Check out the post from Dan Kimball (author of The Emerging Church and Emerging Worship, my reviews of which you can read here and here). The post is titled Pews, Pulpits, Pastors, Preaching and other things that can get in the way of the church "being" the church. I really don't need to add much to what he said.

Labels: church, emerging

I've had a pretty long pause on my review of George Barna's book, Revolution. See The Revolution Begins and Values of the Revolution for my thoughts about the first four chapters.

In the fifth chapter, Barna takes a look at the transitions that are leading the revolution. These transitions reflect massive changes in our culture.

The Changing of the Guard: In our society, power is shifting from the baby boomers (those born before the mid-60's) to the busters ('65 through '83) and the mosaics ('84 through 2002). The new generations are "altering the ways in which people relate to each other, the types of outcomes deemed desirable, the procedures used to achieve meaningful results, the values and beliefs that underlie critical decisions, and the role of technology in our lives."

The Rise of a New View of Life: Like it or not, postmodernism is changing everything. "The threat to the Church lies in the fact that surprisingly few Americans are sufficiently reflective about the implications of this shift to critically assess its pros and cons."

Dismissing the Irrelevant: "Excellence is less meaningful to [the post-Boomer generation] because it sometimes reflects the slickness of exploitation and manipulation... they [also] have little patience for anything based on tradition, customs, ease, or social acceptability."

The Impact of Technology: Pretty self-explanatory, but should not go without saying: new technology opens new possibilities for churches.

Genuine Relationships: Personal authenticity. "In ministry and other areas, we will emphasize personal stories and experience instead of principles and commands."

Participation in Reality: "People expect to be active and creative participants in developing the reality of their experience. Fewer and fewer people are willing to sit back and endure what the world throws at them; rather, they are seeking the means to exert greater control over their lives."

Finding True Meaning: Struggling to discover meaning is nothing new, but Barna notes that "society's complexity and fragmentation have only served to heighten the struggle to make sense of our place in the world. One of the most startling signs of growth, though, is Americans' accelerated openness to understanding themselves through two components that have been largely ignored for many decades: sacrifice and surrender."

Barna then analyzes how these trends will affect what elements of society will have influence on spiritual growth. Currently, about 70% of the country express and experience their faith primarily through the local church. About 5% through some type of alternative faith-based community (such as a house church), another 5% primarily through family, and another 20% through the general media, arts, or culture.

Barna predicts, based on his research, that these numbers will look vastly different in 20 years: the local church will be at about 30-35%. Alternative communities will be at about 30-35%. Family will be about the same at 5%, and media, arts, and culture will grow to about 30-35%.

In other words, Barna is seeing the decline of the influence of the local church.

We have to ask the question: what is it about alternative faith-based communities that will draw so many believers out of local church organizations? The answers to this question are at the heart of what Barna calls the Revolution, and the answers lie in the previous chapters I've already covered. But keep in mind this quote from chapter 2:

[Revolutionaries] are seeking a faith experience that is more robust and awe inspiring, a spiritual journey that prioritizes transformation at every turn, something worthy of the Creator whom their faith reflects. They are seeking the spark provided by a commitment to a true revolution in thinking, behavior, and experience, where settling for what is merely good and above average is defeat.

Labels: books, church, emerging

Dan has an interesting take on the differences between "emergent" and "emerging" in his blog post Origin of the Term "Emergent". The term "emergent" came separately from "emerging." "Emergent" was chosen as the name for a new theological network that some guys were forming out of the Leadership Network.

The confusing part in all this in terms of words, was that the "emerging church" was being used at that time and becoming more prevalent as described in the earlier blog entry. Tony told me that when he, Brian and Doug were thinking of new names for the theology group that was formerly the Leadership Network one - they were not trying to play off the "emerging church" term. Tony said, that naming it "emergent" was because the word is defined as the "coming to the surface" of new organic life beginning and reproducing and that was why they chose the word.

The similarities in approach, as well as terminology, meant that they would end up being interchangeable for many people.

It would be so interesting to think if back in June 2001, if they would have named the group "Odyssey" or something instead of "emergent". Then there wouldn't have been the confusion and blending of "emerging" and "emergent". I wonder if we would have "the odyssey church" used as a term today.

