The Emerging Missional Church: A SWOT Analysis

The Emerging Missional Church: A SWOT Analysis

Introduction

Attempting to describe the emerging missional (EM) church is complicated. There are many different examples, personalities and categorisations involved, with no definite leadership or policies to unify the diversity into a clear-cut discussion. Yet in the midst of all these uncertainties, the movement is gathering enough momentum to begin to identify some common features. For the sake of clarity in this paper I outline general trends indicating common characteristics of EM churches; but also I mention some of the noteworthy exceptions I’ve found.

In an attempt to gather various perspectives and notice similarities and differences books and online resources have been selected from across the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Also, to compare what is being written with what is actually happening, I have visited some churches in Australia as case studies – mostly in Melbourne (which is where the EM movement is most advanced, according to Alan Hirsch¹), and also Small Boat Big Sea² in Fairlight, Sydney.

From this research I present a SWOT analysis of the EM church – identifying the main strengths and weaknesses within the movement, and the opportunities and threats of its current environment. By incorporating the broad scope of sources, I can then identify various ideas and practices which help different people and churches to make the most of their strengths and opportunities, and minimise the impact of weaknesses and threats.

Researching the Emerging Missional Church: What and How?

A major challenge in researching the EM church is simply the definition. For example, in ChurchNext³, Eddie Gibbs describes the EM church using the twelve empirical indicators of a missional church proposed by the Gospel and Our Culture Network (GOCN) ⁴. However, these indicators merely point to the ideals of any church – for instance, if we try to decide whether or not a church is missional by the standard of "a church that proclaims the gospel…where all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Christ, [where] the Bible is normative…[and] Christians behave Christianly toward one another"⁵, we would find that most churches agree that they too share these ideals but are sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing to bring them to reality.

Exclusive use of the terms ‘emerging’ and ‘missional’ has further complicated the issue – it has become controversial in some conversations that people are rephrasing and broadening their definition so the entire church’s call to mission can be discussed more inclusively. For instance, the UK Anglican Church Report Mission Shaped Church⁶ identifies "Twelve Fresh Expressions of the Church"⁷, with a diverse range of examples of what a mission shaped church could look like: including alternative worship communities, café and cell churches, multiple congregations, seeker church, traditional church plants and youth congregations. While the authors admit that some of these expressions aren’t exactly fresh or new⁸, they focus on showing how each expression can be mission-shaped, and give snapshot stories of the strengths, weaknesses, probable demands and demographics that tend to be reached by creating and maintaining each style of church.

So the question remains: what style of church fits into the EM category, and what doesn’t? Michael Moynagh’s short description is "a culturally authentic expression of church"⁹. But what does cultural authenticity entail for the church, and how is it achieved? If these churches are all authentic to their local target cultures, what will they have in common? Perhaps a more helpful way to identify EM churches is to examine the ideology that drives their goal of cultural authenticity.

In The Shaping of Things to Come¹⁰, Frost and Hirsch also subscribe to the same set of ambiguous indicators from the GOCN, but their understanding of the EM church becomes more specific through their addition of three further hallmarks to the definition: incarnational ecclesiology, messianic spirituality, and apostolic leadership¹¹. The term ‘incarnational ecclesiology’ refers to a priority of cultural contextualisation to a host community so that the church can infiltrate and transform from the inside, rather than drawing converts out to a separate community and culture. By ‘messianic spirituality’ they mean that EM churches pursue discipleship with a holistic worldview that avoids the dualisms of Western society and emphasises the power of symbols and good works as vital signs of living Christian faith. They then use the term ‘apostolic leadership’¹² to describe a community that is not structured in the form of a pastor-dominated hierarchy, but instead led by a team of people representing the fivefold ministry gifts described in Ephesians 4, and thus empowering the whole church to operate in each of these gifts.

While Frost and Hirsch’s three hallmarks of the EM church clarify major ideologies that have birthed and are propelling the movement into the future, Steve Taylor’s A-Z of the Emerging Church¹³ identifies more specifically some of the common features of the EM church in the present. He points out that a majority of people involved in the EM movement place value on being artistic, blogging, experiential, participatory, questioning and visual. He also draws attention to some of the present realities of the EM church that will hopefully be overcome in the future: that it is mostly male, middle class, under-resourced, white and Western. But none of these features are built into a static definition for the EM church – as Taylor reminds us, it is "open ended. We don’t even want to define ourselves. We’re not even sure we are a movement. Let’s keep things … open"¹⁴.

It is this open-endedness that makes the EM church difficult to define, yet exciting to watch and flexible to change. So this paper describes the EM church through the categories of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats¹⁵, enabling me to present both the ideals and the current realities, and some suggestions that may help the ideals and realities be utilised or overcome in order to achieve maximum effectiveness for building the church and God’s kingdom as a whole.

Strengths

Variety and Experimentation

Firstly, a major strength of the EM church is their willingness to be flexible with culture and experiment with something new; Sweet refers to it as "our continuing struggle, as followers of Christ in a changing culture, to live out the meaning of the incarnation"¹⁶. This flexibility and experimentation leads to a wide variety of EM churches (hence the definition problems discussed earlier), so Moynagh writes of an Anglican church in Halifax, England, that has started a ‘Monday Lunch Box’ (communion and lunch service, attracting people who don’t go to church on a Sunday, and are asking to be baptised) and also of Saddleback church in California where they have a video café service (offering a choice of worship styles, smaller crowds, and videotaped sermon) ¹⁷. Although these churches differ in structure and style, both have decided to move beyond the traditional forms of church to create a worship gathering that will resonate with local people. Variety in types of church is important not only contextually, but also culturally: moving away from one-size-fits-all church models is an important step towards reaching out to the growing numbers of people who, wearying of the standardisation that came with modernity, are looking for personalisation¹⁸.

