An Emerged Community

Questions of relevance are always critical for the church. How can we effect - for good and for God - those whom we encounter? There is an increasing awareness around of the importance of giving 'community' its desired and necessary precedence. These days there are many ways in which churches seek to be appropriate and these seem to work best with this emphasis on community. I was interested in some comments on these ideas by Duncan MacLaren (in "Mission Implausible") - “In recent years .. there has been much talk of ‘emerging church’. The term is in danger of becoming meaningless if it becomes entrenched (a church cannot ‘emerge’ for ever), but for the moment it seems to be a good way both to capture the sense that established patterns of being church are increasingly moribund, and to give space for experimental patterns of church life to emerge unhindered by premature definitions. ‘Networks’, ‘Cell Church’, ‘Liquid Church’, ‘Transforming Communities’ and ‘Small Christian Communities’ are all ways of articulating what is emerging. .... What all of them seem to agree on .. is that community must take priority over congregation if the church in Britain is to have a future. In one way, this sounds radical; in another, it seems obvious .... ” I hope we can do the obvious so far as being church in an effective - and community-minded - way.