Belonging, Behaving, Believing? Uh?

Sorry it's been a while since my last post - half-term school holidays and earning a crust have come in the way of writing anything much here of late. And I've been wondering what to post after the last essay I put online about reading Joshua as a Christian. I think I will follow this up with a series of posts about reading the Bible after Christendom, after modernity and in the context of alternative and emerging churches and Christian faith communities.

For the time being, however, I've got another issue on my mind.

It's frequently said that a distictive characteristic within emerging churches is that of belonging to a community before any mention of believing comes along (if ever!), let alone behaving - that life is lived as a spiritual journey of discovery, a vast expanding horizon of experiences and possibilities. And yet, and here is the irony, there is often also a strong missional emphasis it would appear.

So, a question arises - after modernity and after Christendom, how might we go about encouraging people to consider the challenges of Christianity, and the challenges presented by Jesus? Does the believing, behaving, belonging analysis of evangelicalism bear any relevance at all?

I shall explore this and the questions arising over the next few days.

Tantalising, innit?