While the quest for fresh ways of doing church is definitely important, care should be taken to ensure they are pursued purposefully – as Carson reminds us, we must avoid an addiction to the ever-novel over healthy appreciation of timeless truth¹⁹. Maggi Dawn places herself at the junction of tradition and innovation, ‘emerging’ within a traditional church:

"I believe that both old and new forms of Church have treasures that they should share with each other. The experimental daring of new forms is a breath of fresh air to the tradition (in fact, the tradition is basically made up of a collection of daring experiments that have stood the test of time, so to reject things because they are new is a ridiculous bit of double-thinking). But the history, theology and stability of the tradition is a much stronger umbilical cord than Emerging groups would sometimes like to admit (especially if it’s just those traditions that have recently burned them)." ²⁰

Engaging with Culture

This newness and experimentation is largely due to the fact that EM churches take culture seriously. Moynagh says this kind of church "arises out of a culture rather than being imposed on a culture"²¹. Unlike Michael Horton (who seems to think we can, and should, practise ‘acultural worship’²²) the EM church recognises that even in Bible times the Hebrews used the instruments at hand²³, and cultural metaphors like "the Lord is my shepherd"²⁴ – and thus, Frost and Hirsch challenge their readers to analyse what their symbols are saying to the local culture: "the medium is the message"²⁵. What is really important to a church is evidenced by what they spend time doing together. Then, as analysis is conducted on how things are done, who is involved, and why, the culture of the church becomes plain: is the congregation passive or active, restrained or free, an audience watching a performance, or a group of people participating in life and worship together?

Frost and Hirsch also advocate more interaction with the existing culture and experiences of unchurched people: we should acknowledge (and help them to recognise themselves) that God is and has been already at work in their lives²⁶. Instead of merely quoting scriptures and hoping they ‘click’, Frost and Hirsch suggest evoking curiosity through storytelling, showing people the overlap of their story with our story, with the biblical story, and with God’s story²⁷.

Erwin McManus moves beyond the goal of simply interacting with culture to describe his calling as a ‘cultural architect’ – at his church in LA, Mosaic, he sees himself reaching the innovators and early adopters in society, the smaller percentage of people who are shaping the future and wouldn’t be comfortable in the middle-ground mass-appeal of megachurches²⁸.

Emphasis on Building Community - Outside and Inside the Church

More than just engaging with broad cultural shifts, EM churches also emphasise the importance of contextualising to the church’s local community. They argue we can no longer make a ‘Christendom’ presumption that the church has an automatic place in society – assuming if the service, programs and buildings are planned ‘right’, the unchurched will come. Instead, EM churches focus on the mandate to be salt and light, representing Jesus in the community (beyond just Sunday services)[29]; shaping church into the existing rhythms and patterns of the community rather than following a predetermined church model. Consequently, they seek existing community projects to partner with instead of always starting ‘rival’ Christian imitations³⁰. As Moynagh points out, the genius of a community focus is that it acknowledges that sowing into the community often precedes reaping from there; if we sowing only inward to the church, reaping will most likely be primarily internal³¹.

EM churches also have a strong desire to create a sense of real community within the church – that their gatherings, on Sundays and through the week, would be safe places to be honest and authentic with one another³². Rather than structuring everyone into rigid systems of community, McManus’ goal for his church is "that everyone has community – not that everyone fits into our systems of community"³³.

Self-Critiquing

In keeping with their penchant for honesty, an unusual strength of the EM movement is that they are often quite open about their conflicts, shortcomings and self-disillusionment. Phil McCredden is candid about EM trends that can become pitfalls when he writes, "Let us not reply: ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you? For when we were sipping our lattes, watching video clips, engaging in discussion and reading blogs – we did not see you’"³⁴. Steve Taylor reflects on a news article titled from his own thoughts: "Creativity and Anger Drive Emerging Church", then on his blog admits that "seeing the word ‘anger’ in black and white sort of sat me back a bit. Is it a worthy energy driver and healthy motivation?" ³⁵. There are also open group discussions about the EM church’s lack of female representation in leadership³⁶.

Faith that Allows Space for Mystery

Acceptance of doubt, questions without answers, and mystery as part of Christian faith is another recurring theme with EM churches – which also facilitates the honest community they desire. George Baum learned that when people are expressing doubt or confusion "it’s okay to say, ‘I don’t know…but I’ll wait here with you’ "³⁷ – it is not our "duty to have a scriptural, theological, exegetical response for every question anyone ever asked"³⁸.

Instead of relying solely on cognitive elements of faith, EM churches acknowledge that "faith is part mystery, and can’t be confined to words, intellect, and concept alone"³⁹ – so they make room for symbols and silence, liberating the senses and imagination. EM churches seek to creatively cultivate a sense of awe and wonder in ‘EPIC’ (experiential, participatory, image-driven, communal) worship⁴⁰.

