Review of Kimball's "Emergent Worship"

At first glance, Dan Kimball seems like the type of person who would write an "I did it, why can't you, buy my 12 easy step program" kind of book. He's a preacher who grew up in New Jersey, but now leads a "successful" growing church in southern California. To be sure, if the goal is to create a church that is growing and has young adults and families in regular attendance, Kimball has accomplished that. And he does have several books, CDs and DVDs that a person can buy. But he is severely lacking in the "why can't you attitude" that seems to underline a lot of these types of books. He also stresses up front that while numbers have value, successful ministry cannot be measured solely by counting people at a worship service, instead it is about building up communities of Christian believers.

Kimball acknowledges up front that doing the Lord's work is seldom as easy as we would like it to be. It is, however, a calling that we share and in the book "Emerging Worship" Kimball seeks to share some of what he has learned from his experiences in the emerging church and from talking with others who have walked similar paths.

Rather than provide a simplified 10 or 12 step outline of how to create a new worship experience, Kimball starts off a key question: What is worship and why do we do it? It seems obvious in hindsight that no worship project committee should begin meeting until after this basic question has been asked and answered. In the first half of his book, Kimball pokes and prods at this question, urging the reader to give it full consideration.

To be sure, there are numerous references to what worked in the churches in which he has served, but there are also admissions of things that did not work as well. Kimball stresses the process of developing the theology behind worship over the selection of new music or other factors.

Kimball is also quite clear that this book is not for those looking for ways to merely tweak or update an existing worship experience. This is about creating something intentionally new, rather than changing something old.

Those looking to this book for a how-to guide will be disappointed. Instead, he spends several chapters dealing with the need for clear goals, open communication and similar concepts which would be equally at home in a church management text book.

The second half of the book is given over to case studies of different concepts that have been developed at various churches across the country. Interestingly, Kimball points out in the introduction to this section that several of the ideas are not things that he would suggest or even personally encourage, but they have worked in other places and therefore are worthy of at least review by others. (Wisely, he doesn't point out which of the case studies he disagrees with, but lets the readers make their own determinations on what may or may not have merit within their particular situation.)

Perhaps almost as important as the time he takes on the most important aspects of pre-planning, Kimball also reviews how to deal with the aging and evolving emergent worship as it continues and as the people in it age. There are a variety of approaches of how to integrate this group into the larger church and Kimball points out a variety of potential pitfalls and what has worked elsewhere.

The entire book is written with a helpful tone of suggestion, rather than a smugness that I have sometimes sensed in similar books.

Perhaps the lone drawback of the book was that there seemed to be no examples provided of emergent worship successes in strongly liturgical churches, such as those in the Presbyterian Church. While there is a great benefit in looking at churches in general, I believe it would have been of even greater assistance to have been provided at least one example of a church that looks more like the ones I have attended.

Despite this lone drawback, I would strongly recommend this book for pastors or committees considering developing an emergent worship.

Source:

Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations by Dan Kimball. Zondervan. 2004.