End of the emerging church?

September 23, 2008

An article out of Christianity Today has been stirring some buzz - R.I.P. Emerging Church

Supposedly Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus, and Scot McKnight are starting up a new missional network that will have it’s orthodox theological foundation based on the Lausanne Covenant in an attempt to get away from the emerging/emergent labels.

It’s amazing how in a world that disdains labels how many labels we keep coming up with.  

From Tom Sine’s Emerging, Missional, Mosaic, and Monastic;

to Mark Driscoll’s Reformed/Relevants, Reconstructionists, and Revisionists;

to Wess Daniels’ Deconstructionist, Pre-modernist/Augustinian, Emerging Peace Church/Open Anabaptist, and Foundationalists;

to Scot Mcknight’s Prophetic, Postmodern, Praxis Driven, Post Evangelical, and Political;

to Darrin Patrick’s Emerging Conversational, Emerging Attractional, and Emerging Incarnational…

not to mention other labels/streams like catholic, orthodox, purpose-driven, simple, neo and non-reformed, etc, etc, etc.

It seems every now and a group of us have a need to repackage the thing all over again… and I think we need to, because terms do get old, and sometimes words are necessary to bring greater clarity.  However, I think we need to just as much reclaim the labels behind the great movements of the church throughout history as well, and not simply abandon them.  

Can’t wait to hear what the latest one will be called…

Posted in Church planting