Emerging Church: Gibbs and Bolger Gotcha? 2

March 9th, 2007 · 12 Comments

I want to work through the implications of my last post in a different way. This is my thinking given my reading of Gibbs/Bolger:

1. Gibbs/Bolger are concerned about the decline in numbers in the church in the West.
2. They believe the shift from the modern world to the postmodern world is the main factor determining the viability of contemporary ministries (especially in urban contexts).
3. People now in their 20’s and early 30’s are thoroughly postmodern and thus virtually unreachable by ministries shaped by modernism.
4. The ministries they analyze and call “emerging” are culturally indigenous to the postmodern context and thus more suited to reach these thoroughly postmodern 20 and early 30 somethings.
5. Alas, Mars Hill Church (and by implication, Redeemer in NY and The Journey in St.Louis) is a modern Gen X church. And in the case of these three congregations they have the added problem that they love the Reformation and doctrine and preach about election and the substitutionary atonement, all of which are variously eschewed or radically re-interpreted or re-packaged by the Gibbs/Bolger bona fide emerging communites.
6. But the 20 somethings keep pouring into these congregations while those first reached are retained and now older believers are joining them. And this is happening in Seattle, Manhattan Island and urban St.Louis.
7. The 20 and early 30 somethings Gibbs/Bolger are so concerned about are not behaving as Gibbs/Bolger expected. Instead they are finding relevant what Gibbs/Bolger thought they wouldn’t.

So where does this leave us?

1. The Gibbs/Bolger book remains the best single source for comprehending the phenomenon they call “emerging.”
2. Gibbs/Bolger’s help in comprehending contemporary urban culture in the West is greatly compromised. By this I just mean that they are not adept at predicting what urban 20 somethings will find relevant.
3. Given Gibbs/Bolger’s stated concern for the decline of Christianity in the West, one would expect them to train their attention on churches like Mars Hill, Redeemer, and The Journey which obviously “get it.” If they do not become champions of such ministries it raises the question of whether we are really looking at preference and advocacy of certain kinds of ministries, the role of doctrine in them etc., rather than just straightforward concern to see the decline of Christianity in the West reversed. Which is fine, but let’s just be clear about our motives.

Tags: Theology · Emerging/Emergent Church · Evangelicals/Evangelicalism

12 responses so far ↓

Kyle Roberts // Mar 9, 2007 at 10:06 am

Dr. DeVine,

Allow me to play the role of the precocious former student turned Kierkegaardian postmodernist for a moment Gibbs and Bolger are explicitly not focusing on generational issues, but on a rising, permeating, philosophical-cultural ethos that seems to be increasingly inescapable. They acknowledge there will be exceptions (p.22) such as Mars Hill, Journey, etc. The point, though, seems to be that those who are thoroughly imbibed within the postmodern ethos are increasingly finding modernist approaches to church (come and listen to the charismatic guru) unsatisfying. The book seems explicitly focused on those who are keying in on the postmodern cultural ethos of deconstruction (”there is nothing outside the text”), incredulity towards metanarratives, and a longing for belonging via productive contribution, rather than passive listening. The book is about churches who are intentionally homing in on those alientated from traditional church forms. Of course, thankfully, we will always have the mega-church with us. If Darrin Patrick were preaching in my town, I’d go hear him often. But there aren’t enough Darrin’s to go around for the rest of us. For better or worse, many of my students (those who find themselves fairly well immersed in the postmodern ethos) turning to smaller, decentralized communities, such as house churches, or to smaller and ancient liturgically oriented communities, in order to recover a poignant sense of purpose in the practice of Christianity.
Dr. Mark DeVine // Mar 9, 2007 at 1:54 pm

Hello Kyle Roberts, one of my favorite former students.

Half his brain tied behind his back just to make it fair.

I am only accepting that Gibbs/Bolger are impressive when they describe the phenomenon they call emerging. I am questioning whether and/or the extent to which their take on postmodernism is accurate. The fantastically effective and doctrinally orthodox exceptions are certainly evidence in favor of putting the asterisk over the Gibbs/Bolger take on postmodernism. By orthodox I mean not just Nicea, but Reformation/soteriological stuff that McLaren is so squishy on too. And I stand by my suspicion that there is more “preference and advocacy” mixed in with the mere analysis in Gibbs/Bolger. How much more impressive their take would be if the Redeemers/Journeys/Mars Hills “exceptions” were not there. But they are there. Great big whopping exceptions in my view and with a much more solid claim to being anything historically recognizable as “Christian” than some of the bizarrely truncated versions of the faith embraced by some of the Gibbs/Bolger groups.