Holistic Faith that Leads to Personal and Social Transformation

Along with embracing mystery, EM churches seek a holistic faith that is integral to their daily lives. Brad Cecil observed five paths to transformation in his community: cognitive (studying the Scriptures), contemplative (practices such as meditation and prayer), ascetic (service to others), expressivist (self-expression – such as the arts and storytelling) and communitarian (shared lives) ⁴¹. McManus similarly challenges models of discipleship that attempt to lead people from one ‘stage’ to another; rather, he sees discipleship as living and growing in several environments at once (community, commission, character, service, and worship) ⁴².

Also, EM churches view the gospel not so much as a message to get someone to choose between heaven and hell, but as an introduction to a person and a message which can and should change our own lives and society. As Steve Gee puts it, "Don’t ask ‘if you were going to die tonight, where would you go?’; ask ‘if you were going to live tomorrow (and for a long time after), who would you live for?’"⁴³; and as James Engel challenges us: "why do we speak so loudly about such litmus test issues as homosexuality and abortion but remain silent about endemic public corruption?" ⁴⁴. He urges us to learn from the Two-Thirds world which has "taken the lead in holistic ministry in which no distinctions are made between evangelism, personal holiness, and social transformation"⁴⁵.

Weaknesses

Having discussed the main strengths of the EM movement, we now turn to examine some of its weaknesses and how they may be overcome.

Lack of Clear Definition and Direction

The newness of the EM church and the nature of its reaction against overprescriptive ‘one-size-fits-all’ models has meant that many EM churches are hesitant to define themselves in terms of method, description or category. While this can be beneficial, allowing a church to move forward rather than stagnate; a lack of direction can also be counterproductive. As Kim Hammond admits, "my fear for the emerging church is that it defines itself by what it isn’t"⁴⁶. Alan Roxburgh points out, "in too many ways, it is still reacting to the immediate past of the church in the West, and no movement of reaction brings real innovation"⁴⁷. It is all too easy for EM churches to identify the flaws of other church models and practices, but their real fruit will show as they continue to move from simply protesting about problems to creating and implementing solutions.

The strength of newness and experimentation discussed earlier has a corresponding weakness because trying new things is risky – new ideas are untested and there is no hindsight to judge the likelihood of success or other consequences. Yet as McLaren points out, the first disciples learned a lot through misunderstanding and blunders, with Jesus patiently guiding them nonetheless – we too need to be willing to experiment and learn from mistakes as we rely on God’s guidance for our time⁴⁸. Nevertheless, it is prudent to take into account insights from history that can minimise repeating mistakes, as well as the feedback of informed, constructive critics.

Unfair Stereotyping and False Dichotomies

However, often what we could learn from both history and our contemporaries is limited by unfair stereotyping and false dichotomies by which other churches and methods are prejudged. For instance, we are advised to:

"encourage holy dissatisfaction…rub the discontent raw and then throw salt on it – our times are urgent; Christendom must be brought down and apostolic faith and practice established if we are to be true to our call as followers of the revolutionary Jesus in our day"⁴⁹.

While labelling EM church development as a ‘revolution’ causes excitement with the ‘revolutionaries’, it also creates friction – producing a ‘them and us’ mentality. If people are then forced to choose between two opposing camps, it often means that "revolution will bring nothing more than shift of power and privilege and changing of the guard"⁵⁰. Doran continues, pointing out that revolution "is a work of extraordinary delicacy that calls for a moral superiority found as rarely in revolutionaries as in their reactionary opponents"⁵¹. So, rather than calling for a revolution, it would be more effective for the EM movement to foster thought-provoking conversation between themselves and established churches. In this way, ideas can be shared and spread across a non-threatening round table, so both reflections from our heritage and plans for future mission can be used to strengthen the entire Christian movement.

But the exaggerated complaints common in EM writings are not conducive to round table conversation:

"sometimes the lived-out values of the inherited church seem staid and stuck, and tell a dreary tale. Self-sufficiency is ingrained in the pews. Caution reigns rather than the thrill of trying something new. Status quo climbs into the pulpit. Comfort replaces sacrifice. Lack of imaginations stunts the ability to reach out. ‘Make space for people who are different?! You must be joking.’ Christian unity gets no more than a nod of the head. There are plenty of exceptions of course, but not enough to slay the despair of many churchgoers today"⁵².

There is also the labelling: Yaconelli speaks of "the illegitimate church"⁵³ and sets up an extreme dichotomy comparing the church (with a little c) in which he finds the "godlessness of organized religion, the bureaucratic smothering of the institutional church, and the cultural worship of power and money gripping most denominations and church-related organizations" – with the Church (with a big C) – the "glorious odd collection of unimpressive, ordinary, flawed people who make up the community of God, the body of Christ"⁵⁴.

Even types of Christians are labelled: ‘consumer Christians’ are those who see "church as a place to have your needs met and consume religious goods and services" while ‘missional Christians’ are those who see church as where you are mission-centred and "retell the story of the church and how they are in that story today"⁵⁵. Yet if the EM church can move beyond labelling, there is hope that we might gain more realistic and biblical perspectives that acknowledge that the church is a community where people are simultaneously needy and gifted, and we should pursue a balance of ministering and being ministered to, freedom for all to contribute and receive – male and female, rich and poor, clergy and laity, adult and child. It should be acknowledged that the church is a divine and human institution, therefore what is holy and godly within it should be affirmed and pursued, while what is sinful should be confessed, repented of, and forgiven.

