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.
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