December, 2009:

In my experience, having observed, engaged in, and written about it, the following are some important and often misunderstood facts about the movement:

The Emerging Church is not a denomination.

It has no recognized creed or doctrinal statement.

It has no charter or by-laws.

It has no president or board of directors.

“Emerging Church” is a term used to describe a largely uncoordinated movement within the (primarily) North American church. This lack of formal organization is the reason why it is easier to explain what the “Emerging Church” IS by first explaining what it is NOT.

The “Emerging Church”, in many ways, is a phenomenon with many similarities to the “Alternative Music” phenomenon of the early 1990′s. A case for that argument is made here: “Emerging – The Alternative Music of the Modern Church”

It is also important to make a distinction between two terms that seem interchangeable but are in fact not: “Emerging” and “Emergent”.These represent the two dominant streams within the “Emerging Church”. I realize this is somewhat confusing but this is how the two streams are distinguished:

“Emerging” is generally used to describe a proper reaction that is taking place against some of the negative things going on in the church, but a reaction that doesn’t stray very far from long-held doctrines. While this stream is not doctrinally radical, it is quite willing to experiment with different ways of doing and being the local church. Since this stream has not formed a coordinated organizational entity, it is difficult to give a clearly defined list of leaders who are “Emerging”, but widely recognized leaders who fit in this stream are Dan Kimball, Andrew Jones, and Matt Chandler.

“Emergent” is a more radical reaction to the same things. Within this movement however, there is more of a willingness to question long-held doctrines of the Christian faith. In addition, “Emergent” is centered around a specific site/organization called “Emergent Village”. Because of this it is easier to list the names of those who are acknowledged as its leaders. These would be Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Doug Pagitt.

So it is important to be careful, when you’re talking “Emerging” or “Emergent”, to know which group you’re talking about.

What I have written above is a short summary of the movement. For a more extensive treatment of the subject, see Scot McKnight’s article called “Five Streams of the Emerging Church“.

In the early 90’s we had an explosion of what we called “alternative music”. This was music that was either on the fringes of or completely different from the hit music of the time. We would have called this hit music “mainstream music” at the time. “Alternative music” came about and was able to flourish because of great dissatisfaction with the current state of the music industry. What “the industry” was producing was mostly lifeless, weak, and ineffectual music. Why? Because it had working formula for a long time and it was generating a lot of revenue.

Eventually “alternative music” became very popular. Because of this, it could no longer be called “alternative” because it had replaced that which it was an alternative to. “Alternative music” was now in fact part of the body of work that comprised “mainstream music”. The primary – and most important – effect of this was a widening of the musical variety in “mainstream music”.

In the same way, we are seeing an explosion of new expressions of Christianity called the “Emerging Church”. These expressions are either on the fringes of or completely different from the way most churches are expressing themselves. We would call these established churches the “mainstream” of Evangelicalism. The “Emerging Church” has come about and has been able to flourish because of great dissatisfaction with the current state of the North American church.

The North American church – like the music industry in the late 80’s – has become too weak, lifeless and ineffectual to capture the hearts and minds of the emerging generation of Christians. In some cases, it uses outdated formulas for evangelism that were once effective.

But these terms need to be transitory and flexible; once something is mainstream, it can no longer be the alternative to the mainstream; once the new generation (of people or churches) has emerged, it can no longer reasonably be called “emerging.”

The mistake we seem to be making is we’re trying to call something “emerging” after it has already emerged, just like we continued to call something “alternative” after it became that which it started out as the alternative to. “Alternative” mistakenly became a genre within the music industry. “Emerging” and “Emergent” are becoming genres of Christianity. This too is a mistake.