Emerging churches closely examined

As I begin to study more about the emerging church, I find for every source of pro-emerging information I find, the more criticism I find. From what I read and see, there are many traditional evangelicals who seem to think that emerging churches are the new gnosticism and it will destroy Christianity as we know it.

The problem I see so far is that many critics are focusing on a small pocket of writers/speakers (Brian McLaren the main target) and stereotyping all emerging movements with them.

There are several different ideas on how big the emerging movement is and how many people are truly involved. While there are already some organizations like Emergent Village in existence, and some established emerging churches (like the Vintage Faith Church) exist. But if Barna is right and tens of millions are involved in emerging fellowships in the USA alone, then to criticize the whole movement based on a few opinions, well.....that's not exactly what I call scholarship. This totally leaves out that point that there are many people who probably are emerging but not even calling themselves that. Terms like organic, simple, and cell churches are in the mix too.

However, some help is in sight. Dan Kimball at Vintage Faith posted a small review about a book called "Inside the Organic Church: Learning From 12 Emerging Congregations" by Bob Whitesel, a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University. The most interesting thing about the book is that it is entirely based on the author's actually going to emerging churches, attending the services, and talking to people in the church. I'll let Dan's review tell the rest.

I'm still working on this whole topic and still eating information about post-church movements; I'm not even to the digesting part yet. More on this later, including my reading list!