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malcolm chamberlain

musings about the emerging church, mission and contemporary culture...

God is at large, intimately involved in his world in ways that the church is maybe just waking up to!

is longevity necessary?

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Having had several conversations myself recently about sustainability and longevity being a necessary indication of the success of the emerging church, I found this following comment from Si Johnston (reflecting on a seminar about EC at the New Horizon conference) really interesting...

"...having been asked what an ecclesial minimum might be for emerging churches, we were told that one of the main criteria in measuring the success of emerging churches, would be their longevity. I'm glad the same criteria wasn't used to measure Jesus' 'intentional' activity otherwise his 'paltry' three years would be deemed highly inconsequential compared to the average life span of 6 years for emergent communities which is apparently too short."

Read the whole of Si's post 'here'.

Update, 9th August... Kester's post 'here' about rites of passage, nomadic faith and the Vaux story may have something to say about the nature of 'longevity' in the emerging church too.

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posted by Malcolm Chamberlain, 9:47 AM

1 Comments:

I agree with Si. It's quality not quantity that matters. Six years is quite long enough for an emerging church to have a life long impact on its members lives.

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 2:48 PM  

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