Emerging + Missional

Excerpt from conversation with Dan Kimball (Out of Ur)

You’ve talked about Guder’s book, The Missional Church. Do you see a convergence between the ideas generated by the emerging church and the growing popularity of missional theology, or do you see them as really separate conversations?

To my best understanding the emerging church and the missional church are very much the same. But when you talk about the “emerging church” there is also a stream of conversation which focuses more on pragmatic changes—like worship gathering and helping younger people connect with worship. That is part of it, but it is far more than just making changes in the worship gathering, it is a philosophical way of being a Christian and being churches sent into the world. Personally, I use the terms “emerging church” and “missional church” interchangeably. They are synonymous conversations. But not everyone sees them that way.

Because they’re not addressing the deeper, philosophical, theological issues, they’re just changing their style?

Some churches only change the style or add an alternative Sunday night worship gathering to see younger people come to the church and consider that to be missional or emerging. That’s a wonderful hope and worthy motivation, but usually that isn’t addressing the deeper issues. Adding an alternative worship gathering to an existing church is very difficult because the philosophical DNA not going to be different. Being missional requires an ecclesiological change.

That’s why I never recommend starting an alternative gathering with a different pastor in an existing church. Being missional must impact the whole of the church, not just a department within the church. That’s why most churches-within-a-church don’t work and why we are seeing so many church planters. It’s hard to change an existing church at this deep a level. It’s not impossible, but it is a lot harder than just changing the style of an alternative worship gathering.