I was interested in the discussion as it pertained to "new forms" of Christianity. I communicated poorly. I apologize.

Thanks for the graciousness – I'll choose words more carefully next time.

To your last point, Mike:

I get contextualization and incarnation, but that's an example of what I'm talking about. So much effort is put into the indigenous nature of the worshiping experience that it is believed that that is the end goal, and no recognition occurs that what is occurring is merely a different form of what is being reacted to.

It's not controversial. It's sad that people have stopped there and called it good enough. Nay, it's sinful that the leadership has not pushed the community to go further.

Here was Julie's quote:

But to eschew a name/label because it isn’t unique enough or just isn’t “me” represents the height of individuality. And I thought that one of the things that pesky emerging/emergent label conveyed was a shift away from individuality towards community. But maybe that’s not what people really want.

Part of the post (as I understood it) was about those that are trying to define themselves for egoic reasons. I thought I was chiming in. What Julie was naming was the natural extension of what I see in much of the emergent/emerging church. I don't think my comments were that far out of line at all.

I'm a seminary trained pastor with a good amount of experience with pomo new church starts. I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. To assume that I don't know what I'm talking about is pretty "over the top" don't you think?

Sure, I'd love for those folks to go even further than they are now, but at the same time, I see nothing wrong with the impulse to change the styles and forms either. In fact, it's such a no-brainer for me anymore that I wonder how it could ever even be a controversial issue. It's all about contextualization and incarnation. Why would we consider that egotistical?

The truth is that those of us engaged in more substantive conversation and theological re-imagining extend far beyond (though certainly include) the Coordinating Group of Emergent Village.

A few quotes from the article:

"McLaren guesses that "only a few dozen" churches across the country are fully committed to the theological journey he sketched in A New Kind of Christian. Even Rob Bell did not start that journey until after founding Mars Hill Bible Church. The number of churches whose pastors have cool hair is, of course, much larger—but hardly qualifies as a single movement any more than the number of churches whose pastors wear ties. For the moment, as the Emergent Convention demonstrates, the confusion of style and substance makes for strange bedfellows."

"At the Emergent Convention, emerging theology and emerging culture don't so much coexist as collide, thanks to the somewhat uneasy partnership between Emergent and Youth Specialties. During one particularly experimental worship session, featuring a well-known British dj (hair: spiked) whose pulsating techno music (complete lyrics: "It's just you and God") builds to a climax that would have played well in pagan Corinth, I find Brian McLaren outside the convention hall.

"I hate it," he says ruefully of the worship music. Another Emergent leader tells a seminar, "The general sessions are a betrayal of everything Emergent stands for."

"The truth is that the convention makes it difficult to tell what Emergent does stand for. Even the invited guests seem bewildered. Plenary speaker Robert Webber, whose book The Younger Evangelicals celebrates the emerging church, is clearly taken aback by what he sees: "They claim to be rejecting the last 30 years of evangelicalism—and they're repeating the last 30 years of evangelicalism."