American Society for Church Growth Examines the Emerging Church

More than 100 students, pastors, and church planters descended on Fuller's campus November 4-6 to "learn, interact, and grow with the leading voices of the Emerging Church," as part of the American Society for Church Growth's 2004 annual conference.

"We seek to understand this emerging culture in the 21st century in order to do the work of Christ to make disciples," said ASCG President Charles Am, opening the conference.

The conference featured such notable speakers as Reggie McNeal, author of The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church; Dave Ferguson, pastor of one of the largest "multi-site" churches in the country; and Ryan Bolger, assistant professor of the church in contemporary culture at Fuller.

The conference opened when McNeal called on churches to celebrate the "last gasp of the renewal movement of the modern church," with its emphasis on "programs, methods, and systems," and recognize that the emerging church in the 21st century is about "nations, tribes, and movements. Church is not the destination--God's kingdom is the destination. This is what it means to be 'missional' in the world today. Church starts with the world, not our church refuges."

The final speaker, Ryan Bolger, summarized the conference by comparing current emerging church trends to Donal McGavran's principles of church growth, which he established in Bridges of God and Understanding Church Growth.

"We live in a post-Christian culture that is as 'foreign' as the foreign mission fields of India where McGavran first articulated his missional principles of church growth," Bolger said.

"In the old modern world, we understood the gospel to mean 'you're sick, and God wants to fix you so you can come be like us," Bolger said. "Churches are no longer seen as places where people go, it's movements of people out, declaring a message that 'A new day is coming and you get to participate with God in the redemption of the world,' and invitation to join God's story."