Another disturbing dichotomy of the EM church is that their leaders accuse the established church of shunning everything in the world as evil, and thus treating the world as a hopelessly sinking ship from which we can only rescue souls, rather than acknowledging the goodness that remains and the transformation possible. Yet the EM church is often just as guilty of treating the established church as a lost cause. Rather than taking an exhorting stance on the church such as Hybels’ "the local church is the hope of the world"⁵⁶, EM leaders are better known for dismissive statements such as the suggestion that EM churches should be "in the church, but not of it"⁵⁷.

Observing this weakness, Carson warns EM leaders against using "overkill, sweeping claims and exaggerations that time and sober reflection will eventually discard. Wise and measured warning is helpful, but divisive overstatement is not"⁵⁸. Fortunately, many segments of the EM church are already acknowledging and starting to address this weakness – for example, Mike Frost now admits he would be less indicting if he were to write The Shaping of Things to Come⁵⁹ all over again⁶⁰, and Steve Taylor has also been able critique this aspect of his own movement: "So much of the emerging talk is about starting anew. Let me rant. It’s dangerous. It’s disrespectful. It’s dodgy in it’s [sic] theology. If we really believe in the Spirit of God at work in the world, why is it so hard to conceive that the Spirit could be pregnant among the concrete block walls of a church?" ⁶¹

Yet, while some steps have been taken, the journey of overcoming this weakness needs to continue. Much tension has been created between established and EM churches, which means that more often than not, there are two camps of people relating on the basis of attacks and defences, instead of open dialogue with a common goal of growing in our ability to bring Jesus to a rapidly-changing world.

I think, in light of the tensions created, the onus is on the EM churches to take the first steps in repairing relationships, praying that established churches will then respond in kind. Even if it was fair to say that the "Christendom-mode of church has framed us and set us up for failure"⁶², it was still through these churches that our faith has been kept and passed on, and to entirely dismiss their efforts and insight is to dishonour our parent churches and lose a part of our heritage, which EM churches claim to value.

Furthermore, breaking fellowship and conversation with established churches increases the risk of getting facts wrong and divorcing ideals from reality. Many EM writers seem to think they can and should be recreating the early church of the New Testament, living according to the same rhythms, networks, and orientations – Kimball even assumes his orientation is theirs, referring to "the emerging missional Thessalonian church of the first century"⁶³. When we lose touch with the reality of our heritage, Christian history is oversimplified into these kinds of charts⁶⁴:

With charts like this, some EM writers are breaking our church history into eras, and then labelling those eras with gross generalisations – ideal, irrelevant, or even embarrassing. Consequently, the EM church misses out on many of the lessons and perspective that history should teach, and presumes to judge which churches are (and aren’t) operating effectively for our current era.

Exclusivity

Another weakness of the EM church is that while it is promoted as though it will reach, its style mostly appeals to and reaches restricted groups of people. Dan Kimball shares how he felt excluded from the world of pastoring where connection to others in everyday life was achieved through sport⁶⁵. Yet it seems that the EM church is attracting and networking through other means, such as language, mysticism, and the arts. While it is commendable that they are finding fresh ways of networking, it means a potential weakness the EM church may need to overcome is the expectation that everyone should fit into their mould.

Encouragingly, there are attempts to broaden the EM concept to include multiple stratas of society, as Michael Moynagh writes, "Café church, arts-based church, church in a David Lloyd leisure centre…it could sound very middle-class. But emerging church is not for one part of society alone. Alongside experiments in the suburbs, fresh expressions can be found in rural areas, in city centres and among the urban poor"⁶⁶. But the reality is that most EM churches – or at least those which are most vocal or well-known – are suburban middle class, and still largely led by Anglo males.

Yet there is at least awareness of this factor, and attempts to address it. When travelling to EM conferences with her husband Brian, Grace McLaren holds gatherings for women and EM leaders to share experiences and discuss how women might be empowered within the movement. This is just one of many ways EM groups admit and discuss this problem⁶⁷, so we may hope that this awareness will continue to generate enough action to empower a more balanced representation of different genders, nationalities and backgrounds. As Moynagh urges us, the need for diversity is vital: "when you bring lots of people together, usually the more educated or affluent take control. They make the key decisions and set the tone"⁶⁸. Therefore his book includes an afterword by Howard Worsley, which brings the needs of the poor to the agenda, urging the EM church to deliberately and continually think of and care for the poor, considering how they will be affected by different situations⁶⁹. One further area for the EM church to explore is ministry to children and the elderly. Kimball writes a little about the need to consider how to reach and include these groups, but that discussion is allocated to less than a page within an entire book⁷⁰.

However, sometimes exclusivity is simply a result of concentrating on reaching a certain people group. Frost and Hirsch argue that since people tend to come to Christ where there is a minimal cultural gap between themselves and a church culture, then we should not work against this homogenous unit principle, but instead, plan so that after people commit to Christ, they can then be discipled to maturely mix with a heterogenous Christian community⁷¹. However, the practical outworking is challenging: for example, Connections Community Church in Croydon, Melbourne, has its family worship gathering in a restaurant, where the congregation orders food and engages in discussion of biblical and cultural issues around café tables. This has been an effective way to re-express church for a mostly upper-middle class congregation, but what happens when a single mother with an ethnic background from the Tuesday night soup kitchen decides she might like to visit the church? She is unlikely to have the money, education, social skills and confidence to really fit into such a gathering. So the challenge is for EM churches think about how they can outreach to other segments of society and integrate them into Christian community.

