A different starting point?

As I've read blogs, books, and thought through this "phenomena" of emerging, it appears to me that the paradigm shift, the reform, the reaction to the approach of "doing church" in what was considered to be THE way, is based on a move past a pragmatic efficient model that finds itself couched in a modernist framework. The work of Alan Roxburgh helps us see that the church in the western hemisphere finds itself being pushed out of the position she used to hold: the cultural (music, art, etc), moral, and scientific center of society. We now find ourselves on the margins, the periphery of society, along with the outcasts and the has-beens.

It is interesting how Robert Webber led us to see that we find ourselves in a world, that while it's unfamiliar to us (coming out of a Constantinian framework where the church plays a significant role in culture) it is not unfamiliar to the church. Webber said that our culture is not far removed from that those beginning few hundred years in the infancy years of Christianity.

I think what is different about this emerging thing from what some might call the mega church model is the starting point. I don't want to be disrespectful to this approach because it has been helpful and has done amazing things to help bring people into relationship with God. They took (and take) the call of the Great Commission seriously. Their focus is different. It seems to me that these churches have taken the approach that the church is a business and draws examples and direction from marketing and efficiency found in the business world. It seems to me that this emerging movement's domain is different--it "operates" with a different set of values. Rather than business as a deep foundation, it seems that the emerging movement returns to a theological foundation that the mega-church approach seems to take for granted. Maybe it was so "dumbed down" that theology wasn't seen as a really important matter or issue. Well, maybe just not their starting point--who understands theology but churched people, right?

But in recovering a theology of God, particularly seen through the lens [hermeneutic] of God's mission (missio dei) we see how we choose to cooperate and partner with God in his mission. That shapes the direction the church takes, forming all that the church does. If it doesn't connect with this theological understanding, then it is questioned as whether it is an important factor for the church. Worship is moved past a focus on pre-Christians and to return to Christ and a strong Trinitarian focus. Discipleship moves from individual piety to how the personal fits with communal Christian spiritual formation in the way of Jesus. Evangelism is different. It's different in that it's not about saving souls for heaven and from hell, but it's about pointing people and orienting them to the coming Kingdom of God's gracious and loving reign.

Because we are in this in between time and are on the early stages of this shift we find ourselves in, there's still the need for the mega church and their model. But because fewer people are finding that approach valuable, this new approach is taking a significant step forward in helping connect people's spiritual desire to God, and not the many other things they use to try to satisfy it.

What do you think? Does this make sense? Is this short-sighted? Is it fair?