ChurchNext: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry

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Summary: Insights on how the church can reach a changing culture.
Review:

Change is now. Competition from nontraditional and Eastern religions join with the pressures of both modernism and postmodernism to squeeze Christianity.

While new church models have sprung up to meet these challenges, they all have strengths and limitations. Eddie Gibbs, well-known church strategist and practitioner, candidly analyzes these models while proposing nine areas in which the church will need to transform to be biblically true to its message and its mission to the world.

With vigor and insight he shows us how we can move

[] from living in the past to engaging the present
[] from being market driven to being mission oriented
[] from following celebrities to encountering saints
[] from holding dead orthodoxy to nurturing living faith
[] from attracting a crowd to seeking the lost

Here is a book that brings together deep understanding of the seismic shifts taking place in our culture along with concrete suggestions for implementing a proactive strategy.

"Every responsible pastor and church leader must think through the issues this book presents so helpfully. While only the Holy Spirit can keep the church's edge sharp and its salt tangy, I think he may be using Eddie Gibbs to help us keep alert to him. All of us charged with God-ordained mission need to prayerfully think and carefully answer the hour so well defined here." Dr. Jack Hayford

"Eddie Gibbs has written one of the clearest and most compelling books available on what churches need to do in this century to break out of standard, time-worn approaches to building and revitalizing congregations. He calls for fresh new approaches based on a biblical vision of the role of the church. . . . Religious leaders, clergy and lay, would do well to have this book on their desk at all times." George Gallup Jr.

Eddie Gibbs is professor of church growth at the School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, and associate rector for discipleship at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, California. He is the author of many books including Good News Is for Sharing (Victor) and Ten Growing Churches (MARC).

Rating:
Summary: Shooting Your Own Foot
Review: Did Gibbs or any of the audience he is targeting stop to think that they are trying to "save" or salvage something that longs for change. God is a God of love - period. There are many paths to love and to make another wrong is to live in the arrogance and ignorance of a belief system that the world is flat, that women are to be subsurvient, and that particular races are less refined than others. All beliefs that were KEY when the Bible was scribed. If you are willing to except the change of these things, why can't you see that what was heresy (holistic practises, herbs)hundreds of years ago is now recognized for its value today. Stop trying to "fix" people from expansion and personal growth. The experience of God is wondrously beyond definition.

Rating:
Summary: Shooting Your Own Foot
Review: Did Gibbs or any of the audience he is targeting stop to think that they are trying to "save" or salvage something that longs for change. God is a God of love - period. There are many paths to love and to make another wrong is to live in the arrogance and ignorance of a belief system that the world is flat, that women are to be subsurvient, and that particular races are less refined than others. All beliefs that were KEY when the Bible was scribed. If you are willing to except the change of these things, why can't you see that what was heresy (holistic practises, herbs)hundreds of years ago is now recognized for its value today. Stop trying to "fix" people from expansion and personal growth. The experience of God is wondrously beyond definition.

Rating:
Summary: ChurchNext: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry
Review: Perceiving that a generation of under-thirty-five-year-olds is turning away from institutional expressions of Christianity to opting to define their own spiritual journey, Dr. Eddie Gibbs, a seasoned scholar of church growth, suggests a nine key area in which churches need to undergo transforming transitions in our days of cultural shifts. This book is highly recommend for pastor and church leaders who are ministering to people groups or individuals with a variety of traditional, modern, or postmodern worldviews in our pluralist society. The nine key areas for which the author provides both insightful theory and practical application include, "From Market Driven to Mission Oriented," "From Attracting the Crowd to Seeking the Lost," and "From Belonging to Believing."

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Summary: Dealing with Chaos by Changing to Mission Church
Review: The more I read, the more I became interested in what Gibbs had to say. In fact, it wasn't until the final chapter where he tends to put it all back together again that I saw where he was going.

He aptly describes the chaos of culture by one that is wavering between modern and post-modern, a world without a center or a circumference. As he writes: "a balkanized world of warring factions." To this disjointed complexity, add five generational groups: builders, silent ones, boomers, GenX, and bemused millennials.

Previous attempts, visions, strategies, programs, traditions are inadequate in themselves to deal with such quantum change and choas. What is needed the book suggests is a whole new outlook and orientation: one that basically (in author's view) returns to first century apostolic church which was driven by small group of believers committed to Lord that replicated themselves throughout the world. Appointed and empowered by apostles, they were not influential or socially prominent, but operated on the margins and infiltrated all society and turned their world upside down with the gospel.

He offers many compelling critiques of previous church growth strategy, but never totally dismisses them as unbiblical, but primarily as pragmatically not working.

He replaces such with "a mission orientation" which is faith led, and not a paradigm per se to be copied in detail, step-by-step, but contexualizing its principles of quick striking, infiltrating and making the gospel relevant to changing cultural setting.

Much is to be challenged of this, e.g. his fine reference points for the missional church - faithful to the gospel, inspired by the hope of Christ's return, informed and enriched by heritage are softened in this reader's mind by the addition of: "relevant to its ministry setting." He does unload this by explaining it as finding ways to get the gospel across in terms and language culture will accept as relevant. The problem with this is that doctrine is separated from the practice thereof, allowing and glorifying in permiscuity doctrinally speaking. As one astute observer wrote: "It is when the church begins to accomodate theology to the culture in which it exists that the church loses its moorings and begins to drift away from the truth."

He to his credit critiques much of what is wrong with worship these days, however in some cases places too much on work of people in worhsip, rather than God's work to people.

I was torn between three and four stars, so really 3.5. Worth reading and continuing thought about what he offers. Much of analaysis that is helpful to the church, and some fine challenges to all branches. What lacks is Biblical talk about apostasy in the end times and growing tendency to not tolerate sound doctrine but seek and demand teachers who tickle their consumer, individual, rights demanding ears.

Rating:
Summary: Top book in 3rd Millennium Church Work
Review: This is a masterpiece collection of concepts for church in the 21st century. If you're in ministry today or are looking to enter the world of church work you should read this book. Gibbs insight is outstanding!