Opportunities

Not only are there strengths and weaknesses within the EM movement itself, but there are also outside factors which can help us examine its potential.

Cultural Change

Many people see the EM church poised to reach several of the needs and orientations that people now have due to cultural change in Western society. Michael Moynagh⁷² lists various key changes, such as:

a. the fading out of churches – churches that pop up ‘outside of the box’ can attract people’s attention;

b. the urban struggle for time and money – churches can revise what expectations are placed on their congregations and how they find and use their financial and human resources;

c. hyper choice (personalised consumerism) – people are looking for churches that meet them on a personal level and share their values (this would also need to be challenged, as an encounter with Christ and his church should challenge some of our values, not simply cater to all our personal preferences);

d. spiritual spending – people’s consumer choices are often towards ‘products’ in which they hope to find "identity, acceptance, belonging, connection to the whole and meaning"⁷³ – all of which the church and faith in Jesus can supply. Another inroad for EM churches is their emphasis on social justice – the secular world is becoming increasingly sympathetic to ‘good causes’, and they are more likely to connect with churches who want to ‘make poverty history’ than with those who are only pointing their fingers at "litmus test issues as homosexuality and abortion"⁷⁴;

e. experience economy (shopping, eating, and activities are geared toward not just another consumption, but creating atmosphere and memories – ‘an experience’) – there is an opportunity to create churches that don’t just have ‘services’ comprised of standard segments, but instead where rich experiences can be created, where the synergy of creativity, atmosphere, community, transformation, service and symbolic actions combine to help people enter into an experience of God’s Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven"⁷⁵;

f. liquid lives (people live flexibly with transitions, ages, expectations and life choices) – times, demographics and expectations can be remixed into a surprising ‘church cocktail’; and,

g. relational recreation (people’s relationship-building is shaped by their choices of leisure and consumption) – so church groups can gather and evangelise enjoyably, centred around relationships and shared leisure preferences, rather than having to approach people with whom they have little in common.

In light of these changes, Moynagh sees huge opportunities for churches to be mission-minded in various forms. He argues there are open doors for traditional church (established models), rooted church (locality based), brand church (marketed as a particular style to a specific network), liquid church (personalised, mobile, flexitime), workplace church, and hybrids of any and all of these models⁷⁶. McLaren is concerned that "a large number of people who grow up in our modern churches…will leave and never return"⁷⁷ – and therefore, there is not only a great opportunity, but also a huge responsibility to re-express the Christian faith for life in the emerging postmodern culture.

But owning this responsibility isn’t as overwhelming as it may seem – many people are naturally responding to changing environments, subconsciously adjusting the way they express their faith and ministry. Many people who have never heard of an ‘EM movement’ can be found doing things that look very much like it. Moynagh tells of a young couple who started simply relating with the young people in the estate where they live, which has now led to creating an open home to develop towards a Christian community: "Till we heard you speak, we didn’t know it was called ‘emerging church’"⁷⁸.

Newness and Adjustability

Another opportunity the EM church presents is simply in its newness – when a movement is young and still growing, it is much easier to adjust its shape and direction, creating and modifying new, healthy church cultures. This is especially encouraging because although some weaknesses have been identified, there is still enough flexibility to question and change in the EM movement so that any weaknesses may be overcome before they are entrenched in the movement’s foundations and structure⁷⁹.

Furthermore, Jonathan Wright⁸⁰ has even suggested that the battle for women to be truly seen and treated as equals in the church might be simply sidelined if church is recreated in a new form (such as the EM paradigm), and thus role descriptions and prejudices of how a leader should look or behave (which in many more established churches are written or even subconsciously shaped towards a male bias) can simply be bypassed.

Threats

While many aspects of the EM church’s environment offers opportunities, there are also threats to be overcome on the journey to healthy, sustainable development.

Common Threats to Church Plants

Firstly, because most EM churches are new churches starting from scratch, they will face many of the same threats as any other church planting team. George Lings and Stuart Murray⁸¹ identify some of the issues that are often unexpectedly troublesome: the pressure of keeping motivation alive; the attrition of weekly setting-up; ceaseless creativity in worship; a constant multifaceted learning curve; a widening agenda as the church matured; and a misunderstanding by surrounding churches.

Threats Faced by Churches Attempting to Reinvent Themselves

However, there are also challenges for churches not starting from scratch. Northern Community Church of Christ is an EM church formed by five COC churches joining together and rearranging themselves into several missional congregations with different cultures and target areas. Their pastor, Phil McCredden, writes about some of the challenges of moving from traditional church to a missional church with many congregations⁸²:

a. Maintaining unity – traditionally, ‘unity’ has been viewed or created by all the people in the church attending the one service and participating in the same style of worship; now, they are looking for alternative expressions of unity – eg. combining for all church celebrations, seminars, prayer, and cross-congregational ministries.

b. Getting to know other people – rather than expecting to be close with everyone across the spread of congregations, they suggest churchgoers focus on intimate relationships with people within their own congregation.

c. Respecting different congregations – rather than deciding one is inferior or superior to another, or that one congregation is central or another is outdated, congregations need to be equally valued as outworkings of the church’s vision and mission.

d. Measuring success – congregations should not compete for ‘success’ through numbers; some congregations have an upper limit to maintain intimacy. Rather, growth is achieved by planting new congregations.

e. Allocating paid ministry resources – congregations are valid as they connect with the mission and vision of the church. It is not necessary for the full-time pastor to attend every meeting of every congregation.

f. Allowing risks – acknowledging that stepping out and doing something different is risky, but the challenge is to look past potential pitfalls to see opportunities, and to make decisions and release resources because of a shared faith in each other and in God.

