Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Not a bad discription

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html

I got the following from an article in Christianity Today titled Five Streams of the Emerging Church

To define a movement, we must, as a courtesy, let it say what it is. Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, in their book, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Baker Academic, 2005) define emerging in this way:

Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses nine practices. Emerging churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities.

4 comments:

itchin2changeit said...

I agree it is a pretty great description. But, in a world of fast paced lifestyles how does the community create a feeling of communal living?

Travis Hart said...

Itchin,

When you say, "the community" What are you refering to?

itchin2changeit said...

in your blog it said the emergent church was a community that practiced the way of Jesus

Travis Hart said...

Itchin,

I think the emergent church needs to get away from the mega church theme. The emergent church needs to focus more on the needs of the community and not on getting more members into the seats. If the emergent church has only 50 people attending on Sunday because it has 500 people out in the community doing gods work and connecting with the church community on different days, great!