We (Bec & I) have been wondering how many of those who consider themselves part of the EC still worship or are attached to their local church. How many have started something new and no longer attend the 'structured' church? I'll leave the poll up for a while.
Many thanks!
10 comments:
I am not sure how to answer that Garth. I am involved in the emerging church scene at my local church. So, I think by answering I don't answer your question - make sense.
Phil
www.signposts.org.au
i think a lot of people might want to choose both options here dude.
i think the thing that gets me here is the continual seperation of "church" and "emerging church." In the creeds I recite i talk about the one holy apostolic church so for me the EC is church...
when tolls was still going and i was in adelaide it was my church, not anything different, it was my local... and now, as we're starting something new up it's still my local.
it also seems to assume that people who go to an "ec" come from a local... many i'd hope actually aren't poached but are instead from a non-church background...
Hmmm... I did assume didn't I. I guess there will be some who only know the EC. I should have phrased my question differently then.
I guess at the heart of it we are wondering whether people are staying at their church while doing some emergent things as Phil has said above, or whether it has meant quite a cultural shift by doing life outside the influence of structured church responsibilites. So in that sense its a bit of an either or. It will be interesting for me to see if there are many now going 'uncounted' as we are.
So, if you left your former way of church and started a "new" one, aren't you still involved in "your local church"? - just a different local church. Yeah, we planted a new faith community - two entirely different philosophies of being church to me. Again, here we are having to ask the question, what do you mean when you say you're a part of the "emerging church?" Peace.
I'd have to agree that "local" and "emergent" can't be separated in the choice. Could you change the poll to give us a choice between, say, "traditional" and "emergent" or "structured" and "emergent"? I don't see the value of contrasting emergent with local church, since virtually all emergent churches have vibrant local expressions.
Thanks,
Justin
www.radicalcongruency.com
Garth, are you trying to say. Those of you who have left XYZ Baptist to be part of an "emerging" church do you still attend XYZ?
Do you mean are you connected to an established denomination, or are you supported (in whatever way) by an established denomination?
Have people felt the need to leave an established, structured church to establish an emergent, culturally relevant group?
My aim is to remain attached loosely to my local, structured, denominational church. Hopefully they can handle having some not so structured people being a part of the church community in a diffrent non-sunday-morning type of way.
www.wibsite.com/wiblog/unordered
Anonymous - I guess you have to be the judge as to what 'loosely attached' means to you.
Gareth- answer is yes.
Some will have simply left their roots to pioneer something emergent, and I am hoping to ascertain what sort of proportion of people are out on their own (like me/us!).
Its not an us against them mentality nor need it imply any sort of judgement either way, but a purely inquistive approach. If you maintain a connection of some sort with the typical structured/attractional/denominational church then you tick the first box.
I'm not concerned about all the shades of partial involvement to total involvement with the structured church. Just whether people cease involvement altogether to pioneer something on their own.
thanks for starting this conversation Garth
it's interesting to see the poll results
and to listen in as others try to sort out their own definitions of what EC is and isn't
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