In my first post I examined how Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger approached researching emerging churches in Western contexts. Their starting point was new missional Christian communities formed within the last 20 years meeting at least monthly in Western, postmodern contexts who exhibited a vibrancy and creative immersion in popular culture with a strong corporate expression outside the church and employing a multisensory communication approach in their gatherings. Due to their predisposition toward new media it was fairly easy for Gibbs and Bolger to make contact with these communities via the internet.

So how do we learn from this approach and use it in a South African context? We are a country which is both first and thirld world; we have pre-modern, modern and postmodern worldviews (with the (originally) Western/European church being mostly modern). So if use the internet to find our emerging churches, we are simply going to connect with exactly those communities who already use the internet, which will be the richest people in the country, and the richest people tend to have a strong modern Western influence (although with an African flavour).

Perhaps we can assume that these postmodern, creative communities will therefore exhibit the same characteristics as the emerging churches identified by Gibbs/Bolger. We don't have the research to back this up but I don't think it is a bad assumption. What was helpful to Gibbs/Bolger was the referrals given them by people they initially made contact with online. We can assume that people doing innovative ministry in South Africa will be aware of others.

So how to contact these people? Firstly we have to decide our parameters. Here's a working list, adapted from Gibbs and Bolger:

The community has formed in the last 20 years Consider themselves Christians or Christ followers Consider themselves a congregation or a mission Meet at least monthly and are still meeting

These, I would think, are the specific South African ones: have a strong element of justice (being involved in some element of public life, whether it be fighting crime or bringing peace, or helping with homeless people in their area) have a strong focus on mercy (HIV/AIDS and poverty) lives as a reconciled multicultural community engages popular culture

So, please email me anyone you know who fits any part of this description :) Or add it into the comments, and we can start an informal categorisation.

Hmm, the only ones i know that meet the criteria were a couple I was involved in nearly 40 years ago.

Is that back to the future?

Posted by: Steve Hayes 12 Mar, 2007 - 16:13:48

FYI Ryan Bolger's blog is http://thebolgblog.typepad.com/...

Bless you
Bert

Posted by: Bert 20 Mar, 2007 - 21:24:04

I like what you said thus far. But what do we make of "lives as a reconciled multicultural community". If a white western South African Christian community exhibits the characteristics laid out by Gibbs and Bolger, but still remain a pure white community, whould they be emerging? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for multicultural communities, but I can foresee this happening

Posted by: Cobus 22 Mar, 2007 - 18:39:00