Along with Thomas Oden I question the extent to which anything called postmodern involves something that is settled and thus, before which church leaders can only genuflect. We may be in the middle of a watershed transition away from something we rightly name “modernism” (I suspect we are) that opens up opportunities for shaping culture more than it locks us into something that Christianity must jump through the hoops of to be found relevant. The protestant liberals tried to fix Christianity too and they too chafed at what they called the hellenization or catholicizing of the faith (which Harnack found already in the New Testament, especially in Paul). The liberals were squeamish about proselytizing and about doctrine, they preferred the synoptics and ethics to the Gospel of John and Paul and they were real cocky about how much more relevant they were. It turned out that they weren’t. What about the Gibbs/Bolger emerging groups? Time will tell.

Also, given the bad conscience regarding proselytizing that characterizes the Gibbs/Bolger types, I’m not sure whether or how long they can be relevant to the matter of stemming the decline of Christianity in the West that Gibbs/Bolger say so concerns them.

Help me Kyle.
Kyle Roberts // Mar 9, 2007 at 2:41 pm

Dr. DeVine,

Thanks for giving me a fighting chance.

I wholeheartedly agree with this: to the extent that “emerging churches” are impelled solely or primaily by a quest for relevancy, then their effectiveness will last only as long and as far as candles and smoke are fashionable. But, to the extent that the push is for authenticity, embodiment of truth, and at least a modified form of de-centralization of authority (modeled after the intuitions of the “social trinity” movement) and a leveling of heierachy into the significance of the single individual “before God” (can somebody say, “priesthood of the believer?), these communities will be here to stay and will pulsate vibrancy into church and society (frankly, many people are tired of the implicit evangelical truism that Christian leadership and success depends on one’s guitar prowess, quality of hair, and stage presence). The key, though, will be to avoid the idolatries of relevancy and to pursue instead, Father, Son and Spirit. I agree that communities which retain more traditional church forms and rigorous doctrinal positions will, Lord willing, also always be effective in reaching those searching for God. But the people they are reaching (and I have no empirical evidence for this) are, in all probability, not those who are most deeply transfigured by “The Postmodern Condition.” For these folks, something more poetic, more indirect, more communal, more incarnation, and more radical may be the answer. And we may find, in exploring these options, that we actually get a little closer to first-century Christianity than what is currently on offer.

am I way off base?
Dr. Mark DeVine // Mar 9, 2007 at 2:48 pm

Kyle

I forgot to say that I find The Journey and Redeemer (I know less about Mars Hill on this) very much not susceptible to the “mere passive listening” charge. Very missional. Very community focused. Lots of small groups within the community. Not the caricature I find in the some of the pro-Gibbs/Bolger-type emergenvillage.com-friendly blogs and such.

I wonder how much the “protest” character of some within the emerging community results in a certain myopia here. Whatever they didn’t find in the churches they left but now have and enjoy in their new emerging community, they view as missing from all churches except the ones of their new type. Such problems of distortive broad brushing may be more traceable to the “chattering class” in the books and blogs (like myself) than within the communities themselves. But the broad brushing is undoubteldly occurring. We all recognize it when someone purports to describe us or something we know and then they get something fantastically wrong, don’t we?
Dr. Mark DeVine // Mar 9, 2007 at 2:59 pm

Kyle and everybody else; Kyle’s 2nd comment is in response to my first comment not my second so things are a little askew.

Kyle

Your second comment touches on the things I most welcome about the emerging movement. I also believe that some of these groups to whom Gibbs/Bolger deny the tattoo are doing these things as well. The Journey is the one I know best.

Authenticity, genuine community, in short, actually living the Christian life with God’s help. All this is just so welcome. The sophomoric neglect of the Christian past, eschewal of doctrine, going wobbly on very clear teachings about homosexual behavior,—not impressive, not biblical, not Christian.

And yes, competing on relevancy always takes a back seat to truth as far as I am concerned but Gibbs/Bolger invite this kind of test of their insights and so they must deal with the “exceptions” I think.
Kyle Roberts // Mar 9, 2007 at 3:06 pm

Good point, and well-taken. I’ve not been to these churches. But I knew Darrin at MBTS, and I can imagine that if his community reflects his own authenticity and genuineness, it would be a lively, spiritually envigorating one. I have no contact/familiarity with the others.
Charles Churchill // Mar 12, 2007 at 10:56 am

No one is Postmodern once they have children. I say that tongue in cheek, but in a way I mean it seriously. One of the issues we have overlooked in trying to reach the 20-30 something crowd is in failing to ask, how did they get to be this way? A young post modernist is typically someone who still possesses a great deal of the foolishness that is bound into the heart of a child (you know, the stuff that the rod of correction is supposed to drive away). American society has become intent on extending the pleasures of childhood for as long as possible. As Christians, we are at war with that notion.

