If you travel in evangelical circles, you've likely heard talk of the "emerging church." But you still might be confused. What exactly is the emerging church? Here's my best attempt to describe a notoriously hard-to-define phenomenon.

But first I have to muddy the waters. Emerging church proponents resist labels. They think of themselves as participating in a "conversation," not a "movement." They prefer stories to propositional truths, mystery to certainty, and dialogue to doctrine. The emerging church is not a denomination. It has no official leaders and no serious level of organization. The only exception is the Emergent Village (from which we get the term emergent), an organization that describes itself as "a growing, generative friendship." Generally speaking, the emerging church is a loosely knit community of mostly young adults, disillusioned with church as usual, who are striving to live their Christian faith in a postmodern culture.

Those within the movement value authenticity and ...