I am a proponent of intimate church settings. Often that translates as small, but certainly not always. Bill Easum who travels as a church consultant and sees a lot of churches says that he sees small experimental Emergent churches in the future of the church, but also a need for "giga-churches."Here is Bill leaving a comment on a blog. This was noted by Steve Knight over at Emergent Village who was asking the question "What are Emergent Churches doing to reproduce themselves?"
I wonder that too, and of course I wonder about myself in that respect.
2 comments:
Hi Phil :-),
I'm not oppossed to mega emerging...although that does sound like a contradiction. But Rob Bell at Mars Hill seems to make it work and there's a church in Denver called Pathways that are pretty large.
However as a rule, I think emerging (and emergent) churches will reproduce buy planting other faith communities.
Once you hit about 200 you begin to loose some of the organic intimacy that is naturally created in a smaller environment.
Plus, by duplicating rather than growing, more of the people can be actively involved and really feel a part of something other than just a butt in the seat or an ass in the grass (if you meet outside hehe).
The very culture of emerging seems to be much more participatory so naturally a smaller environment is more condusive to that. Especially if you are also a Missional Community and not just a building (which I know you are, as most emargent chruches are).
That's just my humble opinion.
David,
Nice, humble, agreeable to me as well. I like the missional part of it. Somehow missional needs to come out of a corporate definition into a personal one. Intimacy does work better to make each person as missional as possible, rather than allowing us to be satisfied with a corporate missional definition.
If we are not missional we must still be part of the mission field.
Post a Comment