Talk:Emerging church/Archive 1

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This archive covers 2005 through the end of July.

Ecclesiology

Added section on Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church. I have tried desperately to make it sound NPOV, but there may be those who disagree with me. Please feel free to fix what you consider flawed (as if, this being Wikipedia, you actually needed my permission). Also, if I am completely wrong and there is some good information on ecclesiology in the Emerging Church, please direct me to it. I have been trying for some time to find this information, but I can only find scraps at best.

--WestonWyse 20:01, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This section has been pared down to two (completely un-wikified) sentences that have nearly nothing to do with the heading, with no explanation of why (unless the "decentralized nature" of the ECM -- which is what its leaders claim -- and the lack of a unified ecclesiological doctrine -- which simply is the truth -- was considered POV for some odd reason). At risk of being blamed for a revert war, I am making the Ecclesiology section once again actually be about Ecclesiology, not simply another sentence that should be moved to "Structure". --WestonWyse 02:54, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ecclesiology encompasses both the role and nature of the church; it's the theology and philosophy of what "the church" is. We probably shouldn't hide a link to ecclesiology behind either word. Make sense? Wesley 00:59, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I was using "role" more all-encompasingly than that, but I see your point. In this case, however, you shouldn't stop at just role and nature (as I think you are using "nature" as I was using "role"), as it still means more than that. --WestonWyse 14:20, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

---

i am consolidating some thoughts on "deep ecclesiology" over the next week that will be a good resource to link to and will be backed up by emerging church leaders in various countries. I will make sure it meets the standard here. thanks guys for your work. tallskinnykiwi

"Who is 'emergent'"

Does anyone else feel that the "Who is 'emergent'" section is just a re-hashing of the "Structure and Commonality" section? And slightly POV? I'll ask and see if anyone has objections before I do so, but it really seems that the two sections should be merged. Or at least "Who is" should be made to seem a little less like an advert, because ATM it reads more like a sales brochure than an encyclopedia article. --WestonWyse 05:32, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There were no objections, so I've rolled the information into the "S&C" section. Most of the content was about what the "lower" levels of churches are not instead of what they are, so there was very little to add. --WestonWyse 22:28, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Body (Outline)

In an effort to conform to a higher standard of article quality, I would like to propose a restructure on the present article. Please let us know what you think about the outline. If you would like to contribute to writing a portion, please propose a paragraph for the section. Thank you everyone for your involvement! I know it will take some time but its well worth the effort.

Background (One Paragraph Each)

Could be left as Historical Context. Background is a bit more broad. One paragraph could be written on the following sections:

• Pre-Emerging Church

At a minimum, Gen X churches and Alt.Worship could be briefly addressed. What were the first expression of the Emerging Church? (Hard because we know the EC expresses itself differently depending on context.)

• Discontent with modern Protestantism, Christianity, and/or the Church

Though it is not true of all EC expression, we must address the portions of the EC which are discontented with modern protestantism, christianity, and/or the Church. Would be insightful.

• The influence and suspicion of Postmodernism

A common critique of the emerging church is its relationship with "postmodernism." This section would address the influences and suspicions of the EC towards postmodernism.

• New Media and the Emerging Church

I ponder if the EC would even be possible without the advent of new online media. What has been the role of the internet, new media, social networks, etc. in the EC phenomenon? I argue an important role.

• Emerging Church as Conversation or Movement

Since we seem to be caught up in Emerging Church/Introduction 2 Discussion on the labels, conversation and movement we should address the EC as both.

Distinguishing Characteristics and Differences

This is the structure and commonality section. Structure does not work since arguably the EC could be considered a poststructural and self-organizing system. Rather, it would be more insightful to discuss the common characteristics and the differences in emerging churches globally.

Central Beliefs

Desiring to address ecclesiology is a step in the right direction. Let's take it a step further with the following sections w/ a paragraph on each:

• Theological Developments

Address ecclesiology, missiology, and general theology. We cannot draw conclusions but we can discuss the theological conversations underway.

