Emergent No More (If Anyone Cares)
A couple of years ago I was grieved to hear that pastor, author and speaker Dan Kimball had officially separated himself from Emergent Village ---the "organizational" aspect of what people were calling the " Emerging Church ." Kimball was one of the main reasons why I started self-identifying as an "emergent" church leader, and heavily influenced my development as a preacher and teacher through his creative approach to multi-sensory worship, and his postmodern approach to transforming existing churches. So when I heard that Dan no longer felt that he could be a part of Emergent Village, I assumed that it had to do with his Baptist background, which probably imbued him with a great deal of suspicion toward more theologically progressive Christians. His separation was gracious, however, and I continued to read his books and occasionally hear him speak. But I never understood why he felt it necessary to disassociate from the movement he was such a pa...