My favorite thing about this issue is meeting people who believe that postmodernism is something new. As if Rome during the time of Paul wasn’t postmodern. As if Paul spent time and energy trying to figure out how to sell the two edged sword of the Word of God to a pleasure mad society. As if Mars Hill was a rave, hosted by the synagogue that Paul taught in on the Sabbath. As if…
Dr. Mark DeVine // Mar 13, 2007 at 6:51 am

Charles

I suspect that your analysis here has very much to commend it. Thanks so much for sharing this. “bent on extending the pleasures of childhood.” Very good! I will definately steal this from you!
Matthew Shedden // Mar 20, 2007 at 10:23 am

Hey Mark,
Great blog. I posted a question similar to this at the iMonk’s blog but instead of hijacking it over their I thought it might be worth moving some of the conversation over to here. While you could paint the Gibbs/Bolger distinction as favoring churches that don’t love the reformation (and by this I think you mean reformed, emerging churches are very happy about the reformation, in fact they kind of want to have their own) , someone could paint your church picks as favoring reformed churches. If size is important you seem to be missing to of the bigger congregations of Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, and Mosaic in LA. Also I think we could even throw in Willowcreek in Chicago (lots of young people there), Jacob’s Well in Kansas City (a growing by leaps and bounds church) , Kairos in LA (lesser known because they splinter into plants when they reach a certain size, but growing… what a crazy idea right?), and NorthPoint in Atlanta. Leaving the those churches out of your objections makes it seem like your favor reformed churches over churches that are reaching “young” people.
But I think we can agree that most of those big churches have one in a kind pastors, and for people to try to model off of that would be difficult and in some ways wrong.
Thanks for engaging conversation I look forward to your response, and I think you are to great thoughts about church planting here.
I would be really interested on your thoughts for what a confessing church (similar to Bonhoeffer) might look like is Postmodern setting. The narrative theologians have done some work in this, and I know your familiar with Barth too, so maybe you could post a blog about that.
Dr. Mark DeVine // Mar 20, 2007 at 11:03 am

Size matters (not so much to me) with regard to a reading of Gibbs/Bolger that supposedly predicts what young urbanites will find relevant and what they will not. So I have highlighted (”favored”) churches to which they deny their emerging “tattoo” but which are reaching the demographic Gibbs/Bolger think they shouldn’t.

So perhaps the deeper critique is of Gibbs/Bolger as comprehenders of postmodernism at least where felt-relevance is concerned. This matters because unless we see this vulnerability in Gibbs/Bolger, we might tend to make silly statements about the kinds of churches that can flourish or not in urban settings.
Steve Peck // Mar 3, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Dr. DeVine,
Thank you for your thoughts and this thread. I concur and resonate with the discussion I have seen so far. I am an Army chaplain up the road from you at the U.S. Army Command & Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, KS. I’ve been trying to learn about EC & pomo for a few years now, as my majority audience seems to always be 17-29 soldiers (while of course I get older). I just returned from the Acts 29 conference and the New Conspirators conference in Seattle. I have a question related to it. I understand what Bolger/Gibbs are claiming about pomo age demographic. However, as others have said, Redeemer, MHC, and other A29 churches are connecting with that same demogrpahic. I also know Driscoll and I think McLaren both say genrational issues are passe. When I visit MHC, Imago Dei, Karen Ward’s COTA, Jacob’s Well, Cedar Ridge, etc., I see a majority of twentysomethings. However, has anyone published demogrpahic data that confirms or denies the idea that EC connects best with postmoderns? Thank you.
Dr. Mark DeVine // Mar 4, 2008 at 8:30 am

I have not seen any published data myself. I am only aware of anecdotal observations but these do seem quite impressive.

I suspect that in fact, these churches are typically reaching predominantly white 20 and early 30-somethings but that many of the leaders wish to see this change. And in fact it may well change as current members age and as church leaders make more multi-generational and racially diverse congregations a major goal. Time will tell.

Donald McGavaran told us many years ago that most churches that grow exponentially do so according to the homogeneous unit principle whether we like or not , and the faster growing emerging churches seem to be yet another case in point.