Realizing the importance of creating a practical guide for both ministers and congregations seeking to shift their congregational culture towards a progressive form of Christianity, Bruce Sanguin grounds The Emerging Church in the experience of his own congregation, Canadian Memorial United, as way to establish context and to share real-life examples. At the same time, he peppers the book with insights from leading edge science, including the science of emergence, chaos theory, quantum physics, field theory, spiral dynamics, and evolutionary science. To download "the spiral dynamics charts" Spiral Dynamics Chart and Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck.
Written in language lay people can understand, The Emerging Church is filled with no-nonsense, realistic advice on the pitfalls and possibilities of following the vision of the emerging Christian way.
Nudged by an evolutionary Spirit and drawn by the love of Christ into an emerging future, the church of the loving and living Christ may be the “best kept secret of our day.” In The Emerging Church, Bruce Sanguin shares “the secret” with anyone and everyone willing to listen.
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Review from Emergent Village
Bruce Sanguin’s newest book The Emerging Church: A Model for Change & a Map for Renewal was fun to read. I read a lot of books, but very few ministry books do I actually get all the way through before I quit to read dead German theologians. The other two are Ed Friedman’s Generation to Generation and Tom Long’s The Witness of Preaching. Before I go on to tell you why I dug this book, let me tell what the book is not: It is not a summary of the “Emerging Church Movement” or even written for the post-evangelical majority of the movement. It is also not a handbook for a minister who wants to score Emergent cool-points without putting in much effort. It is also not a book for someone who needs theological congruency in order to learn from a fellow minister about navigating congregational transformation.
That aside let me tell you why I enjoyed this book so much and what you can expect to find should you read it (which I hope you do):
1. Bruce is a minister and open about his experiences. I get irritated with most ministry books because they are either by professors at seminaries who last served in a church before Carter was in the White House or they are currently ministers who make themselves (and more often their churches) sound like a little piece of heaven. Bruce doesn’t do that, and his openness about the difficulties he has gone through made me trust him enough to listen.
2. Bruce takes his theology seriously enough for it to impact how he approaches ministry. Regardless of your assessment of his theology, it is always nice to read about a minister who actually lets his theology shape how the congregation makes decisions, how power is used, how leadership leads, how spiritual formation takes place, and more. Doug Pagitt does this well in Church ReImagined, and Bruce does it here as he invested over a decade facilitating a Spirit-led transformation of a progressive mainline congregation.
3. Bruce actually uses emergence (the scientific theory) and applies it to congregational life. The Emerging Church Movement got its name from a previously developed theory, and Bruce returns to the theory and then moves to discussing the church. If new life emerges in the world through this pattern, then we should look for things to emerge in similar conditions and patterns in our congregations.
4. Bruce effectively introduces spiral dynamics into congregational thinking. If you don’t know about spiral dynamics then you probably haven’t been thinking someone should have done this already, but if you have, I think Bruce does a good job and mentions in the podcast doing more writing in this area. If you are interested, check out Ken Wilber’s A Brief Theory of Everything.
5. Bruce equips the reader for facilitating Spirit-filled community transformation. The second half of the book, after he spells out his theological vision of ministry, is really accessible to any minister who wants to hear how Bruce took the best out there in community development, transformation, and leadership and implemented it in a congregation.
I could think of a number of other reasons to read this book, but most of them I talk to him about in this week’s Homebrewed Christianity podcast, so do yourself a favor and listen to it.
Related: The Emerging Church – A Book Review by Jonathan Brink
Contact Magazine
Shannah McAleer
by Shannah McAleer, Contact Magazine, Association of Unity Churches International. www.unity.org
Bruce Sanguin begins the prologue of his book with a few simple lines that capture the essence: "I want our churches to be fully alive." Is this not the wish of all of us - that our spiritual communities are awake and alert - on fire with the love and joy that comes from God? Through easy-to-read yet profound strategies, he leads us into a process of growth on a personal level that is made manifest in the outer realm with the congregations we serve. His steps are basic yet filled with a wisdom we sometimes forget.
The first step is to grow from the inside out, which he describes as emergence. Next is the realization that no matter our comfort zone, shift happens. How we handle it sets the stage for amazing growth to occur. The third step is to learn to discern our non-negotiables: what is within each of us ass the heart and mind of the Christ? Fourth, what is your vision and mission? We have heard many ways to create vision and mission, yet this one is so well laid-out anyone can follow it.
His next phase of growth is from what he calls moving from “church spires to spiral dynamics.” This discussion takes place within the exploration of value systems and congregational life.
Sanguin’s chapter on “What Color is Your Christ,” is one of the most creative ways to look at our view of the Christ that I have read. Is “your” Christ tribal, warrior, traditional, modern, postmodern, integral, mystical, a combination , or something beyond that? What does that mean for you? Other interesting discussions include looking at the psychological and the spiritual foundation of leadership. What is the difference?
Sanguin leads us from pastoral chaplain to spiritual leader – from co-dependence with individual congregants to networks of pastoral care, small group ministry and the organic and synergistic church model. This is a must-read for those in ministry at all levels who seek to be a part of taking the spiritual community from a “church building” to an organization of emergence. Who wouldn’t want to at least take a peek at what he ahs to say? A simple and yet deepening read for all of us.
Shannah McAleer serves tin the home office of the Association of Unity Churches International as the director of Leadership and Ministry Development. Shannah oversees the Transformation Experience: an invitation into the creation of thriving churches and enlightened leadership. For more on the Transformation Experience go to www.thetransformationaexperience.org.
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