Interesting background. I've often wondered about the whole emerging/emergent thing.

Labels: church, emerging

Dan Kimball, the author of The Emerging Church and Emerging Worship, discusses in a blog post the Origin of the Term "Emerging Church."

For me, the term "the emerging church" simply meant churches who were focusing on the mission of Jesus and thinking about the Kingdom in our emerging culture. It meant churches who were rethinking what it means to be the church in our emerging culture. There were some distinct values about leadership and community and evangelism approaches that were being established among the churches - but overall at that time it meant missional churches passionate about seeing the gospel of Jesus communicated and lived out to emerging generations. That is at least what I was thinking as I used the term and still do think as I use the term "emerging church". The word "emerging" simply means 'what is coming to the surface'. So I use the term for what is the Spirit of God bringing to the surface in terms of the church that He has since the birth of the church.

He included a quote from another book called "The Emerging Church", written in 1970 by Bruce Larson and Ralph Osborne:

If the church be true to its Lord, it may never properly say it has emerged.

Kimball is also working on a post describing how the term "emergent" recently developed. But the term "emerging" basically came from people who were on a mission to engage the culture:

...to my best remembrance it is Leadership Network back in the late 1990's who first began using the term and it spread from there to be used as a replacement word for the whole "Gen X" then "postmodern" then "emerging church" words of expressing a term for missionally minded churches wanting to engage culture for the gospel.

Labels: church, emerging

Chapter three of George Barna's Revolution discusses the "seven passions of revolutionaries." In Barna's discussion, these are related to the passions of the early Church. He finds the following values characterized in the New Testament:

Intimate Worship - "every believer was expected to worship God every day."

Faith-Based Conversations - "nothing should excite us more than the realization that God Himself loves us, wants and intimate relationship with us, and allows us to invite others into that sacred and priceless relationship with Him."

Intentional Spiritual Growth - "they placed their faith at the center of their lives and derived their sense of meaning, purpose, and direction from their connection to God and His commands."

Servanthood - "the early Church fostered the notion that serving other people was the best means of demonstrating the example that Jesus had set for them."

Resource Investment - "they used the variety of resources at their disposal - money, food, clothing, housing, relationships, influence, skills, time - for the benefit of all believers."

Spiritual Friendships - "the friendships they formed provided not only encouragement but also loving accountability for spiritual integrity."

Family Faith - "parents were expected to model a Spirit-led lifestyle for their children... in a very real sense, the home was the early Church - supplemented by larger gatherings in the Temple and elsewhere, but never replaced by what took place in the homes of believers."

There is an organization that evaluates local churches using a process called "Natural Church Development," and using data compiled over decades, they have identified certain factors of churches that are thriving and having an impact, which they use to assess and help churches improve. Those factors are:

Empowering Leadership
Gift-Oriented Ministry
Passionate Spirituality
Functional Structures
Inspiring Worship
Holistic Small Groups
Need-Oriented Evangelism
Loving Relationships

It was interesting to me to see Barna's list being quite similar. Of course, Barna took his list out of examples in Acts, whereas the NCD process was "discovered" empirically. Truth is truth, though, no matter what process you use to arrive at it.

In chapter 4, however, Barna analyzes the current state of local churches using his seven principles. This is the depressing part. He had a lot of statistics, and I won't repeat all of them (I'd be copying too much of the book).

An example or two from each section, however, will suffice. First, know that he defines "believers" as "people who have confessed their sins, asked God for forgiveness, accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, are confident of their salvation solely because of the grace extended to them by God, and regularly participate in the life of a Christian congregation." This definition makes the following statistics even more depressing.

Intimate Worship - "eight out of every ten believers do not feel they have entered into the presence of God, or experienced a connection with Him, during the worship service." "Only one out of every four churched believers says that when they worship God, they expect Him to be the primary beneficiary of their worship. (Most people say they expect to get the most from the experience.)"

Faith-Based Conversations - "the typical churched believer will die without leading a single person to a lifesaving knowledge of and relationship with Jesus Christ."

