The Emerging Movement, stressing intimacy, community and experiential, “post-modern” worship and theology, is gradually moving from small, independent start-up ministries to gaining greater denominational support and sponsorship.
Theology, News and Notes, the magazine of Fuller Theological Seminary, devotes its fall issue to the new place denominations are making for emerging ministries, with case studies of the Seventh Day Adventists, Lutheran and Reformed churches, Evangelical Covenant Church, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and the Assemblies of God. It has been the case in the last three or four years that emerging initiatives have been seen within traditional churches and the megachurch movement.
For instance, the Glendale, Arizona-based Community Church of Joy (of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—ELCA) has gradually changed from a strong entertainment-oriented megachurch to one stressing “transformation,” discipleship and community. In the Seventh Day Adventist Church, there is a network called “rechurch,” expressly modeled on Emergent Village (the unofficial center for the diffuse movement), although it exists on the margins of the denomination.
The Emerging Leaders Network (ELN) in the ELCA has been more successful in finding denominational support, even having new ministries eventually sponsored by the church’s mission development office. Nadia Bolz-Weber, a leader in the ELN, developed the Denver-based House for All Sinners and Saints, and claims that the Lutheran theology and tradition is particularly friendly to the emerging themes of liturgy, mystery and ambiguity. The same goes for the Presbyterian Church (USA), where the Reformed tradition meshes with the emerging idea that church structures and worship patterns can be rearranged to meet the demands of changing times.
Several presbyteries have funded emergent ministries, and proponents of the movement gather at the web-based discussion group Presbymergent.org. Among evangelical denominations, the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) is strongly involved in planting emerging congregations. Although most ECC remain traditional congregations with Swedish roots, there are a growing number of emerging church plants, such as a hip-hop church for children and teens, and even existing churches that joined the denomination for stability, such as Quest in Seattle and Jesus People USA in Chicago.
Yet within the Assemblies of God, at least among Latino churches, there is more resistance to a younger generation stressing social activism and other emerging themes, report Elizabeth Rios and Luis Alvarez.
(Theology, News and Notes, 135 N. Oakland Ave., Pasadena, CA 91182)