• Praxis

This will range and depend on context. It should also address the EC in its most elementary of forms -a stylized approached to church and evangelism (at least in the U.S.) and a change in methodology. A deeper sense of the EC would be its theological inquiring and reformation of modern Christianity.

Bibliography Long ago, I provided the current Biblio but maybe that should be a reading list instead. The Biblio should be the sources used to legitimize the article.

Also, notice I didn't mention emerging church links and voices/leaders section. I think those should be removed. Seems a bit self-promoting. We can include some links to some lists already online. Please leave your comments. --Artisan949 18:08, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You could just spin them off into, say, List of Emerging Church Websites and List of Emerging Church Leaders. --WestonWyse 16:22, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Welcome back Weston. Good suggestion. The problem is the list are becoming larger and larger because people come and add their names to the list to generate traffic to their sites. Nor do I see the lists necessarily encyclopedic. Agree? --Artisan949 04:53, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

WestonWyse, I went ahead and took your suggestion. Got any others? --Artisan949 07:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm new to MediaWiki - but have used MoinMoin quite a bit. Saw the wikify link - and looking around found Introductory paragraphs should precede sections; in particular, they should not be in an ==Introduction== section of their own. The table of contents will automatically follow the introduction, preceding the first named section. - So I went ahead and removed wikify and the Introduction header, so that it follows the standard layout. AFTER I did that I found this page with discussions. Hopefully it was cool that I did that, just trying to help. :) From now on will use the discuss to suggest changes... --JamesJWagner 9 July 2005 18:24 (UTC)

No worries James. Thanks for the change. It looks good. --Artisan949 03:28, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Historical Content Changes

Proponents of the emergent movement contend that Western Christianity was influenced significantly over the last few centuries by Modernism...

The edit would be OK if you could please provide which proponents in the emerging church are suggesting this. That would be helpful. Because the article is being disputed, maybe all changes should be discussed here. If you cannot explain the change, maybe it should be reverted back. Thank you. --Artisan949 June 2, 19:30

i'm not sure i agree with much of what you are expressing. it seems to me that you would like to be the "expert" in this matter (WestonWyse) and the reason i say this is because when ever i check back here for discussion, much of those who disagree with you have been removed. this causes me great concern. this conversation is not one voice, it is many - some loud, some soft - but when i see people's voices being removed because they disagree with you i am hurt. i tend to see this as very undefinable, and if you strive to define it, it is no longer emerging, it is what you think emerging must be and i think we are so beyond that - now, if i am reading you wrong, i am very willing to stand back and take notice - but i do have to say, that when i posted disagreements with you, they are removed and never addressed. ginkworld

Hello Ginkworld. Westonwyse didn't do the last revert, I did. As such, I hope you didn't mean to address me. Westonwyse "took care of" this article for some time but has been MIA for a few weeks. There was a revert war going on for sometime and Westonwyse did seem to control things here. Since then, we have been able to slowly move forward with this article paying careful attention to Wikipedia's policies for its articles. The last revert under historical content was changed back because there was no source cited. It was very hard to verify. After no one added anything to the discussion, it was reverted back. Also, I hope I am not seen as the controller of this article now. I am simply attempting to facilitate an effort to develop a supported and verifiable article on the EC here at Wikipedia. Since it is such a reference point, I think it deserves to be treated as such. If you were referring to me and not Westonyse, my sincere apologies and thanks for your recent additions. -- Artisan949 15:50, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

artisan, very cool, i can live with that. i am just so very concerned that while we "give guidance" we do not "define" the emerging as "this." it seemed that so wanted to do that, and do it in connection to what they felt "it must be." so, if that is not the goal, and all voices are still welcomed i say let's get moving on this :). i added noting to the "histroy section" (not that i know of) but did comment on this section throughout - then when i checked back, they were all deleted (in fact all but "westonwyse" comments were removed at one time - that freaked me). but if all voices can be expressed and all minds linked i am cool with this - i just want even the edges to be expressed :) ginkworld 09:50, 15 Jun 2005 (PST)

Reverted back for lack of discussion. --Artisan949 00:26, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Introduction Changes

Some ecclesial scholars and thinkers affirm the conversation had become a movement; while others argued the Emerging Church is still a conversation because there is no centeral leadership and no "one" set of doctrines, guidlines, rules or mandates. They see the emerging church as a "gathering in conversation."

