'Emerging Churches' (Gibbs & Bolger)

The Emerging Church in its own words 5

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Chapter 6 of Gibbs’ and Bolger’s book, Emerging Church: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, is entitled, ‘Welcoming the Stranger’.

Here are some extracts.

I’m more convinced than ever that we don’t have a clue about Christianity.  I’m not an orthodox Christian anymore; I’m not Protestant.  The kinds of questions we are asking are very different from the questions asked at other times.  Is Christianity necessary?  Whose religion is it anyway?  What does it mean for us to incarnate Christ, to live redemptively in a materialistic world? 

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Emerging Church in its own words 4 – ‘Living as Community’

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Chapter 5 of Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Gibbs and Bolger) is entitled ‘Living as Community’.

On one occasion, after spending hours with her at the Living Room, the church’s cafe, a guest asked Karen Ward, When is your church service?”

“You just had it,” replied Ward.

Challenging Individualism

Looking back to the outset of modernity…humans were on their own, and they needed to protect what was theirs.  Personal property rights ensued and created the modern individual. 

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The Emerging Church in its own words 3

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Chapter 4 of Gibbs’ and Bolger’s Emerging Churches: creating Christian community in postmodern culture is entitled, ‘Transforming secular space’.  Here are some extracts.

Breaking down the dualisms of modernity

A consequence of the creation of a secular realm was modernity’s penchant to break everything up into little parts for classification, organisation, and systematisation.  Thus, in the modern period, many dualisms were introduced to church life that had not been problematic before: the natural verses the supernatural; public facts versus private values; the body versus the mind and spirit; faith versus reason; power versus love; and the list goes on. 

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The Emerging Church in its own words 2

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Chapter 3 of Emerging Churches: creating Christian community in postmodern cultures, by Gibbs & Bolger, is entitled, ‘Identifying with Jesus’.

Here are some extracts.

What would Jesus do on a Sunday?

I read the Gospels over and over.  Nothing I was doing on Sunday was what I thought Jesus would be doing if he were here.  (Joe Boyd)

The kingdom emphasis

It is strange how the church for so long missed the kingdom emphasis in the witness of the authors of the Gospels. …

The Emerging Church in its own words 1

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Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Culture (SPCK) by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger is regarded by many as the most authoritative book presently available on the beliefs and practices of the emerging church.  It is based on interviews with 50 leaders in the US and the UK.

I thought that it would be interesting to provide some extracts from the book, in order let emerging church leaders, together with the two authors of the book, speak for themselves.…

‘Emerging Churches’ by Gibbs & Bolger

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I’ve just finished reading Emerging Churches – Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures.  It is touted (by Brian MacLaren, no less) as the best guide to emerging churches around.

It’s an engagingly-written book, based on interviews with 50 EC leaders in US and UK.  Although it therefore incorporates a range of opinions and experiences, the whole thing is given a measure of coherence by the thoughtful commentary of the two researchers/authors.

Gibbs & Bolger summarise the characteristics of emerging churches in their conclusion (pp235ff):-

Emerging churches are not young adult services, Gen-X churches, churches-within-a-church, seeker churches, purpose-driven or new paradigm churches, fundamentalist churches, or even evangelical churches. …