A pet-peevy observation
I’m getting a little tired of hearing people nowadays talk about the “Emergent church,” when what they really mean is the “emerging church.” There’s a big huge difference, and the nuance seems lost on the masses.
Emergent is a BRAND, people, not a descriptive. Get it right. It’s like in Texas, where we call all sodas, “Coke.” As in:
“You thirsty?”
“Yeah.”
“You want a Coke?”
“Sure.”
What kind of Coke do you want?”
“A Dr. Pepper.”
Or it’s like squares and rectangles: all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. All Emergent churches are emerging, but not all emerging churches are Emergent. The capitalization should be the first clue.
Emergent is an organization (or a movement, or a conversation, or whatever), and while many emerging churches and people involved or identifying with the emerging church would find affinity with this organization, many would not and many would have no clue what it even is.
This must be fixed. It’s annoying the crap out of me.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Ha! First Splenda, now this . . . you are of course correct in your assessment. And I am guilty as well and actually trying to take the “Emerging” and “Emergent” language out of my church vernacular. I figure I have enough churchiness in my lingo that adding one more thing that most folks don’t know or care about is not helpful. Glad to see ya bloggin’
April 20th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Thanks for that explanation. I think we need an emergenCY church.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
it’s kind of like a bunch of people in this county who say something is “addicting” instead of “addictive”. “addicting” is a word but to say that an inaminate object can actively addict you (as opposed to have a quality that can be described as addictive) to something is to give the (admittedly delicious) trader joe’s cheesecake a little too much credit.
April 21st, 2007 at 8:06 pm
you make me laugh…my favorite line is, “This must be fixed. It’s annoying the crap out of me.” that is great!