Intentional Spiritual Growth - "when asked what constitutes success in life, few believers define success in spiritual terms. Most describe outcomes related to professional achievement, family solidarity, physical accomplishments, or resource acquisition."

Servanthood - "the typical believer would rather give money to an organization to allow it to do good deeds in society than personally assist in alleviating the needs of disadvantaged people."

Resource Investment - "when asked to explain their understanding of biblical stewardship, less than one out of every twenty includes resources such as time, relationships, ideas, or skills in their assessment." "Most believers are unable to identify anything specific they have ever donated money to that they would describe as producing life-changing outcomes."

Spiritual Friendships - "the most significant influence on the choices of churched believers is neither from the pulpit nor advice gleaned from fellow congregants; it is messages absorbed from the media, the law, and family members."

Family Faith - "the likelihood of a married couple who are born-again churchgoers getting divorced is the same as couples who are not disciples of Jesus." "Apart from church-based programs, the typical Christian family spends less than three hours per month in endeavors designed to jointly develop or apply their faith."

Some additional quotes from his conclusion:

There is nothing inherently wrong with being involved in a local church. But realize that being part of a group that calls itself a "church" does not make you saved, holy, righteous or godly any more than being in Yankee Stadium makes you a professional baseball player...

The local church many have come to cherish - the services, offices, programs, buildings, ceremonies - is neither biblical or unbiblical. It is abiblical - that is, such an organization is not addressed in the Bible...

Revolutionaries realize - sometimes very reluctantly - that the core issue isn't whether or not one is involved in a local church, but whether or not one is connected to the body of believers in the pursuit of godliness and worship...

Or, to put it more succinctly, the Revolution is about recognizing that we are not called to go to church. We are called to be the Church.

To be continued...

Labels: books, emerging

I finally procured my own copy of George Barna's Revolution yesterday. I got turned on to this book by my brother in law, Ben, during our family trip to West Virginia last weekend. (You can see his review of the book.)

So far, I've pretty much only re-read the two chapters that I read last weekend. But I think this book is going to have so much in it that I'm going to want to talk about, that I'm going to review it "as I go."

To lay the groundwork, Barna relies on the "revolution" terminology very heavily. Those who are participating in this "Revolution" are called, quite simply, "Revolutionaries." The first definition he gives of a Revolutionary is that they "have chosen to live in concert with core biblical principles... returning to a first-century lifestyle based on faith, goodness, love, generosity, kindness, simplicity, and other values deemed 'quaint' by today's frenetic and morally untethered standards."

But perhaps the best definition is this one (emphases mine):

They have no use for churches that play religious games, whether those games are worship services that drone on without the presence of God or ministry programs that bear no spiritual fruit. Revolutionaries eschew ministries that compromise or soft sell our sinful nature to expand organizational turf. They refuse to follow people in ministry leadership positions who cast a personal vision rather than God's, who seek popularity rather than the proclamation of truth in their public statements, or who are more concerned about their own legacy than that of Jesus Christ. They refuse to donate one more dollar to man-made monuments that mark their own achievements and guarantee their place in history. They are unimpressed by accredited degrees and endowed chairs in Christian colleges and seminaries that produce young people incapable of defending the Bible or unwilling to devote their lives to serving others. And Revolutionaries are embarrassed by language that promises Christian love and holiness but turns out to be all sizzle and no substance.

In fact, many Revolutionaries have been active in good churches that have biblical preaching, people coming ot Christ and being baptized, a full roster of interesting classes and programs, and a congregation packed with nice people. There is nothing overtly wrong with anything taking place at such churches. But Revolutionaries innately realize that it is not just enough to go with the flow. The experience provded through their church, although better than average, still seems flat. They are seeking a faith experience that is more robust and awe inspiring, a spiritual journey that prioritizes transformation at every turn, something worthy of the Creator whom their faith reflects. They are seeking the spark provided by a commitment to a true revolution in thinking, behavior, and experience, where settling for what is merely good and above average is defeat.

When I read this today, it just stunned me, because it is the best description I've seen yet of how I've been feeling over the past couple of years.