Thanks ginkworld for this change. Do we think we can turn this argument (conversation vs. movement) into its own section. In the proposed body, I pitched a section addressing this issue rather than addressing it in the introduction. I fear someone who come and write why they think or do no think it is either a convo or a movement in the intro and we will have a convo/movement war happening again. I think the best way to approach this is to present the argument in its own section and revert the intro back (or at least clean up the wording a bit). Would you be willing to present a case with sources for convo? I just ordered some books on the sociology of religion which will help us cite sources for movement. BTW: I am for EC as convo but am suspending my biases so please keep me accountable.  :)

Because we move kindda slow here, I just made some changes to the wording, but kept the context of the change. Of course its evolving and I'm no say all, so please feel free to improve what I've done.-artisan949

The Influence and Suspicion of Postmodernism

Western Christianity was influenced significantly over the last few centuries by Modernism in the sense that it sought to take the individual narratives of the Bible and from them extract a set of underlying truths or meta-narratives. Using methods borrowed from scientific reductionism it was hoped that a grand truth and worldview would be attained. In practice, the modernist approach led to additional schism within the Church.

Some church leaders, responding to postmodernism, in turn, encouraged followers to deconstruct each element of their faith experience, and reassemble the pieces in light of his or her own unique journey through this deconstruction process.

Can sombody help me verify this? I removed this so we could get rid of the factual accuracy dispute.--Artisan949 06:53, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Distinguishing Characteristics and Differences

While there is no single coordinated organization behind the emerging church globally, many church leaders and thinkers have written books, articles and/or blogs on the subject. Emerging Church groups typically contain some or all of the following elements:

• Highly creative approaches to worship and spiritual reflection, as compared to many American churches in recent years. This can involve everything from the use of contemporary music and films through to liturgy or other more ancient customs.
• A minimalist and decentralized organizational structure, somewhat "nonlinear."
• A flexible approach to theology whereby individual differences in belief and morality are accepted within reason.
• A holistic view of the role of the church in society. This can mean anything from greater emphasis on fellowship in the structure of the group to a higher degree of emphasis on social action, community building or Christian outreach; missional in it's core.
• A desire to reanalyze the Bible against the context with the goal of revealing a multiplicity of valid perspectives rather than a single valid interpretation
• A continual re-examination of theology, and a willingness to push the edge.
• A high value placed on creating communities built out of the creativity of those who are a part of each local body.
• A view of "leadership" as more "servant" and less "leader." Church leaders are seen as more poet and painter and far less CEO or COO.

In common with the House church movement, the Emerging Church is challenging traditional notions of how the Church should be organized.

Another section that needs to be cited. Does anyone know of material that supports these characteristics? Removed until we can verify so we can have factual accuracy. --Artisan949 06:56, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

it would be interesting to add some information on if emerging church is postmodern (or if just some of its members just WANT to seem to be so) and if such a thing as a true postmodern church could exist, not as an instution but as we as christians would assume Christ would understand it, as either in contradiction to the "fundemental" christianness (not to be too problematic and reductive, but perhaps in such a confined space as a wiki article we couldnt be anything more than problematic and reductive to such a totally complex issue) Dantedanti 08:07, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Ecclesiology

Because of the decentralized nature of the Emerging Church, as with many areas of doctrine, there is not a mutually agreed upon doctrine of ecclesiology -- a theology of the church, its role, nature, origin, and leadership. The emerging church claims its role to be continuing the mission of Christ, but there does not appear to be a unified stance on what role the church as a body plays in that mission.

