Missional and Emergent

I've spent the past two weeks teaching a graduate short course on emerging and missional churches at Pepperdine University. (I could get used to teaching at Malibu). My experience in this area is far more on the missional side of the equation. I've had the privilege of hanging out with Keifert, Roxburgh, Van Gelder, Hunsberger and other leaders in this movement. I've learned a lot through my participation, and have chosen a PhD program to go deeper in all things missional. My experience with the emergent church conversation is less involved and I have a lot to learn about these creative church leaders.

I know many of you are probably asking, "what in the world is emergent and missional, anyway?" Well, I want to get at that over the next few weeks. It's not so easy to define in either case. Let's start by simply saying that both are a response to what is perceived as a dramatic shift in the North American cultural landscape. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. And we need to gain our bearings, recover our sense of calling in a rapidly changing culture.

I have a fairly good sense of what this about for those who self-designate as "missional." I've had guesses about what that's about for those who identify themselves as emergents. My reading and limited experience with emerging churches is underscoring some of those initial impressions.

Let me make one distinction that I think holds up fairly well as a way to introduce a topic I hope to address in the next few posts. The missional church movement is concerned with what it means to be a church in a post-Christendom context. In other words, the supportive relationship we used to share with the larger culture can no longer be assumed. It is no longer the case that "if you build it they will come," even if what you invite them to is massively entertaining. Churches find themselves less and less at the centers of cultural power and influence (a public role) and relegated more to the cultural margins (a largely private role). This is not the same thing as saying North Americans are less religious or spiritual (though there is evidence to that effect), but that our overall place in the culture has changed. In an increasingly pluralistic culture, we can no longer expect others to play by our rules. We are now in a missionary engagement with our own culture. We can cry and whine about this all we like, but the genie's out of the bottle and we will need to learn to be different kinds of churches as a result.

The emergent folks tend to begin with the issue of postmodernity. What's changed is the spirit of the age. We've moved from a modern world to a postmodern world and we need to adjust accordingly. Issues related to postmodernity have less to do with the church's social location (missional), and more with how people think--what counts for truth and knowledge and how people come to know what they know. As a result, emergents emphasize connecting with postmoderns and much of what they are interested in is aesthetics--beauty, creativity, inspiration, incarnation.

These two shifts, post-Christendom and postmodern, are not unrelated. These two movements have found each other and are finding mutual encouragement. But they are different. And they do produce varying agendas. Both have something vital to say to our current context and both have much to demonstrate with regard to their ability to be constructive.