Book Review: The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball

The Set-Up

Kimball writes about where the church needs to go in the post-modern era by dividing his book into 2 parts. The first part is an overview of post-modern thought and the "crisis" that the modern church is in as they look at reaching upcoming generations (as well as those crazy hippy fogies who are more post-modern in thought). He gives a thorough and interesting synopsis of where our culture is and why that affects the church.

Part 2 is more of a methods book, although Kimball is careful to say that using methods without understanding the background of culture will turn out a disaster. He goes through several functions of the church (i.e. corporate worship, evangelism, discipleship, leadership structure) and discusses how these may need to change as the church engages the post-modern mindset of those around us.

Throughout the book, Kimball has included comments by about 5 or 6 people who read the manuscript. These are not just quotes that go along with his ideas, but they are people's comments about his words. Most are in agreement with him, but he was mature enough to also include some comments that disagree with his point, or expand his point to include something that may seem omitted. The commenters include Brian McLaren and Rick Warren.

The Good

First, I have to say that I love Kimball's heart in this book. So many times, I get frustrated with "emergents" (or friends of them, whatever that means) being condemning of the modern church. It bugs the crap out of me to have people use the same arrogance in their emerging rhetoric that they accuse the staunchy theologians of having.

But Kimball's heart is amazingly humble and generous. He quotes the adage that goes, "In essentials - unity. In non-essentials - freedom. In all things - charity." I feel like this really is his way of life. He criticizes without condemning, and he encourages all the while.

Another thing that I liked about the book was that he is aware of the risk of consumerism, even in positive changes. He emphasized over and over that the changes he's made must be made to put the focus on Christ and cannot be made solely to cater to the people we're trying to reach. He seems to understand how easy it is to head that direction and maintains that consumerism in the church is harmful, whether it's cheesy bumper stickers or deep spirituality of candles and incense. Consumerism is consumerism, and it needs to stay out of the church. In this vein, he also speaks against the "corporation" structure of many churches. Amen!

Lastly (although I could go on and on about "the good"), Kimball's theology is just very sound. We hear so much about emergent theology being wayward and post-modern itself. But Kimball is clear that theology is important and doesn't need to be sacrificed in order to reach new people. While methods may change to provide a deeper spiritual experience, truth is truth and the Jesus of the Bible is that Truth. It was relieving to read this strong focus on Jesus being the only way to heaven and a relationship with him being the only way to spiritual growth.

The Bad

The one thing that stood out to me the most as a negative in this book was the lack of variety in Kimball's methods. On one hand, he speaks to diversity, but on the other, his methodology indicates that ancient-future is the one way that post-moderns will feel connected. In honesty, I just can't see a lot of people liking the intensely deep, mystical, dark thing all the time. I tend to be deep and melancholy. More so than a heck of a lot of people I know, but I don't think week after week of dark depth is what would be effective toward a holistic spiritual growth. I realize that this is what has worked for his church, and this is what he uses in his community, but I would have liked to hear some other methods that work in other churches that reach to post-moderns.

Another thing that I wasn't crazy about with his methods was that many of them seemed very "Jesus and Me" worship. I'm sure I missed something here because community is so important to post-moderns and is talked about so much in the emerging movement. But a lot of Kimball's examples talked about people leaving their seats to go do something on their own, be it give offering, take communion, or pray. I tend to believe that corporate worship ought to be corporate. If I wanted to pray alone in the dark, I'd put on a CD, light some candles in my bedroom and pray. Being in the community gathering should be about communally worshiping God. It's not just me and Jesus. It's a family of believers worshiping together, and there's something about that kind of worship that cannot be done alone.

The Verdict

This is a fairly old book... that is, it's from 2003. But these days that's ancient, right? I mean, there's so much new stuff coming out everyday that most of the stuff in Kimball's book is now over-discussed. But this book is worth the read.

For one thing, it gives a good impression of what the emerging church can be when it holds fast to doctrinal truth and returns to depth of worship and relationship. It shows that these two ideas are not mutually exclusive. Even though this book was written previous to a lot of the current criticism over the emerging church, it's a good counter to show that the phrase doesn't just point to the liberal whackos who don't want to know anything with certainty. For this reason, I've recommended it to a friend, who has heard a lot of the criticism but none of the positives.

It's also a great read for people who haven't yet heard or investigated the term. I've already recommended it to my mom.