Everybody’s talking “emerging church” now, and it’s describing alternative worship services with 30 people, house churches with eight artists, and multi-media gatherings with 1,000 people. So what is emerging church? First of all, life is always emerging. You stop emerging, you’re dead. So the church, like any other living body, has always been and will always be emerging, birthing fresh forms from the ancient stories and traditions so that the always unfolding story of God’s people and God’s truth can come alive in a new day and a new way. Emerging church is happening wherever people are translating the always-good news of God in language, forms, practices and sounds that speak from and back into the culture and life emerging around us, welcoming voices from the bottom up, moving from the witness of Jesus Christ out. Way more than doing a worship laboratory, we’re the ones exploring the radical edge, crafting new ways of defining and being church that make sense and make meaning given our postmodern (and in The Crossing’s case, urban and multicultural and globally-aware) context. Asking hard questions, listening to and celebrating voices on the ground, examining the systems that privilege certain cultures and certain ways of learning and communicating and singing, building our lives around the transforming mission of God … you get the idea. It’s not change for the sake of change, not rebellion for the sake of making the church fathers mad. But it is fundamental, paradigm-shifting change, refusing to be trapped by old assumptions about the way church "ought" to feel or the way Christians "ought" to act. Neosoul meets chant. The wrought iron candelabra sits next to an amp and bass. Lay people do the preaching. The ancient order for worship gets fused with centering prayer. Eucharist set to a bumping groove. The contradictions aren't contradictions anymore. It all belongs to God. Here are just some of the communities we’ve befriended and learned from along this emerging way: transmission (NY) charles river church (MA) the mission gathering (CA) vintage faith (CA) sanctuary (NY) jacob's well church (MO) cedar ridge community church (MD) solomon's porch (MN) spirit garage (MN) the church of the beloved (NC) circle of hope (PA) the church of the apostles (WA) the grace community (UK) the moot community (UK) the maybe community (UK)

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