Tom Sine of Mustard Seed Associates outlines the first stream in his new book The New Conspirators:
The New Conspirators: Emerging Church
Defining the Emerging Conspirators
I find there is a wide array of understandings around the world of what constitutes an emerging church. Emerging leaders in Britain, Australia and New Zealand tend to be more involved in a conversation about postmodern culture and a post-Christendom church. Others define emerging as the creation of post-denominational and post-congregational forms of church. And for some other young leaders in the US “pomo” (postmodern) churches seem to be simply another way to describe alternative worship. Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger took a comprehensive look at this movement in Britain and the United States in their definitive book Emerging Churches. They offer this very succinct definition of this stream: “Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures.” Scott Bader-Saye observes that those in the emerging stream often prefer to define the emerging church as a conversation instead of a movement—a conversation that “is still young, experimental and evolving.” Leonard Sweet sees it as “an ongoing conversation about how new times call for new churches, and the mortar-happy church of the last half of the 20th century is ill-poised to face the promises and perils of the future.” But, however defined, the emerging movement offers fresh expressions of what it means to be the church and do mission, from which we can all learn.
Read the whole article here.
For examples go to The New Conspirators: Emerging Church.
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