• Accepting failures – admitting that real risk-taking means there is a possibility of real failures along the way, but even mistakes can teach important lessons. The challenge is to keep trying and heading in the right direction without giving in to discouragement.

EM Literature

Another threat the EM movement faces is created by the fast-accumulating EM literature. While it has helped spread their ideas, the weakness mentioned earlier of revolution-inciting language, unfair stereotyping and false dichotomies has caused massive strain in relationships with people working from other models and churches. Denominations wanting to discuss how they might incorporate and support EM thought and churches are struggling to find new names for this kind of church, because the words ‘emerging’ and ‘missional’ have taken on negative connotations⁸³. Moynagh argues that ‘creating dissatisfaction’ is an important aspect of helping people see the need for and act towards change. Yet he encourages us to tell the story that affirms the divine deposits into both established and emerging forms of church⁸⁴, so that we can walk the line between creating dissatisfaction and creating despair⁸⁵.

Another potential threat brought on by the massive spread of EM literature is that their ideas will be adopted so quickly that people don’t critique them or adjust fully to a more missional worldview – they merely tack on some "worship tricks"⁸⁶ to their existing way of thinking about church, and so the deeper change called for by EM pioneers is lost in the frenzy to jump on the latest bandwagon. Dan Kimball shows his awareness of this risk, urging the readers of this book to resist the temptation to skip to the practical part and first read the section that challenges readers to deconstruct their understanding of church and culture – "if we don’t understand the causes of the symptoms, our treatment is likely to be merely cosmetic, lacking in effectiveness"⁸⁷.

Rifting Relationships with Churches and Denominations

Due to the rift created by EM literature and various other factors, another threat facing the EM church is potential loss of credibility and alienation from other churches. Michael Horton wonders if "modern evangelicalism taught us all for too long to uproot ourselves from this faith we have received and act as though we were ourselves the first to discover it"⁸⁸, and Tony Jones describes his own struggle, working in an established church yet meeting with missional church planters: "often I became frustrated with my fellow church staff members who seemed apathetic and pudgy compared to these edgy church planters, and I’m afraid I didn’t hide my disgust well. My challenge was to become missional myself (as well as be more forgiving of my coworkers)." ⁸⁹ Earl Creps looks at it sociologically and speaks of himself doing ‘worldview therapy’ between two groups of people who are immersed in different thought patterns and subcultures – offering "anger management for Pentecostal leaders under 35 and grief recovery for those over 35"⁹⁰.

Carson likens the situation to part of what Paul was addressing in his letters to the Corinthians, "two parties have a corner of the correct position, but are treating it as if it were the whole"⁹¹. The threat of alienation from people with other viewpoints and churches leaves EM churches more vulnerable to becoming caught up in their own ‘pet theologies’ and even helpful perspectives on Christianity, but forgetting about other parts that were taken for granted in their established churches, when what is needed is both – "you should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former"⁹². McLaren asks, "can the gatekeepers of modern evangelicalism see these brothers and sisters as resources, pioneers, a research-and-development wing of the movement…or will they see them as a threat?" ⁹³. But I would extend the challenge: both EM and established churches need to be willing to move outside the corner they find themselves in and meet in a wide open space where they can see more of God at work (even in the midst of our failing and confusion) and have more opportunities to reach out to the world. A probing question is ‘can the EM church run with the baton passed on by modern evangelicalism, without trying to disqualify their predecessors’ part in the faith simply because it entailed different terrain?’

Perhaps part of the restoration of relationship will come if both EM and established churches can become honest and vulnerable with one another – if established churches can admit that changing cultures and churches is at times scary and unsettling for them, and if EM churches can admit that they need support and input from established churches – in a Melbourne Church of Christ EM church leaders gathering⁹⁴, church plants were described to be like teenagers – they want parent churches to leave them alone and allow them their independent ‘rebellion’, but they still want ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ to take an interest and peek their head in the door every so often. The different churches need to find ways to affirm and appreciate their diversity.

Unsustainability

Another substantial threat the EM church faces is unsustainability. As Steve Taylor writes in his A-Z of the Emerging Church, "U = under-resourced. Mr Jones can’t even buy his kids birthday presents and he’s our guru. Enough said"⁹⁵. Moynagh points out that EM ideas are catching, but under-resourced⁹⁶. Many of the EM churches I visited in Melbourne had big dreams and small budgets. The EM churches that didn’t have as much pressure were those that had been established churches that had then chosen to sell property and restructure resources. But even some of these churches have a shortfall of hundreds of dollars a week and limited time before they have to make some tough budget-cutting decisions.

Although it would be ridiculous to claim that EM churches alone face the pressures of sustainability, they do have some unique issues to negotiate. Pastors in a Melbourne Churches of Christ EM church leaders’ gathering⁹⁷ talked about putting together an EM ‘starter kit’ with different resources and ideas on issues such as ‘how to go about collecting tithe in a housechurch’. Furthermore, EM leaders and constituents are typically wary of manipulative talk about money (many of them would question the new covenant relevance of tithing), and the temptation is not to address it at all⁹⁸. A much larger proportion of EM churches are starting from scratch, and because of alienation and suspicion caused by the literature and misunderstandings, it is often harder to find support from outside churches and organisations.

