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The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations

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I went back on forth about what to say after I read this book. I read it for a graduate school class in small groups & community and have some good thoughts after reading the book. The good things:

1) Dan is honest and not full of himself. He recounts what he has done in ministry and how it has morphed over the past few years.

2) He lets the reader know what is working where he is, without setting it up as a model for the rest of us in the world who might start up a ministry.

3) The emphasis on ancient / vintage worship and community is essential. As we invite people into a community and let them 'ask in' to a faith committment it is a powerful witness for the kingdom.

The 'interesting' things:

1) Why is Rick Warren featured so prominently in a book that is looking towards the future? Rick Warren's extended defense of the seeker sensitive movement seems like a monument to the past when Dan's book is squarely looking towards the future. This is not to disrespect Rick, but he was out of place in this book. It is almost like the publisher pushed Dan to have Rick in the book so he would have more 'credibility' with the modern audience - who knows, but Rick seemed really out of place.

2) I do agree with some of the other reviewers who note that while Dan is not wanting to give a model for everyone to use, the second half of his book surely could be interpreted just that way.

Overall - worth reading - Joseph Dworak

Tackling ecclesiology head on, Dan Kimball exhorts the reader to practice some important paradigms of the quintessential church found throughout the ages. Among these are: Bringing the Bible back into the Church; cultivating a church culture that encourages dialogue; ensuring that the gospel is allowed to do its work instead of the charismatic eloquence of the preacher; and emphasizing that Jesus is the only way to God.

These are all stressed in the Holy Scriptures in one way or another. He also notes the exhortation of 1Corinthians 2:1-5 that the Cross of Jesus Christ - alone - should be preached instead of the world's wisdom.

Most of the book, however, is filled with desultory observations of our fickle culture and how Christians should respond to it. Reviewing Kimball and others of his bent in Christianity Today, Andy Crouch stated, "They have confused style and substance."

The Emerging Church is not about repentance, the Cross, and its offense (and hope) to a fallen, sinful world but about buzzwords such as "postmodern" "seeker" "emerging" "missional" "vintage" "deconstruction" etc. It's also about cheerleaders in the church growth movement who clutter nearly every page with vapid balloon remarks that do little to improve the book's quality. Rick Warren (the new Protestant pope) writes the forward. Sadly, I'm still trying to figure out what he is really saying after repeated re-readings. Both Warren and Kimball are masters of word "switcheroo" - using words in the postmodern way. This is where words are chosen for how they sound rather than for what they may mean.

For example, Warren writes on page 7 that it's OK to do anything in church worship "...as long as the biblical message is unchanged." This sounds good until you try to pin down what Warren's "biblical message" really is. Like Warren, Kimball shops around for Bible paraphrases which suit his purposes. As a result, we are subjected to isogesis: Where interpretation is read into the Bible instead of out of it. Jesus said the way is narrow. For Warren et al., it is broad and getting broader, especially as his book sales continue to skyrocket. It's all a testimony to the sad state of the Church in our land that so many reject the simple teachings of the Bible for mere popular eloquence.

Kimball, in a switcheroo, exhorts us to carefully preach from the Bible (good) and then, elsewhere, he will prattle on and on about "seeker-sensitive" this or that (not-so-good). For example, on page 25 he says "Being seeker-sensitive as a lifestyle means that we are sensitive to spiritual seekers in all that we do. ...it is a lifestyle approach to how we live as Christians in relation to being sensitive to seekers of faith." Instead of living to impress others, Scripture commands us to loves others and live a holy life, regardless of whether anyone wants to follow us or not. If anyone is impressed by what we do, it should be for these attributes (1 Pet 2:12). Anything else is an appeal to narcissism.

It gets worse. On page 88, Kimball writes, "We probably wouldn't be attracted to Christianity if we weren't Christians." Or, on page 210 he writes, "...the tide will turn and non-Christians will be drawn to us instead of being turned off by us." This is mostly Pelagiansim. Contrary to the gospel-lite promoted by Kimball, Warren, and others, God's word tells us why people do not come to Christ: No one seeks after God (Ro 3:10). Men, by nature, are God's enemies. It's just that simple. We do not need hundreds of pages telling us how awful/insensitive/backward we Christians are and how we must atone for our sin of being unpopular with the pagan and immoral culture. Yet Kimball does note some of the greater errors of church bureaucracies in the past that made the gospel look bad. He is to be commended for that.

