Estimates place the number of emerging church communities at several hundred and growing. The Internet has figured hugely into the movement’s growth, “not only in connecting, linking, promoting, recording and communicating, but also in the new media mind-set that it is creating,” said Andrew Jones, a New Zealand emergent who blogs from Czechoslovakia under the name tallskinnykiwi.

“The net affects the way we think and relate and store knowledge. It is creating a new set of values and a new hierarchy of leaders. We haven’t seen the half of it yet.”

They know they are not the first believers compelled by faith to give to the needy. Their difference is that traditional Christian charity may involve compassion but not always a commitment to justice, said Brian McLaren, one of the early emergent thinkers and the author of several books, including “Adventures in Missing the Point,” which he wrote with Tony Campolo. “Eventually, we have to deal with the people causing injustice,” McLaren said…The emergent church emphasizes Christ’s message of social justice, seeks the kind of spirituality that flows from that and creates a community that supports that spirituality, he said.

Members of the emerging church movement participate in an exercise with one another in the Mission district of San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday June 3, 2008. People in the movement aim to live like Jesus, but say they have no use for church as an institution. (Photo by Nader Khouri)

Some emergents embrace ancient ritual, including the Eucharist, and they evangelize, although in social action they may not necessarily talk about their faith at all.

“St. Francis of Assisi said it best: Go preach the gospel and if necessary use words,” said Darin Petersen of Oakland, who travels frequently to Philadelphia for community projects. “The best evangelism is living a contagious life.”

“The problem with (traditional) evangelizing is that it is delivering answers to people who are not seeking them,” he said. “We need to be a peculiar people. Jesus gives the order of what that looks like and what that means….”

“Jesus was political,” said Klein, whose community helped pay for his recent trip to Africa to build mobile medical clinics. “If it was all about the life after, he wouldn’t have been killed the way he was.”

Some ReIMAGINE participants just bought a duplex on an East Oakland street that has been rocked by sideshows and three murders over the past few weeks. They want their new Shalom community to love, serve, and engage the troubled neighborhood, said Nate Milheim.

“What I’ve been excited about is taking Jesus more seriously as a teacher as well as a savior,” Milheim, 30, who is cleaning up the house with his wife, their two daughters and a couple who will share it. “Let’s learn from this master, Jesus, this revolutionary, radical guy. I want to explore what it would be to live like him.”

“I realize we have a lot to learn,” he said. “If the things happen that I dream of happening, it will take a while.”

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