To connect this with something that Pastor Pat shared on Sunday:

The church should be a symbol of risk, of creativity, or cultural engagement, of the willingness to change, and do whatever it takes to connect to the world around us with the power of the gospel. But somewhere along the way, instead the church has become a symbol of stability. Of changelessness. A symbol of holding on to the traditions of the past. And the world around us is changing. The church has become the wrong symbol. Jesus Christ constantly challenged the status quo, so that people would be willing to risk, to reach disconnected people with the power of the gospel. And we're in a changing culture today, where we need to learn to risk again, that we might reach disconnected people.

I would definitely sum this up by saying that Revolutionaries would be the ones willing to take the risks.

More to come as I go through the book. Stay tuned.

Labels: books, emerging

The third book I'm reviewing is Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations, by Dan Kimball. This book is a sequel of sorts to the previous book I reviewed, Kimball's Emerging Church. As I mentioned in that review, his previous book wasn't "too heavy on practicality."

This second book, while not recommending any specific approach, is much more practical. The first half of Emerging Worship is about laying the foundation -- asking why changes are necessary, and thinking through critical issues before making any changes. To me, this is where the best stuff in the book is. The second half of the book takes a look at several churches (including two groups of house churches) that have implemented "alternative" worship gatherings.

Kimball lays out a very convincing narrative in the introduction:

I've had numerous conversations with younger people who told me they left their church to be a disciple of Jesus in a way that makes sense to them. They aren't abandoning their faith. Many choose to form small faith communities and meet in homes among friends. They are waiting for the larger, more organized church to change. This is no cop-out, either.

Virutally every young adult I have talked to sincerely tried to change their church and brought suggestions to the church leadership before leaving their church. Most volunteered to start something new. But the suggestions fell on deaf ears with a predetermined view of what emerging generations should be like in relation to "church."

The closed minds in their church leadership eventually made them choose to leave.

The story told in this narrative is something I'm seeing more and more in my peers. Some have turned to house churches, but I do believe that long-term, the house church trend will grow into something larger and more organized. Why can't existing organized churches start doing something now? Do we have to start from scratch? This is a question I'm struggling with right now.

Church leadership must recognize that there are distinct types of people that we are hoping to connect with. Kimball describes them in this way:

Pre-Christian: Someone who was raised with a basic understanding of "God" and a Judeo-Christian worldview. They may have had some church experience growing up that was primarily boring or dead ritual. So when a church provides a contemporary and relevant church worship service, they return to the church and trust Jesus Christ (or recommit to him). Most megachurches and growing churches today are reaching this group of people.

Post-Christian: Someone who was born and raised outside of any church influence and is now heavily influenced by our pluralistic culture and values. Generally few of their values, morals, or convictions are based on a Judeo-Christian worldview. "Church" either means nothing to them or they dislike it. Spirituality is subjective and individualistic, often an eclectic potporrui of the world's religious beliefs. They usually oppose the idea of joining any organized established religion. They often have strong anti-evangelical sentiments and a lot of stereotypes against Christians in general. Yet they are usually very spiritually-minded people.

Disillusioned Christian: Someone who grew up in a modern evangelical church, who left the church dissatisfied with the current way most churches function (with their emphasis on the big weekend worship service being the "church"). A rising percentage of younger people are not drawn to the megachuch philosophy or to the church structures and values that they grew up in (even in smaller churches). They desire to experience a different kind of church and different kind of Christianity than they grew up with.

I agree with Dan's analysis that most churches are reaching "pre-christians". In terminology consistent with the modern/post-modern discussion, these would be the people who would be classified as "modern." I also think that we will encounter more and more people who would be classified as "post-christian", or "post-modern."

But I am more and more convinced that the next generation of church leaders are primarily in the "disillusioned" category. They are not disillusioned with Christianity -- they are disillusioned with traditional church methodology. They do not believe that all it takes is a good kids' program to grow the church. They do not even believe that "growing the church" is a priority. They see that what we are lacking is growing disciples of Christ. We are lacking the growth of community among believers.

If any specific church does not attract a new generation of leaders, within the next generation that church will die.

