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Emergent Structures

Emergent is a word used in secular science and business theory. In biology, emergent structures describe complex organization of individuals, such as colonies of ants and hives of bees. Biologists who do not believe in a designer think this social organization is emergent, as if in the beginning, ants didn’t live in colonies and bees didn’t live in hives, but these are things that evolved over time.

The term is used in strategy dynamics to distinguish between emergent strategy and deliberate strategy (interestingly, this is probably the where the title for Mark Dever and Paul Alexander's book The Deliberate Church came from, as if they're taking a stand against the emergent-types).

Recently at work I came across this video from last year's eBay Developers Conference about emergent strategy, which I found helpful in figuring out what might be meant by an emergent church.

Emergent strategy refers to “a realized pattern [that] was not expressly intended”, while “Deliberate strategies provide the organization with a sense of purposeful direction.” (Henry Mintzberg, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, quoted here. If you apply this to the church, you could say that a deliberate church has a blueprint and a manual, based primarily on the Bible, and secondarily, perhaps, on a creed or confession, whereas an emergent church is just getting together to see what happens. Like cooking, some people, like my mom, can do quite well when they make things up as they go along, but some people do better when precisely following recipes.

Did the founders of the Emergent Village have all this in mind when they named their organization? Or were they identifying with the emerging church?

According to an article by Dan Kimball about Emergent vs. Emerging, “Tony [Jones] said, that naming it ‘emergent’ was because the word is defined as the ‘coming to the surface’ of new organic life beginning and reproducing and that was why they chose the word.” He also said, “So ‘emergent’ was not named because it was similar to ‘emerging church’ - that was coincidence and Tony told me if there was any connection, it was subconscious, not intentional.”

Making the distinction: Redeeming “emerging”

As I said, the emerging movement is primarily missiological. There are always going to be new people groups who need missionaries, and the church needs to meet them where they are and separate what’s cultural about our message from what’s crucial. Picture those old black-and-white pictures of missionaries who went to Hawaii and converted the natives, and all of the converts are there in their black suits and dresses. That’s not how you dress in Hawaii, but somehow the missionaries mixed that cultural aspect of themselves with the message of the gospel and decided converts need to dress like westerners. Which would not be very comfortable if you lived in the tropics.

From Kimball's blog:

Through time people started even saying “Emergent Church” instead of “Emerging Church” or use both terms as describing the same thing - instead of having Emergents focus more on theology and Emerging Church more on methodology as it started initially.

Mark Driscoll makes the distinction between “emergent liberals” and “emerging evangelicals”, which is the group he would consider himself a part of. He is reformed pastor who doesn’t want to change the gospel to conform it to the culture, but to speak the gospel to the culture in ways it will understand. He calls it contextualizing. His church is named Mars Hill, so he approves of that business Paul did at the Areopagus in Athens Acts 17:19ff.

The Mars Hill incident is commonly referenced as an example of contextualizing the gospel, preaching in a way that's relevant to the local culture. Danny Lehmann calls it building bridges.

My pastor friend Pat likes to teach that Paul was out of his mind and not walking in the power of the Holy Spirit when he did that. For one thing, Paul never ever did anything like that anywhere else. It was a one-time incident, and unlike other missionary ventures, it doesn't actually say, “Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, went...”. Plus, it was very unfruitful comparatively. Some of the harmful methods Paul used was when he pointed to their idol “To an Unknown god” and basically validated it. Also he quotes from two different Greek philosopher-poets, but the quotes are about Zeus, not the LORD God Almighty! The Catholics used this same tactic when evangelizing South America, basically with the replacement of the local pagan deities with saints in one-to-one correspondence.

I am a fan of Mark Driscoll. I just don't think Mars Hill is a good name for a church.

Conclusion

Emergent strategy is well and good when you're talking about culture and communities, but the church is supposed to by something different, something holy, something "other". Unlike other communities, the church comes complete with instructions from its Designer, so it should be a deliberate structure in the midst of an emergent environment, and therefore, provide stability amid the chaos. If the church allows itself to be overcome by the culture, then all stability is gone.

Going back to the “adapt or perish” idea, I know that there have been numerous conditions in the past where the condition of the church was surely less than ideal, and reformers came in and changed the world. The Reformation was a back-to-the-Bible movement. I know churches die, and entire cultures that were once Christ-saturated can go to empty cathedrals in a few centuries. But it’s not adapting that will allow the church to survive, but constant reformation. We should always be getting back to the Bible, and when we see areas in which our church is drastically different from the model of the first-century church, we need to consider which of those differences are modern cultural, man-made add-ons, and probably get rid of them.

Epilogue

Okay there's this blog by Tony Jones on Christianity Today about diversity in the Emergent movement:

Within Emergent are Texas Baptists who don't allow women to preach and New England lesbian Episcopal priests. We have Southern California YWAMers and Midwest Lutherans. We have those who hold to biblical inerrancy, and others trying to demythologize the scripture. We have environmental, peacenik lefties, "crunchy cons," and right wing hawks.

In his sequel he says, “If, however, you'd like to first see our doctrinal statement on penal substitution or read a position paper on homosexuality, then Emergent Village isn’t for you.”

This after complaining about exclusivity and “evangelical elitists” earlier in the article. Is there anything more exclusive and more harmful to the mission of the Church to make disciples of all nations than the attitude that says, You can’t participate in our “conversation” if you actually believe in the Bible and the traditional historical creeds and confessions of the historical Church?

These post-modern elitists like to make fun of Rush Limbaugh for saying, “Words mean things,” and of Chuck Colson for saying, “Truth is truth.” They call it nonsense, a circular reference. The trouble with these academic elitists is that they’ve twisted reality to a point where you can't just expect people to understand that words have meaning and that truth is true.

Jesus liked to say, “Verily, verily,” a lot. Are they going to make fun of him, too?

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph. 4:11-16, ESV)