaleo Church http://www.kaleochurch.com
• The Evergreen Community http://evergreenlife.org
• Paradox http://www.go2paradox.com
• 3rd Day House Church Movement http://www.thirddaychurches.com/
• Vintage Faith http://www.vintagefaith.com/
• Solomon's Porch http://www.solomonsporch.com/
• Ecclesia Houston http://www.ecclesiahouston.org/
• Jacob's Well http://www.jacobswellchurch.org/
• The Freeway http://www.frwy.ca
• Church of the Apostles http://www.apostleschurch.org
• LivingRoom http://www.livingroom.org.au/home.php
• The Open Door Community Church http://www.the-open-door.org/
• Water's Edge http://www.watersedge.tv

Emerging Church sites

• EmergingChurch.org http://www.emergingchurch.org
• Allelon-Companions In The Gospel http://www.allelon.org
• Emergent http://www.emergentvillage.com
• Emerging Church Network http://www.emergingchurchnetwork.com
• Emerging Church.info http://www.emergingchurch.info
• Open Source Theology http://www.opensourcetheology.net
• The Ooze: Conversation for the journey http://www.theooze.com
• Next-Wave http://www.next-wave.org
• Ginkworld http://www.ginkworld.net
• Resonate: conversation about postmodernity in Canada http://www.resonate.ca
• faithmaps http://www.faithmaps.org
• Vaux /London http://www.vaux.net
• zoecarnate web portal http://zoecarnate.com

Miscellaneous

• Jordon Cooper's blog http://www.jordoncooper.com
• TallSkinnyKiwi: Global Emerging Church Blog http://tallskinnykiwi.com
• ICTHUS http://www.vaughnthompson.com/ichthus
• Relentless Grace http://www.brianbaute.com
• Submergence.org http://www.submergence.org
• JonathanGardner: 'Thin Place' Encounters (Blog) http://jonathangardner.blogspot.com
• ReThinking Church http://www.vintagefaith.com/longer.pdf
• emergesque http://faithmaps.blogspot.com
• Tension in the Emerging Church http://www.kaleochurch.com/culture/article.php?content=EmergingChurch.html&type=
  other
• The Complex Christ: Discussion board around emergent faith, responding to Kester Brewin's book (see below) http://www.thecomplexchrist.com
• Quaker Ranter blog http://www.nonviolence.org/quaker
• Only Wonder Understands http://www.jvoorhees.net
• Alan Hartung's blog http://www.alanhartung.com/blog/

News

• Religion News Blog - news items about the Emerging Church http://www.religionnewsblog.com/search-s=emerging%20church&submit=search&sentenc
  e=on&bmurl=true.html

Bibliography

The Emerging Church, Dan Kimball

Emerging Worship, Dan Kimball

A New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren

The Story We Find Ourselves In, Brian McLaren

Alternative Worship, Jonny Baker, Doug Gay and Jenny Brown

Beyond Foundationalism, Stan Grenz

Blue like Jazz, Don Miller

Primer on Postmodernism, Stan Grenz

The Complex Christ: Signs of Emergence in the Urban Church, Kester Brewin

The End of the World as We Know It by Chuck Smith

Making Sense of Church by Spencer Burke

See also

Alternative worship

Emergence