We tend to ask the wrong questions when analyzing our worship services and programs. We tend to ask about how well an event was attended. Whether the transitions were smooth. Whether people sang loudly and clapped. Whether people responded to the sermon. Kimball explains that in the emerging church, we need to ask the following questions:

1. Did we lift up the name of Jesus as the centerpiece of why we gathered?

2. Did we have a time in the Scriptures learning the story of God and man? Did we invite everyone to be part of his story today through kingdom living?

3. Did we pray together and have enough time to slow down and quiet our hearts to hear God's voice and yield to his Spirit?

4. Did we experience the love, joy, and encouragement of being together as a church?

5. Did we take the Lord's supper together as a church regularly?

6. Did we somehow remind everyone of the mission of the church and why we exist?

7. Did we enable people to individually contribute something as part of the body of Christ?

Overall, the highlights of what existing churches are doing was interesting. But the one scenario that I would be interested in wasn't convered. In all of the existing churches that were highlighted, they added a new "alternative" gathering in addition to the one(s) they already had. I see two big problems with this:

1) Most small churches do not have the resources to start a new "alternative" gathering and keep the existing gatherings going, while doing both at high quality. Personally, I simply could not do both a morning "modern" gathering and an evening "emerging" gathering. If I was a paid worship pastor, it'd be doable. But as a volunteer worship leader, I'm simply not going to split my available time up that way. Small churches are working with a handful of leaders, and similarly need to focus their time and energy.

2) I feel that the changes that need to be made to connect with the post-modern culture need to be made to save the church from extinction. We've spent too long ignoring missions. Too long accepting passive participation as legitimate worship. Too long not challenging people into deeper intimacy with God. By starting an alternative worship gathering where you focus and what we're supposed to focus on, and leaving the existing gatherings unaffected, you leave the people who wouldn't attend an alternative gathering in relative mediocrity. Is this what the church is supposed to be about?

So in my particular situation -- how do you transition an entire church into a completely different model of ministry? More importantly, can it be accomplished? Has anyone tried it and had any success?

I'm also a little confused by the degree to which the "alternative" worship gatherings that are described are full of what, to me, appear to be "trendy" elements. I agree with the theory behind "multisensory" worship. But a lot of the descriptions I read about it sound awfully trendy, and when talking about alternative worship gatherings, I think people are distracted by discussions of prayer tents, art stations, journal stations, etc., and end up missing some of the critical points.

To Dan Kimball's credit, he ends the book with a chapter that questions whether we're just going to create a new brand of consumer Christians, ones who are as devoted to "multisensory" worship as some people are dedicated to the popular hymns of the 1950's. I know people are hungry for new things, and the multisensory stuff will feel fresh and engaging for a while. But we need to be focusing on who the church is, and what we do in a missional context, not the trendy things we incorporate into the gatherings.

I'll end this post with a table from Kimball's book, one that I think does a good job of talking about how we should view the church. But even as I review this now, I feel a sense that this isn't just for reaching post-modern generations -- it is for reaching all generations.

What the church isn't	What the church is
A "place" or building you go to	Disciples of Jesus wherever they go
The weekend meeting where the sermon is delivered and songs are sung	Groups of disciples meeting in homes and other smaller settings throughout the week who may also gather in a larger meeting to worship together on Sunday
Christians who go to a weekend meeting to get their religious goods and services	The worshipers of a local body on a mission together
Christians who go to "church" on weekends to get their inspiration and feeding for the week	The people of God who are passionately dependent upon God in worship and prayer all week long
Christians who ask, "What does this church have to offer me?"	Disciples of Jesus who ask, "How can I contribute and serve this local body on a mission?"
A place where Christins go to have the pastors do "spiritual" things for them	A community where the pastors and leaders equip the people for the mission and to serve one another
A place to bring your Children and teenagers for their spiritual lessons while you receive your sermon and sing a few songs	A community where leaders help train you to teach your children the ways of God and incorporate children and youth into the community so they aren't isolated

Labels: books, church, emerging

Last week I talked about Post-Modern Pilgrims by Leonard Sweet. This week I will continue the discussion, and talk about the next book I read: The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations by Dan Kimball.

While the two books both cover a discussion of the postmodern culture, they are quite different in how they approach it. As I mentioned last week, Sweet's book was written early in the discussion of how postmodernism affects the church. As such, it's written more to explain the feelings behind postmodernism, giving examples of how we can see postmodernism affecting culture, and it asks a lot of great questions about how the church needs to change its thinking.