Again, we need to verify and cite sources for factual accuracy. Also this paragraph doesn't say much except the emerging has no ecclesiology. Let's work on something better. Anyone want to contribute?--Artisan949 07:00, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

External links

I've removed the links to Emerging Church Blogs, Emerging Church Sites, and Examples of Emerging Churches, since those pages contained nothing but external links, which is not appropriate since Wikipedia is not a web directory. Angela. 07:27, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Angela. I had wanted to do that myself but others recommended starting another page and I thought that was an OK work around. But now that its been removed and after looking at other wikipedia articles, I do not think we should external links at all. Thanks again. --Artisan949 15:40, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Characteristics Revert

Sometimes criticized for lacking in evangelistic fervor, many emerging churches seek to demonstrate the way of Jesus by living as compassionate communities. This approach reflects a desire to distance the church from the advertising-soaked culture of modernity.

Thank you to whomever added this. Do you have a source because Ref 6 says nothing of the sort? "Advertsing-soaked culture" could also be true of postmodernity. No? Does the article already say something about the ec and consumerism (intro)? --Artisan949 30 June 2005 06:55 (UTC)

"Current event"?

I don't think this article discusses a "current event" in the way that template is usually used. Anyone mind if I remove it? --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 2 July 2005 17:37 (UTC)

Seemed appropriate so reverted back though the articles also needs to eventually wikified. --Artisan949 4 July 2005 17:38 (UTC)

The current event tag is for articles covering stories that are currently in the news, the sorts of things found under In the news on Main Page, for example: Deep Impact (space mission) or German federal election, 2005. This article is not about a current event in that sense, so I've removed the tag again. It does really need to be wikified, so I restored that tag. Also, the {{controversial}} tag belongs on the talk page (where it alrady is), not the main article page. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 4 July 2005 20:10 (UTC)

The revert is fine. However, the emerging church is a current event in religious news. Also, the ""CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC - please read the talk page discussion before making substantial changes"" tag can be placed on the main article page per wikipedia policy as a work around. {{List of controversial issues}}. No worries though. I don't think its pertinent to this article's development. Thanks for the suggestions and improvements. --Artisan949 5 July 2005 19:48 (UTC)

Why a cleanup tag is needed

A cleanup tag should be on this page to draw attention to needed improvements in the tone and language of this article. Indeed, the first 'sentence' ("The emerging church developed from the late 20th Century into the 21st Century as a conversation in Western Europe, North America, and the South Pacific concerned with the deconstruction and reconstruction of protestant Christianity. Its development stemmed from a mix of a lack of growth in protestant churches, particularly amongst Generation X; concern over how the Church would adopt to postmodernity; opposition to fundamentalist doctrines and practices in the modern church; a neglect of ancient Christian tradition and practices; the need for an ecumenical, catholic Church; and increasing suspicion of the missiology of the market-driven, mega-church, and institutionalized Christianity.") is no way to begin an encyclopedia article. Readers will come to this page to find out about the Emerging Church. Therefore, the article should be immediately informative (or at least not start with a very long sentence). After the introductory bit, the article begins this way: "Postmodernity set the cultural context for the emerging church occurrence in the global West and influenced emerging church thought. Through his work, Stanley Grenz (1950-2005), Author of Primer on Postmodernism, urged the emerging church in its postmodern context and conditioning to personify the Christian gospel with a post-individualistic, post-rationalistic, post-dualistic, and post-noeticentric attitude." In addition to having no wikilinks, these sentences confuse more than inform. I could go one (for instance, why are these sentences: "Hence, the fusion of old and new media often brought a sense of community and connection to the emerging church. The advent of new media allowed the emerging church to exist in virtual, online forms. Internet churches, individual and community blogs, online message boards, and wikis often built new media relationships through on-going conversation about life, spirituality, and the church." in the past tense?), but I won't. -Acjelen 21:46, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate the critique though your opinion does little to improve the article itself (especially the last sentence and tone). Please propose in this discussion a cleaned up version of the problematic parts for you. Would:

::The emerging church developed from the late 20th Century into the 21st Century as a conversation in Western Europe, North America, and the South Pacific. Concerned with the deconstruction and reconstruction of protestant Christianity, its development stemmed from a mix of a lack of growth in protestant churches, particularly amongst Generation X; concern over how the Church would adopt to postmodernity; opposition to fundamentalist doctrines and practices in the modern church; a neglect of ancient Christian tradition and practices; the need for an ecumenical, catholic Church; and increasing suspicion of the missiology of the market-driven, mega-church, and institutionalized Christianity.

No, that will not do. That still sounds like a college paper, which I suspect this article is taken from nearly verbatim. The readership of a general encyclopedia and a college essay will be different and require changes to language and structure. First of all, the emerging church is not a conversation, it is a way that some people express their Christianity. It is the style and substance of worship and Christian practice. It is contemporary. We do not need to tell readers that contemporary stems from the late 20th century into the 21 century as they were there. There isn't enough room on WP to talk about other authors talking about the subject. Encyclopedia articles require crisp, clean sentences. If you want to provide references, list them at the bottom of the page. State the case. If an editor goes out on a limb, other editors will reel things in again. -Acjelen 22:01, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

If it is a matter of structure then it is easy to clean. I apologize for the confusion but the emerging church topic is complex and controversial making it very hard to pinpoint, describe, define, etc. Also the article is still being worked on as we speak, so what appears where and the order of information could change. Again, thanks for your opinion. Please provide something more than criticism to help this article be what it needs to be. Thanks!!! -Artisan949 10:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Acjelen. Definitely it needs a clean terse intro. Something like:

The emerging church is a term for a diffuse movement, that arose in the late 20th century in Western Europe, North America and the South Pacific, concerned with the deconstruction and reconstruction of Protestant Christianity into forms adapted to a postmodern cultural context.

I agree also that the article in general comes across as rather confused and pseudy, and in need of a severe copyedit. It would help if it were not being kept on such a tight editorial leash: a few editors working on the Be Bold principle would work wonders. Tearlach 22:35, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

"The tight editorial leash" is a result of a revert war and vandalism to this article. We've decided to discuss major edits on the talk page. No ONE person is holding the leash, though so please feel free to contribute. --Artisan949 16:12, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly agreed! This article rates zero in terms of readability. Your intro was great Tearlach. Put it up! --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 00:01, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I concur. I tried several times to write an introduction, but remained disappointed. I would make it "The emerging church is a diffuse movement that arose in the late ..." to make it even more focused on the emerging church and not the term and to remove the unnecessary comma. -Acjelen 01:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Just a quik thank you to those who have added recently to the work we've been doing here. Appreciate the edits much. I did change the intro to reflect more of what was orginally there since recently (see this talk page) we had a lengthy discussion about the intro and what it should say. --Artisan949 16:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Quality of references

Check out Wikipedia:Verifiability#Dubious sources and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Many of the current references don't look very good by encyclopedic standards. I appreciate that online discussion, and especially the blog circuit, is a significant medium in which the emerging church operates. Trouble is, Wikipedia doesn't much rate sources that are basically personal viewpoints on blogs.

Obscurity is another problem. I think it's worth checking out the plenty of clear and accessible online explanations of the emerging church. See, for instance, this DA Carson article, The Emerging Church. Or this PBS special (Part 1, Part 2) which has a wealth of further references. Or The Emergent Mystique from Christianity Today. Aaron Flores' graduate thesis (referenced here) looks interesting.

