Nigel Wright

Emerging - the way of Jesus

Currently trying to move my dissertation on (all to do with creating emerging church from inherited/institutional church) and just re-visiting some definitions:

Emerging churches are communities that practise the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses the nine practises, (quite a challenge!):

            

            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.[i]

---

[i] Gibbs & Bolger, Emerging Churches, Creating Christian Community in Postmodern cultures (London: SPCK, 2006), P. 44 & 45.

Emerging explorations

The whole US/UK discussion on defining & exploring what is emerging church is at the forefront of certain blogs.

I was very impressed (not that I am an expert) in Jonny Bakers defence of his recent post on the subject, check out his response here. This also got me to wondering about the contextual studies going on in the states in the late sixties and early seventies, (the whole drive being on new forms of missionary action undergirded by ethics and missiological view point within the local church), being ditched in favour of turning the church into a machine for creating converts and saving individual souls.

In my accountant speak - short term profit at the sacrifice of long term growth? - Individual gain at the expense of the future of the whole?

Being a little tongue in cheek but it does make me wonder...

Anyone wondering, how on earth has he got time for this - it ties into my dissertation looking at (in loose terms) emerging church from institutional church. Any views please send them my way, many thanks.

 

Church on Edge?

Today I met John Thompson & was impressed and inspired.

An extract from his book Church on Edge?

"This short book is therefore a meditation upon a journey, inviting fellow travellers to share their own narratives..."

Looking forward to reading more...

Has the Church institution got a chance?

The Prodigals have some challenging stuff, courtesy of Jason Clark:

"One of the reasons 55,000 Christians [across Europe] are leaving church every week is because – the problem is with the church, but [it’s] also because we will not pay the price of orientating our lives around following Jesus together…”

Read the full text here. See the extension for another simple but powerful Henri Nouwen meditation.

Missional life

The following is unashamedly lifted from the Prodigal Kiwi's blog (which is in turn taken from Phil McRedden):

"A missional church is a community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all of creation in Jesus Christ.”

Many of us on the course want to integrate our working life with our (future) parish priest life (and this is sort of related to the previous post) because there is a belief that we should be combining the two and living out our ordained life in our every day communities within the workplace...

Emerging Church from Institutional Church settings

I am currently working on my proposal for my final year research project (i.e. to do 2006/07) along the lines of the above title.

I believe there is much to be valued in the established church that can be taken into an emerging church setting and that serious time and energy needs to be devoted to this area. The dangers of Baby and bath water spring to mind!

I resonate greatly with the book of the moment, not least from a cultural perspective, however, I look forward to getting a copy of Ian Mobsby's paper on the emerging church and the Anglican perspective, see Jonny Baker's post for a link to get the paper.

I was also very pleased to see Steve Taylor's latest offerings on the very issue and the