What is surprising is that those in the church growth movement don't seem to pay any attention to the explosive growth of the gospel in places like Communist China: Where Christians meet, love one another, hear the Word, and pray - as Christians have for thousands of years - largely without the videos, books, conferences, and mass marketing techniques employed by Kimball and others.

Jesus said, repent and believe in Me. For that, they killed Him. It was not then - nor now - a popular message to sinful fallen mankind. Suffice it to say, no one comes to Christ for any reason other than the Father draws him (John 6:35ff.) Jesus was not "seeker-sensitive" contrary to Kimball's assertions but quite the opposite as the end of John 6 illustrates.

Why all these pages which promote a candy-coated gospel? Please see 2Ti 4:3. Kimball needs to look again at his Bible, especially the parable of the sower and what happens to the seed that falls on the rocky ground: Shallow roots - shallow faith - falling away. The feeding of the five thousand in John 6 would be another lesson for him to consider: The crowds wanted to fill their stomachs with food instead of with the spiritual food and drink that gives eternal life, i.e., the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The sacred text offers here one of the greatest un-revivals in history: Five thousand came and all but a few handfuls left.

Practically speaking, Kimball is not progressive he is regressive. Rather than leaning on just another splintered reed, Christians should build their lives on the pure milk of the Word.

He has it backward. Meetings of the Church are not just about art, music, incense, candles, mood and experience. They should primarily be about thanksgiving, worship of Christ, love for one another, holiness, and pure doctrine undefiled by the wisdom of this world. "Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen ... for the customs of the people are vain." Jer 10:2,3 (1 Cor. 1-2). One of the ways of the heathen is to promote the self and worship it but not so for the Christian.

...and sigh with regret. Sure, there is a lot of good stuff in this book and I admire where Dan has gone and is going with his church. But this book turns into everything it preaches against: a formula for growth or culture mixing or savvy evangelism techniques. Any way you look at it, the book falls a bit flat and tries way too hard to be 'in.' From the annoying and very unpostmodern (is that even a word?) layout and brand, to the information overload plaguing nearly every page, "the emerging church" is a dumbed down version of what seemed to be a passionate beginning for dan. It's too bad he felt the need to please so many readers and church leaders. Had he merely written a book telling his own story specifically, i'm guessing we would have all benefited a great deal more.

Dan Kimball, Doug Fields, Rick Warren, Bill Hybells, Robert Shuller. They all are the new professional leaders of the "emerging church." Dan Kimball is more like an adult youth pastor than a defined prayer warrior. His book is full of the methods he has used over the years to produce numeric results (which fits into Warren's pragmatic theology quite well). This book is the down-grade of Christianity within the American culture. In the desire to reach a new generation, new writers like Kimball have sent the Church on a downward spiral that is quickly abandoning sound theology (Titus 2:1) and true worship (John 4:23-24; 1 Cor. 11:17-34) for feel good messages, seeker services, and everything else but expository preaching (1 Cor. 1:18-25).

For more information on the down-grade of Christianity see Iain Murray's book THE FORGOTTEN SPURGEON.

We live in an increasingly post-Christian culture. In times prior we could "preach the word" using words like sin and repentance and people would at least know what we're talking about. The times today are such that the language American Christianity has spoken is no longer the language of American culture. In this book, Dan Kimball offers a mindset for how Christians can adapt and reach the changing culture with an unchanging message.

Dan begins by setting the stage contrasting the "seeker-sensitive" model and the "post-seeker-sensitive" model (the emerging church mindset). Churches that are seeker-sensitive, for instance, are more focused on getting people in the church doors than meeting them where they are. People in the postmodern culture understand things differently, and the seeker sensitive mindset simply will not reach most of the postmodern/emerging generation.

After outlining the cultural shifts that have taken place and dealing with some of the theological issues that arise, Dan moves on to the larger part of the book, "Reconstructing Vintage Christianity in the Emerging Church." This second part deals with the more practical aspects of what it looks like for Christian churches to reach out to the current culture around them.