That splurge of sources at the top of Emerging Church#References needs wikifying and liposuction too. Tearlach 04:05, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Good points. That is a huge problem because some of the best EC sources are online in new media (though not all are credible). The ones listed are credible, however. For some of the sources, we could substitue something from paper. This would not be difficult to do. Also, lipoed the first reference. (BTW: I am Aaron Flores) --Artisan949 16:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Introduction Concerns

Primarily the problems with the suggested intro were: 1) If we are going to talk about the EC as a 20th century occurrence, then we must say it was a conversation. It was not until recently that "movement" is becoming more vastly used (mainly by critics). If you would like to work that into the intro, that would be fine. However, the conversation or movement paragraph was added so the intro would not be as argued on this point. 2) The global EC is not primarily concerned with form or methodology so this was deleted and is not supported by sources. Please provide where you are getting your information. We have also discussed that point at length recently on this talk page. Again, thanks for all the edits!!! The article looks better indeed. --Artisan949 03:24, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I liked Tearlach's introduction from his edit dated 01:12 26 July 2005. You changed it, citing your concerns over the word movement, but altered more than that. I tried to address your concerns in my edit dated 16:47 26 July 2005. There are a couple of reasons I prefer Tearlach's opening. Firstly, it is in the present tense. The Emerging Church exists today and we should begin our article that way. Secondly, century is not capitalized in a phrase "20th century". Thirdly, "arising in the late 20th Century into the 21st Century" is very awkward. Fourthly, Tearlach's introduction brings up postmodernism right away, which I think is important. -Acjelen 03:48, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Just a question: Who was the "conversation" between? Shouldn't the intro make that clear? It could be two guys in Timbuktu! ;) --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 10:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Konrad -- you will soon find that word "conversation" has escoteric meaning in certain EC circles, and Artisan949 will insist on using it in this non-standard fashion without being able to define what it is that he means. It apparently makes perfect sense to him this way, and beyond that there is something very important about using this specific word. No other words will do, it has to be "conversation". As an outsider looking in it is quite puzzling. I will make some edits now to attempt to clarify what I think he means, but not being a true believer, I'm not sure I can speak EC truth. technopilgrim 20:03, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks technopilgrim. Your edit makes more sense, but it's still a bit strange. Wouldn't it be more clear to replace "conversation" with what it means, and then introduce the term "conversation" later on as an EC term? As it stands, the reader realises that "conversation" is an EC term, but still has no idea what it means. I'm not trying to stir up controversy (God no!) but I strongly believe that articles should be readable and understandable by the casual reader. (Thanks Tearlach for your postmodern wiki link!) :) --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 23:27, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

technopilgrim, I appreciate you speaking on my behalf but I am not married to EC as solely a conversation. I seek for this article to be as unbiased as possible. At any rate, to say that the EC exist solely as a movement, but others call it a conversation (EC terminology) is poor. Rather, I think this is more NPOV, "The emerging church or emergent church is considered a movement and conversation which arose in the late 20th century in Western Europe, North America, and the South Pacific. The emerging church is concerned with the deconstruction and reconstruction of Protestant Christianity in a postmodern cultural context." I do not agree with an intro that is biased towards one or the other. Fair? --Artisan949 08:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Terminology: "conversation" or "movement"?

Reason for trims: a) unnecessarily long b) fallacious line of argument. "Movement", as the lengthy discussions have shown, is a very fuzzy concept whose definition people disagree about. Yet the section pulled out of a hat a rather precise personal definition, from a private communication with a single theologian, and presented it as general fact: the specific meaning of "movement" within the context of modern Protestant theology. Tearlach 04:07, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Tearlach, I have appreciated your company here and your additions. Conversation or Movement section was created to provide in what ways EC qualifies as either or. There was no line of argument and the sources provided are quality sources. What you have provided may be biased towards EC as movement. Did you feel it was biased towards conversation? Additionally, no where did the section attribute the meaning of movement to all of Protestant theology (and I am unaware of a theology of movements in protestanism). Also, the link to Christianity Today is not as reliable as the other sources (though I am open to removing the email correspondence on terms of dubious sources). Constantly I have argued that we must present sources on why EC is movement or conversation or both. Because it is impossible to prove that it is either or, as fair treatment, we should include sources that label the EC movement and sources which label it a conversation. It is confusing why we seem to focus on this topic when there are other aspects of the article, yet to be developed, needing attention. I would prefer a handful of wikipedians seeking to add to non-exisiting parts of the article and cleaning existing parts, rather than those who (including myself) argue these topics to endless exhaustion. Please accept my revert as we discuss this significant and major change to this article. Thank you! --Artisan949 08:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with your assessment of the work needed. This article doesn't need selective little vetted edits and certainly doesn't need addition at this stage: it's a chunk of jargon-ridden academic-speak that needs ruthless pruning.

