Product Description

A complete guide to developing an alternative worship service for the younger emerging generation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25833 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From the Back Cover
Churches are aging. Even among megachurches with their modern technology and huge number of members, whole generations are now missing. In order to reach the 18-35 year olds, churches need to incorporate alternative worship services into their ministries that meet the unique needs of the emerging generations. In a conversational, narrative style, author Dan Kimball guides church leaders on how to create alternative services from start to finish. Using anecdotes from his own experience at Graceland, Kimball presents six creative models, providing real-life examples of each type. Emerging Worship covers key topics including • Developing a prayer team • Evaluating the local mission field and context • Determining leaders and a vision-based team • Understanding why youth pastors are usually the ideal staff to start a new service • Recognizing the difference in values between emerging worship and the rest of the church • Asking critical questions beforehand

About the Author
Dan Kimball is the author of several books, including Emerging Worship, The Emerging Church, and, They Like Jesus, but Not the Church. He’s a pastor at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, a missional church designed for the emerging, post-Christian culture. Dan and his wife, Becky, have two daughters, Claire and Katie, and a rusty 1966 Ford Mustang.

Customer Reviews

Emerging Worship
We used this book as the text for a workshoop on Emerging Worship and we all found it an excellent, easy to read and understand book. Being "beyond" the age of most Emerging Worship groups we still found the book to be inspiring and stimulating. We "conducted" a short (30 minute) service for the others attending other classes and they found our service to be extremely inspirational amd planned to take some of the ideas home to their own churches to try.

Agree with premise, hate the writing
Many people are praising this book for its challenging message. I don't disagree with the message.

I was disappointed in this book because it the poor quality of writing inhibits clarity and good argument. Also, because the author believes every gathering must fit its unique context (I agree!), he tries to avoid making specific recommendations. The result is just jumbled ideas and vague quasi-suggestions. If you are looking for a book that will teach you how to start an emerging worship gathering, this is not going to be very helpful.

The best part of the book is where Kimball profiles several different emerging worship gatherings (at the back), and it would have been a better book to start with these, then draw observations about things they have in common. (And it would have been better if such observations were written by a better writer.)

More specifically about the writing, Kimball's problems start with a poor vocabulary. A good vocabulary results in an economy of words and a precision in meaning; a poor one yields vague, shallow wordiness.

For example, he writes on page 172: "Historically, church ministry functions in a certain way and there was a specific approach to looking at the church leadership structure. But Graceland [an alternative/emerging worship gathering] started going against the norms of consistency and church uniformity!" Lots of words, little clarity: it's clumsy and vague.

I found Kimball's avoidance of specific suggestions or guidance for creating emerging worship gatherings annoying. Either he is unable to find common threads in emerging worship gatherings, or he is deliberately obfuscating. I wish he would show a little more faith in his readers, and tell us how each gathering he profiles was envisioned and created. Most of us are bright enough to realize that our situation is unique, and we must be careful in applying the lessons from other gatherings. But more specifics would have made this a much more helpful resource.

Four and Half Stars--Must read for those in ministry!
As someone finishing my Bachelor's in Music Ministry, the issues presented in this book are issues that I have been wrestling with and for which I have been unable to find very good answers.

I have not read Kimball's more famous book--"The Emerging Church" or some title along those lines--but I read this book quite intensely.

I was quite the skeptic of this book; the term "Emergent" to me has been misunderstood and made to mean a lot of things. In my mind before I read the book, the word "Emergent" meant a segment of Christianity with Epistemological issues (Truth issues) and entirely focused on experience in regard to every matter of faith and doctrine. Although I believe a lot of the "emergent Church" could fall into this boat, Dan Kimball shouldn't necessarily be thrown in with them.

This book became less about "Emergent" thought, or theology, but more about "Emergent" methodology. You see, the post-modern generation has epistemological issues that need to be met with the appropriate ministry methodologies. Some of the Emergent leaders get caught up with their own truth problems when the try to reach post-moderns, and some others like Dan Kimball simply use methodologies with truth-challenged people in mind.

I highly recommend this book to pastors and worship pastors, although it may not be as practical as you might desire. In case you haven't noticed, if you are looking for a "7 steps to do this..." or "21 reasons that..." kind of book you are in the wrong place. Those kinds of books are thoroughly influenced by modernism anyway (like John Maxwell type books). Emergent literature is not a "3 steps to" whatever kind of movement--to them it is all about "The Journey" for the individual and the truths discovered along the way. This book does provide examples of what some churches are doing, but encourages you to find out what will appeal to your community where you live.

I am from the Midwest and live in TX--the culture I am surrounded with is not as advanced in a post-modernistic way as the west-coast culture out in California from where we receive Kimball's insights. Ultimately, Kimball is saying that we have to change to reach people; we should change according to the culture we are in by finding what works for that culture, and make sure Christ is always at the center of everything we do. That is something that thoroughly impressed me throughout the entire book--it encourages being Christocentric at all times in every ministry endeavor.

Once again--methodology is not theology. Don't confuse ways to reach people solely through the "sacred spaces" and house churches discussed in this book; the Word of God is the only thing that can truly change people.