Dan Kimball is an excellent writer. He's clear, straightforward, and writes as though he's thought extensively about these issues ahead of time (that's becoming harder to find these days). There were many things I loved about this book. Dan repeatedly places the emphasis of church on Jesus. "Absolutely everything we do when we design worship gatherings for the emerging church should have Jesus at the center as we lift up His name." (121)

There were a few times when a concern about something would start to grow in the back of my mind and then almost immediately Dan would speak to that concern, as though he saw it coming. E.g.- After speaking about multisensory worship I became worried about how it was too focused on feelings and emotions. Then Dan said, "The danger, of course, is focusing so much on experience that we teach people to respond only by feelings and emotions... I believe the more the emerging church uses multisensory worship and teach, the stronger and deeper our use of Scripture needs to be." (131)

Of course, there were a handful of things I didn't care for. One is Dan's emphasis on lectio devina, silence, and listening prayer- all of which I believe to be dangerous practices not supported by Scripture. However, those issues aren't specific to emerging churches since many other people practice them as well. Another issue I had was the occasional false dichotomies between the "Modern Church" and the "Emerging Church." For instance, Kimball states that the modern church said, "evangelism uses reason and proofs for apologetics," while the emerging church says "evangelism uses the church being the church as the primary apologetic." (201) Francis Schaeffer said our "final apologetic" as Christians is love, and I think Schaeffer especially would fit both views of evangelism. Most apologists I know are more of the Schaeffer type than the "reason and proofs" only type, so I don't believe this dichotomy is accurate.

Overall, this is a great book. With the exception of only a few points I would recommend it to just about anyone wanting to make a difference for Christ in the postmodern culture. Dan Kimball has some good ideas for how to do church differently and reach the culture without capitulating to it and becoming the culture.

Dan Kimball's book is not a Postmodern take on the modern church, but simply a new formula for the seeker-sensitive church to adopt. Dismissing any problems with the "seeker" way of carrying out the Great Commission, he sees it time to simply change the game plan. Unfortunately academic terminology is used to "dress-up" his view as he changes the meanings to respected words such as "postmodern" and "deconstruction". Dan Kimball's book is not propaganda; it just uses the same techniques.

Kimball uses the term "deconstructing" to describe the part of the book where he highlights the problems with the modern church (the book only addresses seeker-sensitive style church). Although "deconstruction" is an actual word, its meaning varies. As a philosophical term, it is very difficult to define. Kimball seems to use this word with authority, but also confuses the word with the term "destruction". Kimball fails to recognize the difference between the two.

This would also bring to light the second part of the book "Reconstructing". He puts the philosophy that he just destructed back together. His idea is to put it back together in a different way that would make more sense. But since he never fully "deconstructed" the idea, he puts his idea of church together the same way in a different form. An example would be building a house of cards, watching it fall, and then building it again in a different form, yet never replacing the cards with sturdier materials.

The seeker-sensitive church model comes from a Modernist way of thinking. A Postmodern view on the seeker-sensitive church would not be a good one. Although some would say the truth hurts, and is necessary for growth, some are blinded to it. Kimball also demonstrates one's inability to remove oneself to get a complete view (Kimball doesn't mention any styles or beliefs other than the seeker, whether they suffer from the same issues or not).

Maybe it is not formulas that the seeker-sensitive movement is using, but the fact that they are using formulas at all that is causing the problem.

The time comes in a teen-ager's life when he redecorates his own bedroom. He hangs up flashy posters, colored lamps, stuff to be found nowhere else in the house, quite a contrast to his parents' living room. He notes with satisfaction to his parents that his friends think he's way cooler than they are.

This is what Dan Kimball is doing. He's redecorating his part of the house and telling his parents how much cooler it (and he) is. His parents are seeker-sensitive boomer churches. This explains why Rick Warren's comments printed in the margins of the book are sometimes "atta boy" and sometimes defensive. Kimball says seeker-senstive churches didn't understand intimacy, or depth, or atmosphere the way he and his friends do. Because they're cool.

