Nine ‘Practices’ of the Emerging Church

The library just received a copy of “Remembering Our Future: Explorations in Deep Church” edited by Walker and Bretherton. If you are not familiar with the term “Deep Church,” it was a term apparently coined by C.S. Lewis. There is even a “Deep Church” movement that originated in the UK and is still growing. In a future post, I will explore the concept of “Deep Church” more deeply, but for know, I wanted to share a helpful summary of the nine “practices” of the emerging church as presented in “Remembering Our Future: Explorations in Deep Church.”

The nine “practices” are self-identified marks discovered by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger during their qualitative research of emerging churches. If you are unclear about what an emerging church is, Gibbs and Bolger define emerging churches as “missional communities arising from within postmodern culture and consisting of followers of Jesus who are seeking to be faithful to their place and time.” The nine “practices” are:

1. identifying with the life of Jesus and emphasizing, the kingdom of God as opposed to church or denomination
2. engagement with contemporary ’secular’ culture both at a popular and local level so that it is reflected in and transformed through worship
3. emphasizing personal relationship and community over and above institutions, structure and bureaucratic forms of organization
4. welcoming the stranger primarily in the form of humble openness to other faiths and culture at large
5. holistic service to the wider society with an emphasis on such embodied action as a gift as distinct from a consumer service or evangelistic technique
6. participating in and taking responsibility for worship as producers rather than passive consumers
7. an emphasis on art and creativity as a central part of Christian witness
8. encouraging all-member ministry and collective or team forms of leadership
9. an emphasis on spiritual disciplines and liturgical practice both individually and corporately.

I wonder what we could glean from the above nine “practices” that could be helpful for our work as confessional Lutheran pastors and layity? If one of the points jumps out, leave a comment below.