The Changing Nomenclature of the “Emerging Church”

In case you missed the emerging debate about the emerging church conversation, the Ezine Next-Wave, has just published an interesting retrospective on the emerging church.  The story consists of three parts and features interviews with a number of emerging or “emergent” leaders including Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Scot McKnight, Jordon Cooper, Andrew Jones, and Dan Kimball:

• Cover story
• Part 1
• Part 2

So what’s the difference between emerging, emergent, missional whatever label you choose to apply? Here’s an excerpt:

Tony Jones hates these categorization efforts.  He says, ”One of the things I despise is all of the taxonomizing that takes place.  I think it’s such a modern tendency to place everyone in this silo or that silo.  So I reject all talk of ‘emergent’ vs. ‘emerging,’ or the Four R’s of Ed Stetzer or the categories of Mark Driscoll or anyone else. …Haven’t we learned our lesson after the era of hundreds of denominational labels that so many of us now reject?

In the same issue, you can read the article, Why Denominations Matter.