The numbers question is fairly easy to answer (although many of us fall into the trap of being economical with the truth and give our boasting number – that one particular Sunday when there were twice as many people in attendance as is normally the case). But the ‘what’ question becomes increasingly complicated with the ever expanding range of shades of Christian experience. Even within evangelicalism we often feel the need to try and place people more exactly – “Evangelical you say? Is that open-evangelical? Or conservative? Or Calvinist, Arminian, liberal, or post-liberal? Or is it post-Conservative?”
 
Recently a number of terms have come into more regular use within the circles in which I tend to move. These include missional (about which Andrew has made some helpful observations and Reformed. These are terms it is easy to use if the guys that you like seem to define themselves this way, and I think many people are probably using them in that way.
 
The problem with this, though, is that these terms are not only badges of association but actually mean something! If we are going to use words like Reformed to define ourselves then it might be a good idea to have some reasonable understanding of what they actually mean.
 
In order to try and explore some of these issues I have written a paper titled “Why we may not be as Reformed as we think we are” for the Newfrontiers Theology Forum. If you’re interested, you can find it here. I’d be interested in your comments!