Church, the next generation
July 10th, 2006
Driscoll, at the Resurgence, talks about Church 3.0, which is a clever way about talking about how the church relates to culture. Church 1.0 is your traditional church, 2.0 is the emergent church, and 3.0 is the missional church.
I have been trying for the last few months to wrap my head around the emergent church concept. I have had a few in depth conversations with Brad of relevintage on this topic, including one where we (and Casey) tried to explain postmodernism to my father. This post did a good job summarizing what Brad was telling me is the difference from what he is liking vs the emergent church at large. Pardon the weak or inaccurate phrasing there, I am not sure how to best communicate what I am trying to say.
It is kinda interesting to see the the progression from 1.0 to 3.0 in terms of a dialectical framework.
2.0 was a reaction to the change in culture that 1.0 did not adapt to. It’s approach is very antithetical to the traditional church model. This radical change is evidenced by conservative, traditional church blogs like Slice of Laodicea’s antagonism towards the emergent church. Do a search for “emergent” to see this.
The 2.0 mindset was very in tune with the culture and from what I can tell, was very successful. However, there were/are many that were unsatisfied with the departure from 1.0, yet saw that there was some good things that 2.0 was doing. They synthesized the two views, taking the good and subtracting the ineffective from each. They came up with what Driscoll talks about as church 3.0, or as it is more properly called Missional Church.
From what Brad is telling me and what I am reading on the topic, I am liking the goals, aims, and methods of the Missional Church.
Categories: Culture |
Yeah I plan to hear Driscoll at the Desiring God Conference this fall, but I am really looking forward to David Wells who will be speaking there. I wouldn’t say “emergent” is progress….lol…I haven’t heard this sort of talk so I don’t know whether I need to applaud or stomp my foot.
As someone once said, what is often called “progress” is just change unless what is progressing is changing for the better. I think Lewis said something similar, but that is not important right now.
While you can debate if it is prgress, it most certainly is a reaction to environmental changes that christianity has found itself in.
In looking at 1.0 vs 3.0 I think there has been progress using effectiveness and doctrinal integrigy as benchmarks.