Dan Kimball's book, on the other hand, was written in 2003. While only separated by three years, Dan's book is written more as a reflection of his and others' experience with attempting to engage the postmodern mindset. But the book isn't too heavy on practicality. He purposely stops short of making strong suggestions on how to conduct worship gatherings, because each group needs to determine their own specific direction.

The first half of the book is "deconstruction." It explains postmodernism rather well -- in fact, a lot of the summary I gave of postmodernism in my last post came out of this book, not Leonard Sweet's book. But more than that, he analyzes problems the postmodern mindset has with the modern church. The second half of the book is "reconstruction," trying to get a glimpse of what the emerging church will look like -- where it is that we're going.

Another term I feel that I need to discuss is this "emerging" thing. Like "postmodern," a lot of people aren't really comfortable with it, and I'm not sure I like the term, either. But it represents the transitional point at which we are at -- we are not fully out of modernism, and we are not fully into whatever "postmodernism" represents. We're somewhere between the two. Likewise, we don't really know where the church will end up in all of this: it is all a work in progress.

So "emerging" refers to the idea that we don't know exactly what the church will look like once it's "emerged" into postmodernism. "Emerging" doesn't specifically refer to any style of worship, in terms of music, or liturgy, or schedule. It refers primarily to changing our church culture to move away from the "seeker-sensitive" model of gatherings into a more "vintage" model of gatherings -- one that represents our rich heritage, and incorporates deep spirituality and building strong community as focal points of our gatherings.

But as Kimball explains, "rethinking the emerging church involves rethinking almost everything we do. The worship service is but one part of it."

"Postmodernity and the spiritual relativism it brings completely pulls the rug out from under most of our current, modern ministry strategy and methodology." What does this mean? It means that we can take nothing for granted. (Sound familiar?) It means that we can't assume any of the programs or approaches that we used to use will still work.

Most who read that sentence will know that I'm thinking about how that applies to things like how we schedule our gathering time, what styles we use, etc. But we also have to be willing to think about that in terms of the approach we're used to taking. Do we need flashy high-production-value presentations in the postmodern culture? Kimball would say no. I'm starting to agree. They might not hurt so much, but they might not help so much, either. If we have it, no big deal, but in terms of what we pursue, it has to be something different entirely.

Our pursuit has to be discipleship -- being an apprentice of Christ. Our pursuit has to be worship -- being obedient and submissive to God. Our pursuit has to be community -- serving each other in love.

For too long we've been heading down the road of the church being a vendor of religious goods and services. We must shift that mentality to that of the church being a group of people who are sent on a mission.

Kimball had the following table, about how the values of the church need to shift, that I think is important enough to include in its entirety.

MODERN CHURCH (Seeker-Sensitive)	EMERGING CHURCH (Post-Seeker-Sensitive)
Worship "services" in which preaching, music, programs, etc. are served to the attender	Worship "gatherings," which include preaching, music, etc.
Services designed to reach those who have had bad or boring experiences in a church	Gatherings designed to include and translate to those who have no previous church experience
Services designed to be user-friendly and contemporary	Gatherings designed to be experiential and spiritual-mystical
A need to break the stereotype of what church is	A need to break the stereotype of who Christians are
Stained glass taken out and replaced with video screens	Stained glass brought back in on video screens
Crosses and other symbols removed from meeting place to avoid looking too "religious"	Crosses and other symbols brought back into meeting place to promote a sense of spiritual reverence
Room arranged so individuals are able to see the stage from comfortable theater seating while worshiping	Room arranged to focus on community, striving to feel more like a living room or coffeehouse while worshiping
Lit up and cheery sanctuary valued	Darkness valued as it displays a sense of spirituality
Focal point of service is the sermon	Focal point of the gathering is the holistic experience
Preacher and worship leader lead the service	Preacher and worship leader by participating in the gathering
Uses modern technology to communicate with contemporary flare	Gathering seen as a place to experience the ancient, even mystical (and uses technology to do so)
Services designed to grow to accommodate the many people of the church	Gatherings designed to grow to accommodate many people but seen as a time when the church which meets in smaller groups gathers together

Some of the shifting values in this table really resonated with me. I really connect with the shift from the "need to break the stereotype of what church is" to "need to break the stereotype of who Christians are." To me that speaks volumes. It would also make a great slogan -- not breaking the stereotype of church, but breaking the stereotype of Christians.