It's not going to develop if you impede every edit. I appreciate that you have a particular specialist insight, but I think you should ponder whether you've drifted into a situation as described in Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. Frankly, I think that it is the problem here, not controversy or complexity of the topic. Tearlach 10:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Tearlach as I'm sure any experienced Wikipedian would. Artisan949, you need to let those with more experience, clearer thinking ability, and better writing skills improve this article. Sorry to put it to you so bluntly, but that's what we're talking about. I'm reverting your unwarranted revert.technopilgrim 01:19, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

technopilgrim and Tearlach, thanks for your honest opinion and criticism on my work here at Wikipedia and specifically on this article. I'm not personally aware that I have necessarily denied anyone with "more experience, clearer thinking ability, and/or better writing skills" the opportunity to participate in the improvement of this article. If that is what I have done, my sincere apology. I, along with others throughout the last few months, have worked hard at fine tuning a NPOV article, prevent vandalism, encourage discussion, and seek to develop a decent (though not perfect or cemented) article on the Emerging Church. As for it being "a chunk of jargon-ridden academic-speak that needs ruthless pruning," I have used other wikipedia articles as a template for this one. Nevertheless, if you feel that the "chunk" of an article could be simplified for the academically challenged, I would encourage you to take that role and you both may be more suited for creating such a work. I do come with an academic, researched background, and that may be my weakness.

Just recently, I have read many comments on this article. Some believing it is a step in the right direction. Despite this, I will be stepping away from further developing this article so that others, like yourselves, might add their own opinion to it. I will also not participate in a revert war or an argument about EC conversation or movement. Frankly, I lack the concern. technopilgrim, in the past, revert wars on this article have been attributed to you. I do not necessarily know what you contribute except antagonism and disregard, but this no longer concerns me.

What does concern me and will continue to do so, is the quality of articles at wikipedia. I do not necessarily know if biases create the best wikipedia articles and misinformation clearly articulates or describe what something is. Nevertheless, I am not sure the two of you have any regard. I will not be returning for some time, so any messages can be sent to my email at aaron @ thevoiz dot com. My utmost respect. --Artisan949 04:55, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I can't pretend that this doesn't make things easier. But I also think it's an unnecessary reaction. I've no interest in imposing a bias: my only problem with the article itself is that it's written in a 'house style' appropriate for a dissertation rather than an encyclopedia for general readership. Tearlach 10:58, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Just to set the record straight, the previous revert war you had was with WestonWyse and others, not myself. If you check the article history you will see that I have only made two edits prior to yesterday's reversion, neither of which was a revert. technopilgrim 19:48, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm putting this in the right place, but after reading the article and skimming some of the talk archives, as well as reading this talk page, I'm mystified as to what "conversation" means in this article. I read earlier on the talk page that it has some esoteric meaning within the emerging church, but as a plain ole encyclopedia article reader who was wholly ignorant on the subject before reading this article, I'd sure like to have a definition there, or else plainer language. KathL 09:53, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi everyone. Two comments: I think we need to list some of Brian McLaren's books in the References, and also provide a link to emergentvillage somewhere in the article (and possibly a whole section on emergent). They're major players and I think people who want to get familiar with the Emerging Church should be familiar with them.andryia 02:47, 10 August 2005 (UTC)