Thank you for this article. I think this is the most concise definition I have seen about “What is emergent”. I think with so many different views and thoughts on emerging/emergent it is hard to really grasp what is really going on.

From doing this course what was apparent to me was that it was simply looking to apply the lessons learnt in overseas mission to the local context. That is we are comfortable with going to the mission field and putting in huge amounts of time and energy to learn the culture, the language, the world-view etc to be able to engage with people in a way they can understand – YET – when it comes to the local mission field we are unwilling to do the same. There seems to be here a dualism – overseas what is different is called culture / local context it is often seen as some form of evil / compromise / syncretism.

I came out of the course with four questions (borrowed from the missional thought in an overseas context) that I wanted to raise within my own context:

1) How can we ‘incarnate’ in this culture and what do we need to do to ensure this is an indigenous community?
2) What are the barriers to entry for outsiders – how can we eliminate these?
3) How can we make radical disciples and ensure that this is participatory?
4) Is our concept able to be self-sustaining within this cultural setting or easy to reduplicate?

Whilst I don’t agree with everything I hear in Emergent Church thought the intensely missiological questions that it raises – and confronts the ‘less Emergent’ Church with – are worth listening to.