Emergent and emerging are not easy terms to define. Emergent sometimes refers to a specific subset of the emerging movement (www.emergentvillage.com) but the two terms are used often used interchangeably.
There are key differences between the emerging church movement and other recent church renewal movements. One distinction lies in the emerging church’s integration of the old with the new. Andrew Jones offers these excellent statements on his blog TallSkinnyKiwi:
If post-modernity represents “openness to the past” (a Len Sweet definition), then we can expect emerging churches to dig around in the archives of the Middle Ages, re:mix the simple models of the early church, dumpster-dive in the practices of Old Testament Worship, and rediscover non-western church rituals. This has already happened and emerging churches can effortlessly take fragments from the previous waves of church models without having to react against them. Even from hyper-modern churches.
Emerging churches today are usually a creative remixing of historic and current, of past and present. Trying to define them by their difference to the previous model is a futile exercise that none of us want to devote much time to. The result is that emerging church may be a model of a quite modern hierarchical leadership but with contemporary artistic expression. Or the contrary; a dynamic, fluid, leadership structure with the reliance on ancient rituals for the service. Lectio Divina in a living room, or a guided couch conversation in a gothic sanctuary. Both emergent.
Whatever form various emergent assemblies may take they share a common desire to integrate our historic faith with the new culture we find ourselves in. This is a process every generation of Christians should embrace. Rigidly clinging to church models that may or may not have worked well a generation ago only makes us irrelevant. As the pace of change accelerates we all benefit from a genuine conversation about how to extract the gospel message from the cultural package it was delivered in and then integrate that message in our very different culture. This is perhaps the great challenge facing our generation of Christians and one that I am passionate about.
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