So the challenge is, in an instant-results, consumerist culture⁹⁹, to give and gather resources to take EM projects further. While pressure is on to have ‘salvation statistics’ that prove the EM church is a worthwhile investment, Richard Sudworth reminds us that we also need to be prepared to "take the long view. A constant thread in all these discussions has been the need for churches to invest in the long term as they step out with new forms of mission. The results are not instantaneous and require commitment, patience and the struggle born out of genuineness, not expedience"[^100.

However, taking a long view into the future doesn’t help with the current pressures and bills. Moynagh provides a reality check when he states that "burnout can be a killer in emerging churches. New expressions can take a long time to mature, they can be hard work, they can prove disappointing, relationships can fracture and the pioneers’ own circumstances can become fraught"¹⁰¹. So there is also a need to reassess: what resources does the church really need? What can be done without? How can we think outside the box to make our resources stretch further, or to obtain resources from a previously untapped supply?

Many EM churches are already providing creative solutions to resourcing. Northern Community Church of Christ takes on ‘work for the dole’ program participants, which gives them both a labour force and fresh ministry opportunities to people who were once ‘outsiders’ to church. Urbanlife church in the Melbourne suburb of Ringwood has managed to network with the community so successfully that businesses and property developers have included donations of labour, equipment and space in their long-term planning. Erwin McManus has changed the church structure of Mosaic in LA so that people don’t become ‘members’ of the church, but they ‘go on staff’ – which means that they find a secular job paid by an outside-church employer, but treat their work as their full-time ministry, meeting with mentors in the church to help them reflect and grow in their situation¹⁰². Frost and Hirsch also suggest that congregations should not just look to pay ‘pastors’, but as part of taking mission and spiritual gifts seriously, seek to identify and financially support their gifted evangelists so they are released to do their work well¹⁰³.

Beyond financial issues, the EM church needs to consider if their core values can be sustained. EM churches often have an outlook that idealises and attempts to recreate the ‘New Testament church’ – an unrealistic outlook that fails to take into account the cultural distance of several centuries and continents, as well as the difference between starting a new faith movement and rethinking an established religion¹⁰⁴. Churches need to examine their ideals to make sure they are both theologically and culturally appropriate, in order to prevent disappointment and disbanding later on.

Sustainability of the EM church’s core values is not only threatened by unrealistic ideals, but also by the pursuit of cultural contextualisation. As Clifton and Ormerod point out, if churches easily dispense with traditional structures and forms in order to quickly embrace the latest intellectual and cultural developments, they run the risk of a rate of change so fast that their key values are abandoned without extensive reflection on what they are becoming and why¹⁰⁵. Furthermore, if change is too constant and rapid, it can erode the social glue of shared ideas and patterns of community that make people feel settled enough to stay together long term.

However, mere threats do not have to squelch success. As we have seen, the threat of becoming financially unsustainable can actually be a helpful trigger to rethink why and how resources are used in a certain way. Furthermore, social and ideological sustainability can be achieved by carefully setting and returning to the core values and reasons for a church’s existence in the midst of cultural change and adaptability. The church can then specify what their goals are and what success will look like, and hence a sense of consistency, enthusiasm and stability can be sustained as the church reflects on how they are moving forward to achieve their goals. Northern Community Church of Christ is an example of an EM church that has set specific success goals and consequently has now been able to write "it is already working"¹⁰⁶ of their approach:

Our experiment with a multiple congregation approach began a few years ago. Preston church of Christ, one of the original churches that formed Northern Community, laid the groundwork with a traditional congregation on Sunday mornings and a family focused one with a meal on Friday nights. Since then, as we have changed and planted new congregations, the model has continued to produce results:

a. Our new congregations contain people who would not be part of our church if we did not have these congregations. We have connected with people that would not choose to walk into a church building, or even a home.

b. We have engaged in church with people that are open to following Jesus but feel uncomfortable labeling themselves as "Christians".

c. We have lowered the average age of our church as we have successfully connected with younger generations in new styles.

d. Within all these changes we have still maintained space for traditional expressions of faith.

e. Our congregations have created multiple doorways to our church expressing many ways to discover and live out our faith.

Syncretism

Our final EM threat for this discussion is that of conforming to secular culture. While I have already discussed contextualisation and engaging with culture as an EM church strength, without careful thought and balance it could be taken too far. As Moynagh points out, part of the need for changing our churches is that we no longer live in a standardised world – people have "it-must-fit-me" attitudes, and expect to live in a "customised world"¹⁰⁷. So the challenge is for the EM church to reach people where they’re at and offer a ‘service’ that is natural for them and their friends to be invited to and comfortable for them to attend – but also, people need to be discipled beyond ‘it-must-fit-me’ comfort zones, to look beyond simply ‘what do I want?’ to seek ‘what does God want?’. Ben Meyer warns against ‘strong syncretism’, where a religion is so immersed in culture that it has "little identity of its own, but is the sum of elements assembled from outside itself". Instead, he advocates ‘weak syncretism’, where a religion, "having a distinct identity of its own, borrows, transforms what is borrowed, and enhances its native identity by this borrowing and transforming"¹⁰⁸. The EM church’s emphasis on ‘contextualisation’ is in theory, weak syncretism. But in practice, how can the EM church maintain contextualisation without compromising to strong syncretism?

