Book Review: Emerging Churches: Creating
Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures
•
Gibbs, Eddie, and Ryan K.
Bolger. 2005. Emerging Churches: Creating
Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Chapter
1 - A Brief Look at Culture
This chapter addresses the
need for the Western church to understand culture before examining the emerging
church. Good mission practice includes understanding the culture in which one
wants to serve. Understanding that the West is in a cultural shift where the
church, Christendom and modernity are in decline and that modes and styles of
communication have changed is important when considering the emerging church.
Chapter
2 – What is the Emerging Church?
This chapter starts off by
giving a bit of history of the Gen-X church in postmodern culture and the issue
of is this church evangelical or post-evangelical. Can modern and postmodern
congregations exist within a local church (p. 39)? Popular definition for emerging church is one
that attracts youth and young adults, contemporary music, a Christian
subculture, and promoting through websites and word of mouth (p. 41). Johnny Baker suggests it is a catchall term
that indicates the need for new forms of church that are relative to the
current culture (p. 41). Others consider
it to be a type of church that has not arrived or a quest for holistic
spirituality (p. 42). Even so, the emerging church is a goal or a process that
contains various patterns that are constantly changing and forming and must be
understood in light of the kingdom of God, least we lose focus of the primary
calling of the church (p. 43) Gibbs and Bolger’s definition of the emerging
church is that they are communities that practice the way of Jesus within
postmodern cultures. The nine practices
are: identify with the life of Jesus, transform the secular realm, live highly
communal lives, welcome strangers, serve generously, participatory producers, creative,
lead as a body and participate in spiritual practices (p. 44-45).
Chapter
3 – Identifying with Jesus
The emerging church
focuses on the kingdom of God and being representatives of Jesus in the here
and now. It is about living in community
participating in activities of the kingdom through acts of service and
forgiveness (p. 64).
Chapter
4 – Transforming Secular Space
For the emerging church, all of life must be
made sacred, not just secular spaces, times or activities therefore creating
“whole life” spirituality (p. 66).
Dismantling and re-creating the parts of the modern church that focus on
sacred space, time and activities is part of the job of the emerging
church. They have three tools to help
them: the gospel, sacralization and the life of the community (p. 88)
Chapter
5 – Living as Community
This chapter focuses on
the church living together everyday of the week as a movement not an
institution. It is meeting together as
small groups as well as full communities (p. 109). Church is a people, a community, a way of
life, and a rhythm, connected with other followers of Jesus who are missional
and participatory in all realms of culture (p. 115).
Chapter
6 – Welcoming the Stranger
This chapter shares the
importance of being inclusive to those who are like us and those who are
different. Being authentically
missional, a church integrates worship with welcome. This includes acts and
words of kindness, creative expressions of witness, sacrificial service and
intentional application of peace and justice (p.119). Emerging churches are hospitable like Jesus
and include others of different faiths, cultures and traditions without feeling
like they have to defend their faith. They let their lives speak for them and
hope for a life change with those they encounter, instead of a faith change (p.
134).
Chapter
7 – Serving with Generosity
Emerging churches seek to
embody the core of the gospel, which is generosity as a way of life, not just a
social program. Through acts of
extravagant generosity, the church commits to Jesus as Lord and Savior and
makes him known (p. 152). It’s about pointing others to Christ.
Chapter
8 – Participating as Producers
Everyone has something to
contribute and therefore the emerging church provides opportunities for each
person to participate in worship. This happens out of an authentic response to
God’s grace at work in individual lives as well as corporate experiences and
the proof that God is working in both and the communities they are serving (p.
172).
Chapter
9 – Creating as Created Beings
We are beings created by
God in His image. The emerging church
acknowledges this and provides space, time and encouragement to participate in
creating in worship and every day life together. All are encouraged to
participate in creating with the gifts that God has given each of them as a
form of worship and giving back to the divine creator, God. This process of creating is a witness to the
faith community and to the wider community that God uses his creation (his
people) to restore something ugly or destroyed into something beautiful and
redeemed (p. 190).
Chapter 10 – Leading as a
Body
The job of a leader in the
emerging church is to foster reproducible, kingdom of God on earth communities
that are generous in a pluralistic society that completely embraces and
participates in creativity and worship (p. 191). Leadership in the emerging church is more
like a facilitator or guide that creates space for activities to occur (p.
192). During modernity, a hierarchical
form of leadership was established but a leaderless and more collaborative type
of leadership is needed for the emerging church. Leadership that always points
to the kingdom of God and leads as a servant, facilitator and consensus builder
is what is needed (p. 214). This is how
Jesus led and expected his followers to do the same. We need to learn how to live in the kingdom
of God on earth and be apprentices of Jesus (p. 215).
Chapter 11 – Merging
Ancient and Contemporary Spiritualties
It becomes harder to
define spiritual as emerging communities are not accepting the theology that
sacred places and times exists and are embracing that the kingdom of God exists
in all spheres of life (p. 217). We are
living in an age where interest in religion is very low however interest in
spirituality is very high (p. 218). The emerging church is looking for
spirituality and spiritual practices that sacralize all space as in the
premodern times when all of life was holy (p. 219). Spirituality is the major
emphasis of the emerging church with purpose to see lives transformed through
encounters with God and learning spiritual disciplines by participation
experienced in kingdom living communities (p. 234).
Leaders in their own words
– appreciated this section.
