The Emerging Missional Church: A SWOT Analysis (Part 2)

http://scc.typepad.com/scc_faculty_pentecostal_d/2006/07/the_emerging_mi_1.html

{Pentacostal Discussions] 23 Aug 2006--Firstly, a major strength of the emerging missional church is their willingness to be flexible with culture and experiment with something new, all part of what Sweet identifies as “our continuing struggle, as followers of Christ in a changing culture, to live out the meaning of the incarnation”[1]. This flexibility and experimentation leads to a wide variety of EM churches (hence the definition problems discussed earlier), so Moynagh writes of an Anglican church in Halifax, England, that has started a Monday Lunch Box (communion and lunch service, attracting people who don’t go to church on a Sunday, and are asking to be baptised) and also of Saddleback church in California where they have a video café service (offering a choice of worship styles, smaller crowds, and videotaped sermon)[2]. Although these churches differ in structure and style, both have decided to move beyond the traditional forms of church to create a worship gathering that will resound with local people. Variety in types of church is important not only contextually, but also culturally – moving away from one-size-fits-all church models is an important step towards reaching out to the growing numbers of people who, wearying of the standardisation that came with modernity, are looking for personalisation[3]