Book Review: Emerging Worship

This post is overdue, having finished the book Emerging Worship some weeks ago. Sorry for the delay - hopefully my memory is still fresh enough to write a cogent post.

Dan Kimball is a prominent figure in the emerging church movement (if you've been paying attention, you've noticed I stopped capitalizing the term), having written the well-received The Emerging Church in 2003. I've not read it yet, but intend to. I've been told it's better than Emerging Worship. Anyway, on with the review...

Kimball starts out with a very important truth that often gets lip service but nothing more: Worship is not just singing!! Sadly, most of us still use the terms synonymously. But we shouldn't, and Kimball implores us not to.

With that in mind, Kimball discusses the how and why of creating "emerging worship". Notice that he doesn't discuss just the 'how'. He spends a great deal of time talking about why a given local church felt the need to establish emerging worship - it's not just something to do to be different. This is a point that the fad-seekers need to hear. Don't do emerging worship just because it's new and hip.

Additionally, Kimball spends some time promoting a Missional view of ministry. He juxtaposes the "church built upon weekend services" with the "church built upon mission" concepts, showing (graphically) and telling why they are so very different - and why you should choose Missional.

Kimball also goes into detail discussing the worship environments that a number of specific churches have created. The book will give you plenty of ideas and concepts to try in your local context if you feel so led.

He ends the book largely on the topic of Vintage Faith Church, where's he's a pastor. This discussion brings to light another subject for another post - multi-congregational churches, church-within-a-church models, sister/hybrid models, etc... But on it's own, Kimball's discussion of Vintage Faith is a great story of why an emerging model was chosen and how not to distance oneself from other models.

Sorry for the brevity of the review - I'm sure I've not done the book justice. It's a good and a valuable read if your interested in the emerging movement, particularly emerging worship. Read it; read it NOW! : )

Hatushili