Book Review - Emerging Churches - Gibbs and Bolger

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

Emerging Churches is a follow on from Eddie Gibbs’ previous book called Church Next which was originally published in 2000 and republished in 2001 with additional information from Ian Coffey which added a UK perspective.
Emerging Churches has similarities to Chruch Next in the content it covers, however, the research methodology is markedly different. Gibbs recognised that he needed to engage face to face with Emerging church leaders across the world in order to define first hand the common characteristics of this movement. Ryan Bolger co-authored the book and used this research as part of his own doctoral studies.
Gibbs and Bolger limit their study to 50 communities in the US and UK and while recognising the existence of similar communities in Australia, New Zealand and continental Europe, they cite a lack of budget (p. 8) for excluding them from the study.
I hope that current doctoral research being undertaken by Darren Cronshaw and the pending releases of Mike Frost’s Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian World, and Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church will give us an up to date picture of the emerging (or as most prefer down-under – missional) church in Australia.
Gibbs and Bolger’s intention is to describe what an emerging-missional church is rather than providing a critique of the methodologies or practices. However, they conclude most chapters by identifying the challenges that are presented by these approaches.
Gibbs and Bolger analyse the data collected over a five year period from interviews, forums, discussions, and case studies to identify common characteristics of the emerging church in the US and UK. Nine common practices are identified as “missionally significant” (p.9) and from my perspective they reflect accurately the identified pratices of emerging missional churches in Australia from my own experience. Three core practices are identified as being characteristic of all emerging groups: (1) Identifying with the life of Jesus, (2) transforming secular space, and (3) living as community.
The remaining six practices “are derivitave of these three core practices” (p. 43) and many are evident in each community: (4) Welcoming the stranger, (5) serving with generosity, (6) participating as producers, (7) creating as created beings, (8) leading as a body, and (9) taking part in spiritual activities.
Gibbs and Bolger offer a succinct definition of the emerging (missional) church as “communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures (p. 44).” While this may be true of the current movement, I see it more as a new way of being the church that reaches into culture. (fullstop) and while postmodernity is the prevailing mindset of our culture, that may change and I believe the missional approach to being the church is an essentially Biblical approach that can be adapted to any changes in culture.
Overall, a very helpful read. It will be most suitable for those who want an overview of what the ‘so-called’ emerging or missional church is all about. The vast collection of first hand stories from people involved in emerging communities gives confidence in the thorough research that has produced this comprehensive assessment.