Tim Samoff // Weblog (old)

November 19, 2004

Phases of the emerging church...

I just read Andrew Jones‘ piece called, “Not Reformation.” It’s short and to the point and coincides with some of my opinions.

In the comments, Andrew elaborated on some thoughts about three different phoases of the emerging church movement:

Emerging Church STAGE 1 (Barn Burning). The emerging church in its initial deconstrucitve, suspicious, reactionary stage, is most similar to the Post-Renaissance period, or The Age of Mannerism (1530-1600) which is when much of the Protestant Reformation was happening. Mannerist art was a reaction to the perfection of the High Renaissance, and leaned towards discontinuity, extremism, and the bizarre. MTV has been called “Mannerist Art”.

Emerging Church STAGE 2 – (Dumpster　Diving) This is the stage where the emerging churches are redicovering what they missed out on, past history, and the Other. It corresponds to the Early Rennaissance (1300-1500) which was a time of rediscovery (of classical Greek and Roman architecture) and a time of small experimental steps with new methods that no one really new how to use to the fullest potential.

Emerging Church Stage 3 (Lego Land) – a time of building with new blocks, non-reactionary, without finding identity from the past, succeeding with the new ways. This finds its parallel with the Baroque period (1600-1750), an attempt toward harmony and grandeur, cross-disciplinary understanding (like today’s emergence theory in complexity), emotional, powerfully imaginative, but also appropriate and proper.

Posted at 2:42 pm

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