From the Mailbag

by Tony Jones

We do get emails to the emergentvillage site every week.  Here are a couple that we've gotten recently, with some thoughts in response:

"I discovered you all through the book The Relevant Church. I am a pastor of a church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and we are somewhat in a 're-building' process. I am curious to know the leadership structures of your respective ministries (e.g. hierarchy of leaders, elders, deacons, pastors, overseers, etc.) and if you see any pro's and/or con's to this structure, especially in how it relates to your specific ministry purposes and structures. I know that it is a lot to ask, but I do hope to hear from you or someone from your ministry soon."

There is no normative way that churches connected with Emergent are structuring their leadership.  It seems to me that many are using the traditional concept of pastor and elders, which they've inherited from the presbyterian and bible church models.  Others use ideas such as "covenant partners," while still others have such a nebulous leadership structure that there's not really a name for it.  I will say that the churches at the core of the Emerging Church Movement (yes, it's a movement) are egalitarian -- men and women are included equally in leadership.

"As I read all the books and peruse the website am I wrong to assume this movement is coming from an Amillennial position. That is not bad, but I kind of like to know the perspective of the authors."

This movement is not "coming from" any position regarding the millennium.  In fact, I can't think of one conversation that's we've had about the millennium.  We are concerned about eschatology, and I'd say that many of us have been influenced by the theologies of people like Jurgen Moltmann and Miroslav Volf, both of whom propose a "realized" eschatology.  If you want to read more on this, try reading The Coming of God by Moltmann.

Comments

[bob]

our two cents...

we have elders/pastors bt they mainly focus on shepherding and do their best not to continue the dependency-creating model of doing for the people what they should do for themselves...
we worked through the elder process and concluded that if God brought us a Deborah, Priscillas, or Anna, we would not prevent them from serving in the role of leader/teacher/prophet (elder, that is...)
more about it (and our take on 1 Tim 2) here:
http://www.evergreenlife.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=410

by the way Tony- we're really pushing The Sacred Way on our book table. Thanks for doing something very well suited to where we are as a people...

[StorminNormin]

great post. I am new to emergent, or should i say, "emergent" is new to me." That is, i am not a practiving emerger, but i've just learned of this church and now i am in the process of investigating it. There is a conversation developing on my blog about what exactly emergent is. i figure you wise emergers may want to head on over there and confirm comments or reject heresies. My blog is:
http://blogsdosuck.blogspot.com/

great post
thanks again
you pal,
-norm

http://blogsdosuck.blogspot.com/