A Book Review of “Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin

The sub-title for Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin hints at a unique approach to understanding church in our current rapidly changing culture. Brewin sub-titles his central thesis as "A Vision for Church That Is Organic/ Networked/ Decentralized/ Bottom-up/ Communal/ Flexible {Always Evolving}." This is a fresh perspective and contributes positively to some of the world-wide discussion of what is dubbed the "emergent church movement/discussion/debate." The inherent problem with labeling is to prejudice a work before it has been thoughtfully engaged. There is a tendency in using "emergent" and "church" in the same sentence for those who are convince this is an important discussion of Christian relevance to jump on the band wagon and declare this work to be an important step forward. It is equally problematic for those who line up opposing the notion of church as emerging to be naysayers and dismiss the work prematurely. It is precisely in the tension between these 2 extreme perspectives that Brewin positions his book in a place he identifies with Jesus as conjunctive, incarnational, and emergent.

Conjunctivity is a term adopted by Jung to describe a stage of spiritual development whereby an individual is able "to hold opposites together in a single frame." Relying on James Fowlers' work on spiritual growth, conjunctivity is also a term used to describe "Stage 5" spiritual development in a 6 stage model. Stage 3 is a place where faith is simplistic/ black and white and largely controlled by external authority. Stage 4 is a lonely, individualistic questioning of the naiveté found in Stage 3. Stage 5 follows "dark night of the soul" experiences that dominate the Stage 4 process. Stage 5 fosters spiritual transform into a second naiveté marked by the complexities of life being held together in tension and hierarchies of external authority abandoned to being replace by networks and relationships. Using this model Brewin extrapolates from individual spirituality to conclude that Church in a very broad universal sense has been in Stage 3 for a very long time. But now the boundaries of holding on to Stage 3 spirituality are collapsing. The vision in Brewin's book attempts to project ahead in hope to what might arise from the ashes of this crumbling hold on the imagination of what faith might look like lived out in the context of contemporary Christian experience.

What has been called loosely "the post modern era" has had both a positive and negative impact on the stability of the Church. The resultant shifts in thinking that are thus arising by the questioning of Stage 3 spirituality has fueled much of the heat that surrounds "enlightenment" (modern) and postmodern church-in-society issues. Oliver Wendell Holmes is quoted as saying, "For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have." Conjunctivity describes aspects of simplicity on the other side of complexity and Brewin identifies much of the creativity in the emergent discussion to be coming out of many people engaging the discourse from a Stage 5 spirituality perspective. Taking the insights from this stage in spiritual development and engaging our culture in a missional strategy will thusly often put us on a collision course with church life stuck in the paradigms of Stage 3 spirituality.

The incarnation of Jesus is not only a doctrinal belief, but an essential apologetic for those who are seeking a relevant church engaged in the world of current reality. Drawing on reflections based on Jesus' life and ministry Brewin paints a verbal picture of the incarnation where waiting over time is a key to spiritual growth. In addition he presents a challenging reminder that we too need to wait, to give ourselves permission for our understanding of God to evolve and change, to engage in the dirt of life, especially, in the context of the urban world. The incarnation then is a central theme of this engaging book. Rather than presenting a doctrinal treatise however, the incarnation of Jesus moves us to model our lives after His creative example. Brewin uses words in a meditative and reflective manner to paint a written picture of incarnation and its' implications for ministry in our world. Therefore, incarnation grounds Brewin solidly in the theological place to speak authentically into both the church and the world. His crafted poetic thoughts become a window into the author's soul for what is moving him and motivating him to engage in this timely topic. As in all written works, once ideas are committed to print, they become fixed statements-no longer part of the dialogue that created the original impressions. Many of Brewin's "conclusions" remain open-ended; a manner of writing that invites interaction rather than the opinions of an expert. Brewin writes in a manner in which he advocates living out the empowerment of people to engage life in Christ from the grassroots, in the complexity of their locality, and see transformation as the only way forward. If the community of such activists is identified as church, then the way of Jesus seems to support a community that is creative, faithful to truth, but disinterested in hierarchical/institutional power. This is transformation by empowerment and essentially is worked out at the grassroots of life.

Drawing on the science of "emergence" Brewin identifies the transformation church in Stage 5 conjunctivity as "the Emergent Church". The adjective "emergent" is not used in the sense of "emerging church", meaning some of the new ways of doing church. Rather emergence attempts to position the church somewhere in the conjunctive space that exists between total anarchy and dictatorial control. The science of emergence attempts to understand living systems as self-organizing, as potentially greater than the sum of their parts, as evolving and adapting, as existing in a place between chaos and order (a "chaordic" place). Applying emergence ideas to the church, the church becomes a community where the life of God should most dynamically interface with humans as a living system, Brewin points the Church in a direction of engagement rather than retreat. Taken seriously Signs of Emergence is an impassioned call to "metanoia", literally the changing of our thinking, about living out our kingdom faith.

A quote from Kester Brewin captures the heart of his plea for us to revision church in our world:

"Christ's birth, life, death, and resurrection provide us with an archetype for change and grounds for belief that God is not done yet. It will take time and courage, but we must stop, wait, and grieve. We must let go of our simplistic, mechanistic, legalistic, top-down ideas about God. We must allow God God's holy freedom, and mine the past for hope that the present is not all there is. We must become wombs of the divine and give birth to newness. Slowly, quietly, under the radar of the authorities, we must bring the church down from its local peak to rebirth and nurture it, allowing it to learn from and be dependent on its particular host culture. We must free it to evolve into cunjunctivity, rich and complex, networked and decentralized, not allowing it to be co-opted, and always keeping it open to its environment, sensing it, learning from it, responding to it." (pg. 200)

This is a hopeful book, but not hopeful in any sort of revolutionary way. Rather hopeful in the sense that Christ is still growing His Church, and our understanding of the times is a critical contribution to His kingdom coming.