There were more tables in the book that were also excellent, but the following is a combination of what I think is the best parts of them. These were more values that we need to shift, but there were separate chapters (and tables) on preaching, evangelism, discipleship, and leadership. Below are some of the best elements from the chapters on evangelism and discipleship.

MODERN CHURCH (Seeker-Sensitive)	EMERGING CHURCH (Post-Seeker-Sensitive)
Evangelism is an event that you invite people to.	Evangelism is a process that occurs through relationship, trust, and example.
Evangelism is primarily concerned with getting people into heaven.	Evangelism is concerned with people's experiencing the reality of living under the reign of his kingdom now.
Evangelism is something you do in addition to discipleship.	Evangelism is part of being a disciple.
Evangelism is a message.	Evangelism is a conversation.
Evangelism uses reason and proofs for apologetics.	Evangelism uses the church being the church as the primary apologetic.
Missions is a department of the church.	The church is a mission.
The Bible is a book to help solve problems and a means to know God.	The Bible is a compass for direction and a means to experience God.
Discipleship is an individual experience.	Discipleship is a communal experience.
Discipleship is based on modern methodology and helps.	Discipleship is based on ancient disciplines.
Discipleship is knowledge and belief.	Discipleship is holistic faith and action.
Discipleship is education.	Discipleship is spiritual formation.
Being a disciple and evangelism are two distinct things we do.	Being a disciple is being on an evangelistic mission.
Spiritual formation primarily occurs through presentation and teaching.	Spiritual formation primarily occurs through experience and participation.
Discipleship is something that happens after people attend the worship service.	Discipleship is the center of the mission of the church.

The irony is that the changes we need to make, as individuals and as churches, have little to do with being culturally relevant, and everything to do with reconnecting with our original mission and calling. For example, while postmodernism will demand that we shift evangelism away from an "event" to a process that occurs through relationship, the reality is that this is how it is supposed to be anyway. The very things we need to do to connect with postmodern culture are the same things that would have worked better in the modern culture. The postmodern culture will force the church to be the church. This, I think, is a good thing. But the question is how do we get there, and what will it look like?

We must begin by no longer measuring our success with the three B's - buildings, budgets, and bodies. Kimball writes:

Success is more than having an alternative worship gathering that has become the hottest thing in town, attracting hundreds of younger people. The emerging church must redefine how we measure success: by the characteristics of a kingdom-minded disciple of Jesus produced by the Spirit, rather than by our methodologies, numbers, strategies, or the cool and innovative things we are doing.

It's clear to me that if we hold onto our current programs for the sake of the programs, and we hinge our idea of success onto the success of the programs we've generated, we won't get where we need to go. Instead, let's make room for God to work. Let's encourage each other on our journey as we seek God deeper. Let's be the community we're called to be, so that even outsiders will "bow down before God and worship him, declaring, 'God is really among you.'"

Dan Kimball has a blog where he shares a lot of great stuff, if you're interested in this stuff (you must be if you've read this far!) check it out at www.dankimball.com.

Labels: books, church, emerging

After revealing my thoughts over the past month, Pat brought a few books over for me to read. I've finished the first two, and it's just swirling more stuff around in my head. Consider this a book report of sorts.

The first book I read was Post-Modern Pilgrims: First Century Passion for the 21st Century World by Leonard Sweet. This book was published in 2000, and as such was relatively early in the post-modern discussion.

OK, so now I've introduced a new term that some of you might not know -- so here's my summary of "Post-Modern." In the 20th century, we looked at history and, for Western thought, saw three categories, each defined primarily by their worldview. Ancient history (up to around 500 A.D.) is characterized by the dawn of civilization, authority placed in kings, prophets, and oracles, and limited historical records. Medieval history (about 500 A.D. through about 1500 A.D.) is characterized by the authority being placed in the church, and the growth of the Judeo-Christian worldview, and the explosive growth of written manuscript. Modern history (about 1500 A.D. through the present) is characterized by the pursuit of and authority in knowledge and understanding (basically, the Enlightenment), and the explosive growth of the printing press.

