Book Review: The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball

May 25, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009). Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)

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.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: They Like Jesus but Not the Church by Dan Kimball
2. The End of the Emerging Church
3. Dan Kimball: A Revolution in Church and Teaching (EC BIOLA #1)
4. Defining the Emerging/Emergent-Church/Movement/Conversation
5. Book Review: The Out of Bounds Church? By Steve Taylor
6. ETS 4- John Hammett on the Emerging Church

Posted in Book Reviews, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Roger's Posts, Theology