Is the emerging church new?

We're just back from a relaxing week doing nothing in particular at Phillip Island. It was generally rainy and very windy, so we read a lot of books. Now I have a heap of blogs to catch up on (no wireless in range where we were).

Maggi Dawn made an interesting comment in her blog about whether the emerging church is really new. Considering that we've been doing our version of it for 15 years now at Beth Tephillah, I guess it depends on what you mean by new!

But as Maggi says,

I don't think there has to be an opposition of whether it's new/not new, and neither do I think it matters particularly. I think it does matter that we hold together both the history we've inherited (and the graciousness and humility to acknowledge it) and the freedom to live thoroughly in the present. I don't think Church works unless you hold both those two things together in some lively way.

I believe Maggi is right when she says there is no one way of being emergent. After all, most emerging churches wouldn't even recognise ours as such. What is important is that all of those years ago God told us he wanted to do a new thing with Williamstown Baptist Church, and we're doing it to the best of our ability.