1.2 Characteristics

1.2 Characteristics
A further explanation of this definition can be given in different ways. Gibbs and Bolger come up with nine practices found in Emerging Churches:
Emerging Churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities.[1]

Wikipedia describes four values: authenticity, missional living, narrative theology and Christ-likeness.[2] ‘Missional’ is a new word that is very popular among Emerging people because:

it goes beyond the older Christian terms like “mission” and “missionary,” and because it is being defined holistically. To be missional means to embrace a holistic gospel – it is for the whole person (heart, soul, mind, and strength), for the whole society (politics, economy, culture, environment), and for the whole world. Missional avoids the constant bantering between Evangelicals and Liberals over social justice and evangelism, and it avoids the 20th Century political theorists regular diatribes against colonialism. Just what that “mission” is also quite clear for the EM if rarely defined in detail: the mission is the Kingdom of God as taught by Jesus.[3]

We will look at the practical way in which this mission is accomplished more detailed in chapter four.
By ‘Narrative theology’ they mean a renewed focus and appreciation of the tradition of Christianity that has ‘a priceless galleria of images, stories, metaphors, rituals, and hymns as well as historians, philosophers, dramatists, novelists, poets, scientists and prophets.’[4] Narrative theology, also called referred to as post liberal theology, is often seen as the opposite of systematic theology. I will look at this further in chapter three.

Frost and Hirsch discern three major principles of the missional church (“The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. (…) [It] is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. (…) [And] adopts an apostolic mode of leadership”[5]) and four characteristics of emerging communities that deserve special consideration: “proximity spaces, shared projects, commercial enterprise, and emerging indigenous faith communities.”[6] By proximity spaces they mean “places or events where Christians and not-yet-Christians can interact meaningfully with each other.”[7] Shared projects refer to “joint projects between the Christian community and the host community.”[8] Commercial enterprise is seen as “bringing some intrinsic value to a community”[9] when planting a church is impossible. The emerging indigenous faith communities are seen as an absolutely vital result of all this interaction with a host subculture because “[t]he best hermeneutic of the gospel is a community of Christians living it out.”[10]

[1] Eddie Gibbs, Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches. Creating Christian community in postmodern cultures (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2006), pp.44-45
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_church
[3] http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=520
[4] Leonard Sweet, Brian D. McLaren, Jerry Haselmayer, A Is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church (Zondervan Publishing House, 2003) p.206
[5] M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church (Hendrickson Publishers Inc U.S., 2003) p.12
N.B. Frost and Hirsch use missional church and emerging church almost interchangeable, their view on an apostolic mode of leadership is not strongly represented among emerging writers, but according to Andrew Jones it certainly does resonate with his view and those of many other emergent leaders.
[6] M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come p.24
[7] M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come p.24
[8] M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come p.25
[9] M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come p.26
[10] M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come p.27