From a former student now involved in an emerging missional church near Seattle, who wrote me when I asked about what he was doing this summer. One theme for emerging folks is the need to transform “church” from “weekend attendance” to an ongoing lifestyle of missional work sustained and energized by community gatherings. Here’s a good example:
CURRENTLY I am in Poulsbo Washington working for Alive Covenant Church.
It’s a new sort of church plant that one of my pastors from high school is

doing. Very missionally oriented but very unique structure. They meet once
a month on Sunday afternoons in the “Sons of Norway”, the social center of
the town. They have a service (sitting in the round) and then a concert in
the center of the town. The second week folks get together in their house
church (based geographically), eat together and study the scripture that was
preached on. The third Sunday the house churches meet to do a service
project in the community. The fourth Sunday is either an all church or
house church celebration, getting together and partying.
The structure is focused on keep the church missionally oriented. We just
had the 5th service of the churches existence, there are about 50 folks
regularly connected with the church. The majority of those people have
never been connected to a church before.
Some of the folks who grew up in church are having a hard time going to a
once a month service. The rest of them love it. It makes a lot of sense to
those who didn’t grow up in a regular church and have never like regular
church.