I have a growing unease about much of the emerging scene. It is one of those nagging but growing feelings. I like the co-operation and much of the generosity both in terms of theology and ideas but the growing shape and organisation seems to be turning quite product focused. I think the initial questions of what is church and mission in contemporary culture has been replaced with how do we worship in ways that reflect our culture, perhaps with the assumption that this will answer the mission question. In an earlier post I likened the emerging church to a bonsai tree that was top heavy. I wonder if the way the current conversations around are adding to this. There was a good post on simple church a while ago that I agree not to organise check out the comment. The unease is growing and I think we may miss the mission along the way.

TSK has been writing on the term Deep ecclesiology which was the first time I had come across the phrase.
The term has been picked up and used by bloggers in a number of ways one definition TSK offers is –

We practice “deep ecclesiologyâ€?– rather than favoring some forms of the church and critiquing or rejecting others, we see that every form of the church has both weaknesses and strengths, both liabilities and potential.”

For me his definition links into the Generous Orthodoxy of Brian Maclaren. I like both terms Deep ecclesiology and Generous Orthodoxy and the sentiment, acceptance and openness that they express. I have recently been doing some work on Learning and the concept of Deep Learning both for lecturing and for my own thinking about process ecclesiology (which builds on tacking). Deep Learning includes a scale that moves from “performative understanding” through “direct application to indirect application” to finally a “holistic integration”

I am left wondering if the definition TSK offers is more apt to Generous Orthodoxy and whether “deep ecclesiology” has a notion of process involved because it is evolving from the growing emerging church movement. As we move to a deeper and greater understanding of church through the praxis of the emerging church movement are we moving to towards a deep ecclesiology that is more integrated, more holistic, and whilst hopefully maintaining the openness that TSK’s definition offers is also more actualised. By actualised I don’t mean that it is a theology of church that thinks it has arrived but one that has a greater sense of holistic integration and knows itself better so it can get on with task of being the type of church that serves the world well.