One of Don Carson’s chief critiques of the EM movement is they are especially prone to syncretism because he hasn’t seen them produce "a critique of any substantive element of postmodern thought"¹⁰⁹ – yet he acknowledges that Leonard Sweet in Postmodern Pilgrims¹¹⁰ "warns us not to embrace the postmodern worldview"¹¹¹. A major part of the problem is that postmodernity is so difficult to define – since Brian McClaren and Andy Crouch could not even agree on what postmodernity is, how could they even begin to critique it together and discuss which aspects are helpful or unhelpful for the Christian faith? ¹¹²

However, there are individuals and smaller groups who have more commonality in their definition of postmodernity, and these people are able to raise some societal issues affecting and infecting the church, with the hope that EM church can use their brand of postmodern Christianity to challenge them. For example, Moynagh suggests that the postmodern mindset can be used in EM churches to help them overcome issues such as fragmentation, a menu mindset, passive consumerism (church as entertainment), Sunday school as substitute parenting, overdependence on programmes rather than personal development of faith, and breaking the ‘me-mould’ (meeting with my personal saviour, having my worship experience etc.) ¹¹³.

But as well as borrowing from what postmodern culture has to offer churches, it is also necessary to be challenging and transforming postmodernity into something increasingly more like God’s kingdom. Positively, EM leaders acknowledge that sometimes the proclamation of God’s kingdom will seem offensive or counter-cultural, yet in order to follow the radical Jesus we will need to be confrontational for the right reasons – Jesus came to bring not peace, but a sword¹¹⁴; he overturned the business tables at the temple¹¹⁵; and when he exorcised a demon-possessed man, people were upset about what happened to the pigs¹¹⁶. Following in Jesus’ footsteps, Paul stepped on people’s toes by exorcising a slave girl and her masters were upset because they lost their fortunetelling income¹¹⁷. It should be conceded that to some people the gospel is the fragrance of life, but to others the stench of death, and no amount of contextualised air freshener is going to change that!

But critiquing one’s own culture is difficult, and there are many blind spots. My only suggestion for minimising these blind spots is that we should keep ourselves humble, in fellowship and discussion with people of other cultures and perspectives, and dependent on the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures to lead and challenge us. Perhaps a devotional way of fostering self-awareness and openness to correction is to think of different prayers and attitudes we can choose between, much like Jesus’ parable of the tax collector and Pharisee who were both praying at the temple. When we come before God, one person may pray "thankyou that I’m not like those narrow-minded modernists who think they can box truth and sell it in attractional consumeristic giftwrap"; another may pray "thankyou that I’m not like those syncretistic postmodernists who have an unsettlingly loud call for revolution and abandon the grasp of truth"; but still another may pray "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Redeem me from where I have sold out to my culture. Lead me out of darkness and into your marvellous light, that I may show others the Way".

Conclusion

Having examined some of the major strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the EM church, what now? We can rejoice in its strengths: the variety and experimentation, the intentional engaging with culture, the emphasis on building community, the culture of self-critiquing, and the space allowed for mystery within an integrated, holistic faith that leads to personal and social transformation. We can embrace the opportunities that our current setting presents: the cultural change around us and the newness and adjustability of the EM movement.

But what about the weaknesses? What do we do with a movement without clear definition and direction, which is prone to unfair stereotyping, false dichotomies and exclusivity? If we pause to put this in historical perspective, we can then acknowledge that the church has never been perfect in practice (as a quick glance through Paul’s letters to the Corinthians might remind us) or theology (as we can see in the disagreements between Paul and Peter in Galatians).

Then there are the threats: the challenges of planting new churches or reinventing existing churches, the potential havoc EM literature could cause, the risk of rifting relationships with churches and denominations, the dangers of financial, social and ideological unsustainability and the risk of syncretism. But once again, if we look with a historical perspective, we can acknowledge that the church has always functioned in a somewhat threatening environment, whether the danger has been persecution, slavery, poverty, pluralism or nominalism. Two millennia later, we can be encouraged: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and on this rock he is building his church – despite constant inside weaknesses and outside threats – and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Yet if we continue through Matthew 16, Jesus gave his disciples – us – the keys to the kingdom of heaven. What are we binding and loosing? Instead of Christians and churches with different views walking out and slamming doors on one another, why don’t we open our minds and listen to one another, seeking to celebrate and unlock our combined potential? If we work through issues together we can combine our strengths, focus on making the most of our opportunities, minimise our blind spots, find help for areas of weakness, and support one another in the midst of threatening environments. As Stuart Murray Williams reminds us,

"hope for the future of the church in Western culture does not lie with the inherited church. Nor does it lie with the emerging church. It lies in conversations between inherited and emerging churches that enable each to learn from the other and together find fresh ways of incarnating the gospel in a changing and diverse culture"¹¹⁸.

In the midst of changing cultures, the calling of the church (established and EM) is still to keep Jesus central. I contend that his desire for the church can be found in his last command before the ascension – "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you"¹¹⁹ – and in his last prayer before his arrest – "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me"¹²⁰. Whether churches call themselves emerging, missional, established or traditional, their calling and passion should be to follow Jesus’ directive in both mission and oneness.

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Endnotes

• Deborah Taggart completed her B.Th at Southern Cross College in 2005; this paper was an independent guided study conducted in her final semester. She is now Associate Student Dean at SCC.

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