As one of the leading editors and purveyors of “voices” in the emerging church, Alan Hartung is the General Editor of the theooze.com. Theooze has hundreds of thousands of readers in many different countries. Alan talks to and reads the discourse, feedback and backtalk from hundreds of people every year about “what’s going on in the emerging church?” These folks include authors, speakers, theologians, ordained ministers, missionaries, entrepreneurs, and fringe folks.

The PDL – Question # 1: Alan, from your vantage point as General Editor of theooze, what’s different today about the content of the dialogue occurring within theooze community, versus three tears ago?

Alan: I think people are a lot more settled in now. Three years ago, it was more a bunch of people who have just left established churches or were considering leaving. There are definitely still those types of persons around. Theooze is often an entry point for many to the emerging church community. But now, a lot of us have already been through all that coming out of the established church closet thing, and we're more focused on looking ahead and getting things done.

Alan: TheOoze will be launching a podcast called AudioOoze sometime in the near future. It will be a way for people to take ooze content with them on their ipods or other mp3 players as well as a means for us to get content out there unique to the audio format. And, of course, the General Editor of TheOoze (me :>) has been podcasting since December 2004 on my site, A Different Perspective (www.alanhartung.com).

The PDL – Question # 3: It has been observed that there is no “coherent” message from the EC. In other words, there seems to be a whole lot of banter and no action being taken. Isn’t the EC really a bunch of disillusioned, armchair, theologian wannabes?

Alan: Heh. That's what our critics would like everyone to believe.

I do participate in the discussions going on about theology, but I see the real heart of the emerging church as a reworking of church structure. I don't put much stock in the churches who are just changing their message and keeping the church structure the same. The medium is the message. You can't teach that the Christian life is not all about teaching and have anyone truly be receptive to that message when you still focus the majority of your church resources around a half-hour teaching each week.

The real heart of the emerging church is that people are out there doing things differently. And they are sharing what they are learning along the way. There's a whole lot of action going on, but the critics focus on a select few who are prolific writers. If you don't have a book published, you are mostly off of the critics' radars. So they look at a few people and say, "Look, they're all talk."

There's really very little we can do about the current situation with our critics. Most of them cannot conceive of a movement that can't be sectioned off by theology and a very specific tradition, so they will continue to paint the emerging church with those strokes. Unfortunately, they are criticizing something that does not exist, so whatever valuable insight they could have provided us is lost.

The PDL – Question # 4: Emergent has said publicly they have struck a “strategic publishing arrangement with Baker Books to provide a platform for “emerging voices.” Do you know of any EC author Baker has signed in 2006 as part of this initiative?

Alan: Nothing official. I'm not sure what knowledge I have about Emergent's publishing arrangements is public knowledge, so I better not say anything at this time.

The PDL – Question # 5: It seems that the “emerging church” voice is muted by the established, mainstream Christian publishing houses (particularly those that feed the CBA…Christian Booksellers Association). How will the EC “voices” that “need to be heard” become heard?

Alan: I think I would disagree about the emerging church voice getting muted by publishing houses. The mainstream Christian book publishers are concerned with one thing: selling books to the evangelical Christian market. We've seen a major increase in emerging church authors getting published over the past year and a half and since the books are selling, that will continue to rise.

That being said, I think the emerging church voice comes through loudest over the internet through blogs and podcasts. The interactive nature of the internet provides a much better medium for the voice of the emerging church than the relatively static medium of the printed word.

The PDL – Question # 6: Alan, is the emerging church really a “movement” at this juncture of it’s evolution or a “concept” with a catchy title and a lot of chatter?

Alan: I know there's been a lot of discussion about whether the emerging church is a movement or not. I've spoken with a couple of fairly prominent people in the emerging church recently (at least one of which I think you're also interviewing right now) who have differing opinions on the subject.

From an organizational point of view, which is the angle a lot of pastors come from, the emerging church is not a movement because we don't have established leaders or clearly established means of reaching our goals spanning the breadth of the movement. From a sociological view, however, I believe we are definitely a movement in that we share common traits which have brought us together and share at least one common message which we are spreading: the church needs to change.

Alan: First off, I'm excited about the many people who have begun local churches with a desire to get back to a more simple faith. Many times, these churches are not even aware of the term "emerging church." I've seen several groups in the Los Angeles area who are only vaguely aware of what is going on in the recognized "emerging church." These are the people out there doing the stuff, as John Wimber used to say in the Vineyard.

And I'm excited about the future. It's not always fun being part of the emerging church. The critics are having a blast spewing out venemous and wildly inaccurate accusations. Recently, I decided I'm only going to interact with critics who make at least a small attempt to understand what we're saying. We need loving critique, we don't need enemies within the family of God.

The PDL – Question # 8: In your opinion, what are the two most difficult obstacles presently facing the continued growth and development/evolution of the emerging church?

Alan: Too many of us waste time trying to justify what we do over the internet. It really does get in the way of the actual work sometimes. If we're going to spend our time attempting to build relationships with pastors and others from the established church (which I think we should), it should be more local. Go to city prayer meetings with other pastors from your community. Invite that fundamentalist pastor who probably wholeheartedly agrees with some of the most spiteful critics of the emerging church to lunch. Cultivate relationships on a local level instead of fighting on the internet over theories of the atonement.

Another difficult obstacle is the threat of institutionalization. Things function better in an institution (on the surface any way), and the temptation is to fall back into old habits. We want to be able to quantify our results and show the world we're right because we're successful. I'm not saying we should disregard all results, but we need to chuck that stats-driven mindset. We need to understand that a church could be doing exactly what God wants and experience little or even negative growth for a time.

Alan: Great question. We'll probably be due for a redesign in 2007. :D

I know that's not what you're asking. I don't have a good answer to that. TheOoze will continue to be a place for people to come and learn about what God's doing on the fringes. I think TheOoze is often more of an entry point than a dwelling place. Certainly, we have our long-time members, but there has not been a time I can remember in the five years now I've been with TheOoze where there has not been a huge influx of new persons on the message boards and submitting articles. If TheOoze is not a safe place in 24 months for persons to come and ask questions, share what they're experiencing, and just hang out, I'll be very disappointed. I believe it is that place now and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Alan: Honestly, nothing comes to mind. I'm encouraged by the diversity of the emerging church movement. Mostly it is a diversity of religious heritage, but there's also a growing number of voices coming to the forefront from people who are other than white and male. These perspectives need to be heard, and when heard, these voices will contribute to the growth of the body of Christ in ways we cannot yet imagine.