Christological Ecclesiology not to be (dis)integrated

There have been numerous para-church organizations existing throughout the past decades which establish communities around a personal relationship with Jesus while isolating individuals from intentionally living as church communities. There is even a new book by Dan Kimball entitled "They Like Jesus but not the Church." While I haven't read this book and I am interested in hearing from those who have, one of my fears is that the emerging church is being confused as a movement toward a much more sophisticated version of a para-church system. If you've read this book please help me out and please tell me that Kimball is not promoting Jesus without the Church. I can understand the fact that people don't like church for various reasons some of which may include the idea that they don't like the institutional element of it, they don't like the idea of commitment beyond what they want to do, or perhaps they just don't like 'church' as they have experienced it. Regardless, the two go hand in hand, even as God's Spirit will work beyond them in cultivating God's work in the world.

I really believe that the best case scenario of emerging churches is not a glorified para-church organization, but a real, deep, authentic and incredibly incarnationally dressed expression of Christ living in and through Church for the world. I think that a lesser embodiment of church has been achieved through such methods and as such has created a wedge between the two, Church and Christ, perpetuating a mentality that Jesus can be known fully outside of a faith community. I'm not entirely convinced that that is true.

In his book Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith Forming Community Robert Webber shares that "faith is formed in the church and through its worship." He also says that we need to be creating congregations that grow disciples a venture which is not to be reduced by mere individualism. How then can congregations, as a body, do this? Webber quotes one of the goals of the International Consultation on Discipleship that met in 1999 and included 450 church leaders from 54 countries and 90 varying denominations saying "we will not water down the cost of discipleship in order to increase the number of converts. We acknowledge that part of making disicples is teaching people to obey everything Jesus commanded."

This is what Webber addresses as he proposes that churches rediscover the ancient catechumenate process. For sure, this as process, takes time and will not deliver the kind of numbers as quickly as some are interested in generating. At the same time, it does re-integrate the process of evangelism and discipleship, faith formation, back into the congregational/church context instead of parsing it out from church by merely teaching Jesus and his fabuously moralistc principles. The emerging church seeks to embody Webber's notion profoundly through a new kind of church living the way of Jesus in the world.