For most of the 20th-centurty, it was taken for granted that we had "arrived." The "modern" worldview was as far as we were going to get. The term itself sort of insinuates this. But as early as the 1940's, and especially during the 1970's, people started noticing a shift in culture. In was a shift to personal experience, suspicion of authority, and a willingness to accept conflicting ideas. In each case of the worldview changing significantly, it was aided by a significant technological change. In the 20th-century, with the explosive growth of radio, television, and especially the internet -- a huge shift in communication by any standard of measurement -- the change is happening much more rapidly.

We are moving into what is best called, at this time, "post-modernism." I don't know anyone who "likes" the term, but we're kind of stuck with it for now. "Post-modernism" reflects an experience-based worldview. Spirituality is not real unless it is experienced. Large organizations are not to be trusted, as they have hidden agendas.

Most importantly, the post-modern mindset has a high distrust of Christians. They are mostly aware of Christians based on their experience of boring church experiences -- perhaps good music or great preaching, but nothing really spiritual about it -- or worse, through negative church experiences. The media, and perhaps rightly so, portrays Christians as hating gays, getting upset about the ten commandments, yelling at people walking into abortion clinics. We're dogmatic, closed-minded, and unloving. They like Jesus, they just don't like Christians. As Mahatma Ghandi said, "I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." This is how most of the post-modern world views the church.

What does this mean for the church? How are we going to survive?

Back to Leonard Sweet. In his book, he uses the word EPIC to convey the shifts we need to make.

First, we need to move from a rational approach to an experiential approach. In the shift to a post-modern world, we are seeing the growth of "experience" industry -- tourism is perhaps the ultimate experience industry. Sweet says that "in postmodern culture, there is no interest in a "second-hand God, a God that someone else (church tradition, church professionals, church bureaucracies) defines for us. Each one of us is a Jacob become Israel: a wrestler with God. The encounter, the experience is the message."

Descartes' famous quote "I think, therefore I am" -- what is considered by some to signal the start of the Enlightenment and the modern worldview -- was simply the beginning. He was attempting to prove God exists by reason (and did a pretty good job, I might add). But the post-modern mindset doesn't care. You can "prove" that God exists, but until they experience God, the post-modern mindset won't believe it.

Second, we need to move from a representative approach to a participatory approach. This kind of flows with experiential, because you can only experience something when you really participate in it. But more directly, we no longer want guidance, we want choices. We no longer want to belong to an organization, we want to participate in a community.

This is why democracy will thrive in the post-modern world -- we want to participate in government, not just be ruled by it. The same could be said for how the post-modern mindset approaches religion.

Third, we need to move from a word-based approach to an image-driven approach. In the modern world, the focus was on knowledge and understanding -- so naturally our words (what we said) had to convince and explain.

Image-driven is partially literal -- using images to convey meaning -- but it also involves making use of metaphor, of story, to connect with the post-modern mindset. "One Coca-Cola executive is said to have declared that the company could survive the loss of all of its assets... providing it kept posession of the Coca-Cola logo... If... the greatest resources anyone can 'own' are images and stories, Christianity ought to be the biggest brand around."

Finally, we need to move from an individual approach to a connected approach. This may seem at odds with the post-modern mindset -- but in reality, the post-modern mindset is not that truth doesn't exist, it's just that it is difficult to find it. And we don't trust organizations to tell us truth, but we will trust our friends, and form a community, to journey there together.

But we also want to be respected as individuals -- so it's not just about communal, it's about individual-communal.

Overall, Sweet's book asks a lot of questions, without providing the answers. This is important, because we still don't know exactly where post-modernism will end up (which is also why we don't have a better name for it yet). We also don't know exactly where the church will end up, either. But the reality is, that for churches to thrive in a post-modern world, huge things need to change. But the biggest changes will need to be within us.

More on this in Part 2, where I will discuss the next book, and get a little more into how we need to change, both as individuals and as churches.

Labels: books, church, emerging