Gibbs & Bolger, Emerging Churches

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Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures. Baker Academic, 2005.

Sequel: Bolger, The Gospel After Christendom

Referenced in: Missional Communities

LifeandLeadership.com Summary

Many regard this is the most complete description of the emerging church. It is a result of extensive research on a group of carefully selected missional/emergent communities in the US and UK, involving three years of interviewing leaders and other participants. Their research revealed nine patterns that are found in the emerging churches:

They have three core practices:

1. IDENTIFYING WITH JESUS
2. TRANSFORMING SECULAR SPACE
3. LIVING AS COMMUNITY

That lead into six other marks:

4. WELCOMING THE STRANGER
5. SERVING WITH GENEROSITY
6. PARTICIPATING AS PRODUCERS
7. CREATING AS CREATED BEINGS
8. LEADING AS A BODY
9. MERGING ANCIENT AND CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITIES

The book shows how the churches reflect these practies, with chapters devoted to each. The appendix describes how the research was conducted, and includes several direct quotes from the church leaders who were interviewed.

The sequel, The Gospel After Christendom, expands the research to include emerging communities in continental Europe, Asia, Latin American, and African-American hip-hop cultures.

From the Publisher

“A picture of the emerging church that is without peer for completeness and texture… . The result is a discussion that is thorough enough for a scholar but readable enough for any interested person.” – Kevin T. Bauder, Religious Studies Review

Across the religious landscape, profound changes are creating new spiritual maps and reconfiguring churchgoing constituencies. These changes are taking place in the United Kingdom and the United States as a growing number of frontier churches successfully take root. Whereas many traditional denominations are losing young people, these emerging churches are successfully recapturing nonpracticing Christians and the never-churched.

Emerging Churches provides the first comprehensive examination of the emerging church phenomenon in the West. It considers emerging patterns in leadership, worship, mission, spiritual practices, and cultural engagement.

This book was born out of extensive observation and field research in the United States and the United Kingdom. It includes interview testimonies from forty-nine emerging church leaders on the cutting edge of ministry, including Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Dave Tomlinson, Karen Ward, Dieter Zander, and Spencer Burke. Because of its research-oriented approach and important subject matter, this book will appeal to both professional and academic audiences with an interest in understanding changing church paradigms in the West.

About the Authors

Eddie Gibbs (B.D., London University; D.Min., Fuller Theological Seminary) is the Donald A. McGavran Professor of Church Growth at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed ChurchNext, winner of a Christianity Today book award.

Ryan K. Bolger (Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary) is assistant professor of church in contemporary culture at the School of Intercultural Studies and academic director of the master of arts program in global leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary.

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