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I wrote the following post for Emergent Village. You can comment here or over there.

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Something has to die before something can be reborn.

For the last two years I’ve had the privilege of sharing a State of Emergence.  2008 saw some significant changes to Emergent Village, and 2009 saw those who identify with the emerging church begin to walk away from the conversation.  2010 turned out to be the year something died and something new emerged from the grave, perhaps a renewed spirit of enthusiasm.

2010 kicked off with an interesting post in World Mag’s Farewell Emerging Church. Anthony Bradley publicly declared the end of emergence as we know it.  And in many ways, this public declaration of death was needed.  What arguably died was a perception of the slick marketing model aimed at middle class, white, hipsters saddled in the corner of Starbucks with their Macs.  This stereotype had run its course and grown out of favor.  It had to die. What didn’t die were the underlying questions that fueled the movement in the first place.  People were still gathering together in pubs, coffee houses and homes, wrestling with questions of faith, reformation, atonement, the goodness of God, what it means to follow Jesus, and how to live in a post-Christian culture.

The North American movement that would eventually be called the emerging church arguably came out of the dialog that was the Young Leaders Network formed by The Leadership Network.  This group was formed to address the growing concern with the GenX leaving the church.  Well the underlying problems creating this rift didn’t go away.  And just last month Christianity Today released a blog post that could have been written in 2001, The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church.  I’ve long argued that the concept of “emergence” will never go away until we’ve addressed the underlying tensions, questions and concerned that have fueled it, namely our tension with the historical meaning of the Gospel.  If its real, why isn’t it producing more of transformation in the church?

While the publishing world walked away from the emerging church, it is fair to say writers didn’t.  2010 saw the release of one of Brian McLaren’s more important works, A New King Of Christianity.  Brian’s book answered some of the deeper questions that many of his critics have asked for a long time.  Yet 2010 also saw a great selection of authors wrestling with these deeper questions, including Dan Brennan’s Sacred Unions, Julie Clawson’s Everyday Justice, Doug Pagitt’s Church In The Inventive Age, my own work Discovering The God Imagination, John O’Keefe’s Boneyard, Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola’s Jesus Manifesto, Diana Butler Bass’ People’s History Of Christianity, Becky Garrison’s Jesus Died For This, Carol Howard Merritt’s Reframing Hope, and Nick Fiedler’s Hopeful Skeptic.  The conversations didn’t die.  They just flew under the marketing radar.

If 2010 marked anything, it was the growing awareness that following in the footsteps of Jesus and gathering together in community is hard.  People were tired of talking about it and just wanted to do it.  Bradley pins the death of the emerging church to this awareness.  Rob Bell, arguably one of the more important but undeclared voices in the emerging church recognized that he had become that big Mega-church.  What was once cool had now become mainstream.  And in losing its luster, the real work of ministry began to emerge.

And its fair to say that the conversations didn’t die either.  2010 saw its biggest year yet in terms of conferences and gatherings. Transform held it’s East Coast Gathering in April.  Big Tent Christianity in Raleigh NC saw some of the better theological and practical dialogs of the year.  Emergent Village took a huge risk to explore post-colonial thought at the Emergent Village Theological Conversation in November. Reflection from Michael Toy, Mike Stavlund, Julie Clawson revealed it was better than anyone expected. Richard Rohr continued to host the Emerging Christianity Conference December 3-4 in Fort Worth TX. The Outlaw Preachers held its first Outlaw Preachers Re-Union this December in Memphis TN.

Next year promises to be just as good with Convergence Mar 11-13 in Troutdale, OR, Wild Good Festival June 23-26 in Shakori Hills, NC, Transform’s West Coast Gathering in April in partnership with Mars Hill Graduate School and Parish Collective, and Big Tent’s Second Conference in Phoenix.

The media also began to see renewed interest.  Jay Bakker was featured in New York Magazine. Next Wave decided to reissue its 10 Year Emerging Church Retrospective. Generate Magazine released its second issue. Emergent Village and ECW Media Society launched Faithcollaboratory.com, and Civitas Press launched its first community project called The Practice Of Love.  Spencer Burke almost placed TheOoze.com into the archives, instead choosing to reinvent the portal in a fresh new way.

The emerging church isn’t dead.  It’s just finally wrestled with the angel and won.  It’s shedding it old image, the one that got people so riled up in the first place.  The conversations won’t ever go away because in the end, we’re looking for what it means to be human.  We’re looking to discover the reality that Jesus was trying to present, one of infinite grace and beauty, stark reality of the kingdom of God in our midst, and a renewed sense of possibility for the restoration of the world.

Here’s to 2011 and a renewed sense of faith, hope and love.  Because the greatest of these is love.