Underlying the whole emergent church movement is a thick layer of vanity. The emergent church is made up of youth pastors who have spent a couple of decades proving their popularity by counting kids (Kimball is careful to point out both in his book and on his web site that his youth group had 300). They're now too cool for that too, so they're on to candles and powerpoint slides instead. Psychologically, Kimball is stunted in the same move teen-agers make developmentally in their first year of college, from an egocentric pursuit of popularity to an egocentric independence. This is what Dennis Miller is to comedy, or indy music to rock, or private coffee houses to Starbucks: too cool to conform, even though it's really just the same things again in only slightly altered packaging. One would think a group so into depth and authenticity wouldn't need so much hair gel and bleach, or their picture on the back of the book for that matter.

So let me get this straight: candles, darkness, images, spiritual theology...and you think this is a radical new church? Sounds like Catholicism to me.

This is a paper I had to write on the Emerging Church by Kimball last semester. Since the semester is over, I think I can safely post it. There were some parts where I used italics/underlining that will not show up here, so I hope it still is understandable. For the record, even though my instructor was on Kimball's side, he still gave me an A. Here it goes:

When I saw the title of Dan Kimball's "The Emerging Church", I knew it was going to be an interesting read. I tried to keep an open mind as I began flipping the pages. Somehow I just had the feeling that I would disagree with everything I was going to read, and for the most part I did. However, it was not difficult or slow reading. In fact, it was in some sense a real page-turner.

I believe it was an easy read because I was continually looking forward to Kimball's next point which I would disagree with, though I did agree sometimes. It was hard to look at it in a less critical way. However, what surprised me was the reason that I disagreed. I thought it was going to be all about how a conservative, organ-style service is out of date, and that we need a more rock-concert-style worship service to reach people effectively. Kimball did not argue this!

Kimball put forward the idea that we are living in what he calls a post-seeker-sensitive era, where actually this rock-style worship of the seeker-sensitive era is no longer effective, though it still can be utilized in different ways. He argued that people desire a spiritual, more "vintage" worship experience, which he claimed was similar to the early church's method of worship. His approach to addressing this apparent need was my major point of disagreement. I also disliked how he very frequently put his post-modern method of reaching the lost above the modern method, even though he stated that neither was better but that they just apply at different times. He clearly dislikes the modern method. I strongly oppose his post-modern, vintage method of conducting church services for three primary reasons.

The first is that I do not believe the church is the primary means of reaching the lost, and when I say this I mean the church as in the physical building itself. I believe that, while non-believers can certainly come to Christ by going to a church, the primary goal of the churches is to disciple and prepare people to go out and evangelize and disciple the world. Kimball's argument hinges on the fact that bringing people into the church building is the most effective and beneficial way of showing people Christ, but we know that the major method of evangelism in the New Testament was through sending of members of the church, the most prominent example being Paul. Certainly churches do not exist only that believers may live a comfortable, secure life, bringing people into their church to reach them. No! They must be trained and then sent out. This is the primary function of the church, which Kimball did state to his credit, and this means that addressing a post-seeker-sensitive America is not an issue of church discipleship, but of evangelism, more or less making this book irrelevant.

The second reason why addressing a post-seeker-sensitive "audience" in the way Kimball mentions is not feasible is that Kimball assumes that church worship services are for the experience of the individual attending. I shut my eyes in despair as I read words I could not believe I was reading:

"Because we wanted people to have a visual experience from the moment they walked into the room, the first thing people see is a table, behind which several people are stationed to greet people and answer questions. This table is draped with velvet and tapestries and has a backdrop of art. Scattered on the table are Celtic crosses and candles. The volunteer team in charge of our decor is led by an artist and has found ways to incorporate texture, light, fabric, and various unusual materials around the room at minimal cost..." (135, emphasis mine)

Why was I appalled? Alone this quote might only seem very odd, but in light of all Kimball says it is a disgrace. He is calling for a experience for individuals attending a church, a visual, multi-sensory experience, especially for non-believers. He even calls at another point of the book for incorporating all five senses into the experience! In effect, at his church he is selling an encouraging, spiritual event that will lift the spirits of all who attend. This completely misses the point of worship services: to worship God. Whether or not the individual experiences God (which is wonderful) is irrelevant. God must be worshiped. I literally laughed out loud when I read on page 156:

