What will the Church be next?
While new ways of being church have sprung up in recent years,
they have their strengths and limitations.
Eddie Gibbs, in his latest book Church Next, analyses some church
models and proposes nine areas in which the Church will need to
transform to be biblically true to its message.
He identifies these areas as 'major storm centres' through which
churches have to navigate. In summary his nine areas are:
l From living in the past to engaging with the present
To underline the gravity and urgency for every member missiological
training, he cites Andrew Walls, who thinks it is too late to treat
Western Society as in some sort of decline from Christian Standards,
to be brought back by preaching and persuasion. 'There is one department
of the Church, that spent centuries grappling with non-Christian
cultures, and gradually learning something of the processes of comprehending,
penetrating, exploring and translating within them. That was the
task of the missionary movement.'
The spirit of a missionary movement implies:
- the reallocation of resources to facilitate experimentation
- the development of pilot projects
- the consolidation of gains
- the humble spirit of pilgrim adventurers who take God at his
word
2 From market driven to mission oriented
In a desire to reach out to a local population, churches can resort
to marketing strategies in place of missionary insights. A market
driven mission strategy where the bottom line is numbers; where
the gospel message becomes a means for personal fulfilment; where
the entire evangelistic enterprise is shaped by those needs the
consumer desire to have satisfied.
By contrast, a church driven by missionary insights will be attentive
to the voice of the world, even when the tone is strident and the
message hostile.
3 From bureaucratic hierarchies to apostolic networks
This chapter challenges the role of the traditional denomination.
A denomination is destined to failure where the structures are in
place primarily as instruments of control. and leaders operating
within a hierarchical structure see their role as one of delegating
and giving permission. A denomination that transforms its structures
to empower people and release resources will have the marks of an
apostolic network. There will be a transition:
• from bureaucratic authority to personal authority
• from formal structure to relational structure
• from control to co-ordination
4 From schooling professionals to mentoring leaders
In this section Gibbs offers practical suggestions for re-engineering
theological education and leadership training, citing the words
of Richard John Neuhaus. 'What is needed is not the training of
religious technicians but the formation of Spiritual leaders'. He
suggests that every theological Student training for the ministry
should stop to ponder the questions:
• Do I regard my education as providing prestige and security
in the future?
• Or do I consider it as essential preparation for high risk
mission?
5 From following celebrities to encountering saints
It was A.W. Tozer who made the comment that it was increasingly
difficult to get Christians to meetings where God was the chief
attraction. We live in a church culture which often undermines authentic
spirituality by emphasising publicity hype and celebrity focus.
Gibbs suggest that the answers to pastoral effectiveness depends
not on one's ability to develop Charisma and communication skills,
but on one's authenticity as a follower of Christ. This chapter
helpfully explores the benefits of Catholic, Celtic and Orthodox
spirituality, and reminds us of the deep wells of Spiritual wisdom
in the Protestant Puritan and Holiness traditions from which we
need to draw afresh.
6 From dead orthodoxy to living faith
If the basic question in the previous chapter was, 'Is there evidence
of the presence of God in the life of this individual?', this section
poses the question 'Is there an authentic divine encounter as the
people of God gather to worship?' The heartbeat of worship is the
important factor in the renewal of mission. 'It is difficult to
witness convincingly about a God we do not know and love in our
inmost being'.
7 From attracting a crowd to seeking the lost
Eddie Gibbs has a healthy critique of the Willow Creek seeker-sensitive
model of evangelism which has been so popular in recent years. He
suggests that more and more seekers may be looking not in the direction
of the Christian churches that regard themselves a seeker-sensitive,
but for alternative forms of religious experience.
'Good news sharing is not a declaration from people who have all
the answers and have appropriated all that the gospel conveys. Rather
we share as much about God as we have come to understand, and we
invite others to join us in our pilgrimage through life'.
8 From believing to belonging
Gypsy Smith used to speak of the five Gospels, Matthew. Mark, Luke,
John, and yourself. The fifth gospel is a reminder that we can exert
no more influence for the Saviour than the quality of our life allows.
Those who do not yet know Christ need to discover people like themselves
working out the implication of the Christian faith in every area
of life, people whose lifestyles and occupations closely correspond
to their own.
'In other words, nonbelievers will be exposed to the gospel in
a highly contextualised form. They will not be confronted with a
propositional message, but one in which the big story of salvation
history as recorded in Scripture is worked out in the little stories
of the lives of each individual and at the micro level of the local
group of believers'.
9 From generic congregations to incarnational communities
Gibbs discourages churches from basking in the success of highly
publicised mega-churches only to discover that they represent models
that are not readily transferable.
He suggests that churches move from a strategy of invitation to
one of infiltration, to being the subversive and trans-forming presence
of Jesus. Such incarnational communities make a commitment to:
• missionary train their members
• develop as a counter-cultural movement
• disciple through authentic community life
• live adventurously with diversity and paradox
Eddie Gibbs states his purpose is to create a conversation with
the reader where deeply embedded assumptions may be brought to the
surface and addressed in an objective and positive manner.
David Caffey
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