Emerging Definitions Have Run Their Course

I’m tired of people trying to define the emerging church. We
are currently glutted with definitions and explanations.

I think that Andrew Jones has compiled the ultimate list of emerging definitions at "emergant", but you can also find a ton of links and reference material at his blog.  Wikipedia also has an extensive entry on the emerging church with enough links to fill up a few days of browsing. Every time a blog tries to say something that defines the emerging church, we reinvent the wheel, repeat what we’ve heard others say, or just make up stuff that sounds good at the time.  Gibbs and Bolger have put together definitive work on Emerging Churches and Dan Kimball’s Emerging Church book is as good a place as any to start.

There’s another reason why the time of definitions has passed. We have been moving out of a culture that lived by nouns. Everything had to be defined precisely. But the emerging church is part of a different time that is defined far more by action and verbs, if you will. In a time of transition it was necessary to rely heavily on nouns when speaking of the emerging church. Now it is time to wean ourselves off nouns and move on to verbs (I am relying heavily on some material taught by Joe Meyers on noun-centric vs. ver-centric language).

If you believe
that the emerging church is what it says it is, then you need to understand a
little something of how language is used in the emerging church and in emerging culture. Language is
dynamic, evolving, and moving with the times. Words are helpful, but they do
not define this network. Verbs are perhaps the most important words. Go, send,
speak, serve, be, love, read: these are the action words that define the
emerging church.

We needed a time to get a handle on this emerging church
thing, but now we are beyond that. We have the definitions to refer to, but if
you want to get to know the emerging church, find people who are in it. Don’t
read what somebody said 1, 2, or 5 years ago that supposedly defined it. If you understand language in the
same way as the emerging church, you’ll understand why this is so.

And this is perhaps why Gibbs and Bolger’s book Emerging Churches is so helpful. It does not outline a particular theology or look or even present a certain formulaic definition for the emerging church. They list characteristics, actions: emerging churches do this and emerging churches act like this. It’s a good start at moving the conversation in the direction it must move in order to continue: action.