Book Review - Emerging Churches

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.