"Joe Pine and James Gilmore, in The Experience Economy, make a case for how important it is to sell an experience of a product. It's the experience of the product that "creates a memorable and lasting impression that ultimately creates transformation within individuals."1 Of course, God is not a product, so please don't think I am imposing business principles on the church. But we need to recognize how important experience is in transforming someone's opinions in today's culture." (underline mine, italics not mine)

It's impossible for me to believe what Kimball states in that underlined phrase. He has spent considerable effort selling the potential of experience, and then he says that of course this is not the real reason to go to church! He does this consistently throughout the entire book; he states radical ideas and proposals that he backs one-hundred percent, then puts a little "Of course, we have to be realistic about this" at the end to balance the scales. These little statements are nothing but a way to ease questions that arise in the worried reader's mind so that they will simply accept it. When reading the book, you clearly get the message that Kimball's primary emphasis is on experience in worship.

The first two reasons I have rejected Kimball's proposal (and call others to reject it) is from the fact that he sees the church building itself as being primarily evangelistic (rather than the people), and that he bases his method of worship on experience. The third reason is that, even if we were to assume that the primary and most Biblical way of reaching the lost is by bringing people into the church building, we should not think that we would change our method of worship merely to match the culture, at least not in such drastic ways as Kimball calls for.

Speaking generally, this is what a Christ centered church needs to have in order to be an effective church: believers, a set aside place for worship (though worshiping at different places is not unacceptable), a body who can sing and worship (meaning everyone, and any instruments available as well), and teaching that is centered on what the Bible teaches. The worship must be God-centered, and the goal centered on the Great Commission. Whether the worship utilizes drums or organs does not matter, so long as it is more God-centered than entertainment-centered (and I do believe that not only have rock-concert-style worship services largely failed to worship God, but that conservative services are guilty of the same because the enjoyment or pleasure of the old and "authorized-style" services is a source of comfort and tradition, deemed necessary for proper worship by those individuals).

There is no need to put up the "advertisements" Kimball suggests. In fact, it is outright dangerous. A large number of non-believers turning to Christ at his church is not necessarily as good as it appears, if the vast majority of those believers committed as a result of a wonderful spiritual experience. We know that when the experience is gone, as it inevitably will be for a time, the supposed faith that resulted from it will likely disappear as well. If the church buildings themselves really were the way we are supposed to reach people, we would have to come up with something other than experience to bring people in, but as it is not the way the New Testament portrays reaching the world, we need not worry about it. Our churches must simply teach the truth. Truth attracts people living in lies.

Much more could be said about the book but for lack of space. Kimball made some good points that equally stunned me because of their contrast to everything else he says. I had to force myself to realize that just because some things he says seem to be true and right, I must not accept everything else he wrote, and vice versa. On the whole, I was disturbed by his book and believe I can safely say that The Emerging Church is largely a literary work that cannot be properly applied to the Church.

i was rather stunned to see the names of rick warren and brian mclaren on the same book cover. however, after reading the book it made perfect sense. this book does not point fingers or bash modernity or postmodernity - but allows a healthy discussion from both perspectives of what direction the emerging church is moving. i love that this book FINALLY goes beyond all the chatter about culture and postmodern theory and gives some helpful examples (but not a model) of what we in church leadership should try to do. i own virtually every book out there on postmodernism and the church, and this by far has been the most practical in giving helpful direction of stimuating ideas for our local context. i will be giving a copy to my staff as well as key volunteers.

Without throwing stones Dan Kimball has written a challenging book for Christians who come in touch with people living in post-modern America. He clearly defines the way people learn from, interact with and relate to their world differently than people did twenty and fifty years ago. He's an obvious student of popular culture, and offers insight to how the church can relate to people saturated in it. It's not just a book for pastors or theologians but it challenges all Christians to approach evangalism and discipleship in a culture-appropriate manner. The book is well thought out, and is peppered with comments from a variety of church big shots, which are encouraging and sometimes challenging. Kimball has a heart for people and although the layout is lighthearted, the tone of the book is humble and the content sagacious.