What We Can Learn from the Emerging Church Movement

Members of Solomon's Porch, a holistic missional Christian community, sit on sofas and loveseats that face the middle of the church, like a theatre in the round. MPR Photo/Elizabeth Stawicki

The Emerging Church, in Wikipedia’s struggle to define it.

The emerging church is a Christian Protestant movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries that crosses a number of theological boundaries: participants are variously described as Protestant, post-Protestant, evangelical,[1] post-evangelical, liberal, post-liberal, socially liberal, anabaptist, reformed, charismatic, neocharismatic, and post-charismatic. Emerging churches can be found throughout the globe, predominantly in North America, Brazil, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa.

Proponents believe the movement transcends the "modernist" labels of "conservative" and "liberal," calling the movement a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints, and its commitment to dialogue. Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. What those involved in the conversation mostly agree on is their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.

The United Church of Canada holds to many of tenets that are emerging in this new conversation on ‘what it means to be the church’. The conversations are important ones. Here below, Richard Rohn in a series of three audio talks - 45 minutes each - talks about just what the whole conversation is all about.