Congregations see discernment as the individual work of a few “spiritual” people.

discernment is generally not understood as a corporate practice we do together, but as a private, meditative activity within oneself.

Into the neighborhood.

the actions summarized in chapter two tell us about the underlying narratives or paradigms that have informed responses to

The fact that this movement, which in the first years of this century seemed so vital, has all but disappeared, points to the frenetic search for solutions to the crisis of these churches. Emergent church was a broad coalition of younger leaders seeking to frame a “new kind of Christianity” with new forms and practices of church life that claimed

Follow Jesus together. … Into the neighborhood. … Travel lightly. …

themselves at or near the center of North American society. 2. Beginning in the mid-1960s that period came to an abrupt halt. The unraveling had begun and it produced increasing levels of anxiety. The churches engaged in more than fifty years of efforts at church growth, health, and renewal, all to get back to their normative location at the center

what they describe as giving “testimony.”

This God acts to reshape the world, with and among totally ordinary people who have been deemed of no value. Moses’—and the churches’—vocation is to participate in this primary drama of God’s acting.