Christianity Today reviews a new book on emerging church.
Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church explores the interface between the emerging church and traditional, liturgical churches. The book is a series of interviews — the author, Becky Garrison, describes it as a “salon.” It’s a helpful … sampling of discussions about recovering authentic Christian witness in postmodern urban culture.
Becky Garrison, senior contributing editor for the Wittenburg Door, had in-person, phone, e-mail, blog, and IM interactions with 33 people, most of whom are involved in “emerging” groups, “alternative worship,” or other innovative worship practices. About half of the contributors are of the Episcopal/Anglican tradition; nearly half are women.
They note eight themes in the book, one of these is the relationship between Episcopal traditions and emerging church:
A new partnership between traditional churches and emerging churches. Episcopal and Anglican leaders are building bridges from older liturgical forms of church worship to emergent forms. Jonny Baker works with the (Anglican) Church Mission Society to “reimagine worship, faith, and community in postmodern/emerging cultures.” Karen Ward (abbess of Seattle’s Church of the Apostles) is excited about “amazing ‘convergence'” she finds “between Anglican ethos and practice and [that of] the emerging church.”
Read it all here
Ward also created a social network for people interested in the Anglican emergent church here.