Emergent Waco

The Emergent Village Weblog points us to an interesting conversation at Kester Brewin’s blog. This certainly relates to some of the recent talk about the usefulness/uselessness of the terms “emergent” and “emerging church” (here).

In the comments on his post Kester writes:

“It’s just a hunch, but I sense that some of the key players are less and less willing to work with that particular language. I think that, whereas a few years ago people were excited by the prospect, people are getting used to/bored/fed up with ‘emerging church’ as a concept, and will thus leave it behind.

“Not that I think that that means ‘game over’ for all that people like Emergent stand for – far from it actually – but I think people may increasingly assimilate those ideas into their practice without taking the name. (I think for some time this has been foreseen in the collapse in usefulness of the term ‘emerging church’, which is so tired as a phrase it has begun to mean nothing.)

“I think people have become tired of a whole lot of talking, and want to see things actually happen… and when stuff actually happens, it tends to be quieter and create less internet hum than the talking about it.

“But it’s just a hunch.”

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that Kester’s thoughts do coincide in some ways with conversations we have had as a cohort.

posted by: adam