Paradigm Shifts in Ministry

The church today finds itself in one of the following ‘states’:

1. Think old, do old

The understanding of this ‘state’ is that leaders and church members think that “old” methods for doing church still work and as a result the way they do church is based on these old methods. Part of its core belief is that times have not changed and so ministry methods do not have to change. The result of attempting to minister while remaining in the “think old, do old” mindset is that emerging generations are generally unable to integrate successfully into these types of churches.

2. Think new, do old

People in this state have begun to experience a discomfort and unrest stirring in their hearts that tells them that the “do old” methods are not working. God is raising these people up to start thinking and dreaming about what the church needs to look like in this day and age. They have formed ideas and methodology that they feel can work BUT because “do old” is so ingrained in them, they default to doing old.

3. Think new, do new

This group of people have moved out of their comfort zones and have experimented with new methods that God has birthed in their heart. Most often these people are not your traditional church goers but are able to experiment with new methods because they are not bound to the “think old” or “do old”. This group of people are connecting with the post-modern generation and having significant impact. The danger with this stage is that if this group of people do not continue holding to their core beliefs; “think new, do new”, they will in time become “think old, do old”

Out of a “think new, do new” paradigm flow a number of principles that need to be considered which are outlined below. An important fact to note is that the material outlined below is merely principles. It will require of the reader to “dialogue” with the material and discover how best to work out each principle in the context in which the reader finds him or herself. There is no generic method but each principle will have different out-workings in different contexts.

1. From Living in the Past to Engaging with the Present

It is proven that the longer a person lives, the more he or she tends to dwell on the past rather than living in dynamic interaction with the present or being inspired by the hope of future possibilities. If this is true for the individual, it also holds true for institutions that have an inherited corporate culture reinforced by each succeeding generation. When changes in society are occurring at a rapid rate and in an unpredictable manner, the desire to resort to a protective entrenchment becomes even stronger. This is what the church has resorted to. Generally speaking, the church has been unable or unwilling to deal with the rapid societal changes occurring all around them, and as a result have withdrawn into closed-off, protective entrenchments that perpetuate a model of ministry that has no impact on the post-modern world in which the church finds itself.

The effect of this has been that over the past decades, church attendance has declined worldwide at an alarming rate. Significant writers on the subject of churchgoing trends believe that twenty-five years from now the institutional church will look very different, several denominations may no longer exist, and that hundreds of local congregations will close their doors for the last time. Most of the reasons for this pessimistic prognosis are to be found within society, and the tragic fact is that so many churches are failing to discern the signs of the times and neglecting to seek the spiritual discernment and vitality to meet these challenges.

The church’s passive attitude towards meeting the challenges hurled at them by a rapidly changing society has also been as a result of churches becoming so traumatised by their internal problems that they have failed to notice that society at large is in the midst of a cultural shift of seismic proportions, which affects every area of society. We minister in a world out of control, characterised by stress and uncertainty. If we do not understand the forces of change, they will overwhelm us. The transition from modernity to post modernity represents a seismic shift that can result in churches becoming paralysed in the midst of the shock waves. The changes are deep-rooted, comprehensive, complex, unpredictable and global. These challenges are made even more daunting because the traditional, modern and post-modern phases are not sequential but exist side by side.

There have been a number of changes that have been brought about by the post-modern world which have affected the church significantly. Two of these changes are a loss of sense of self and a marginalising of the church. In other words, self has been fragmented into splintered images and momentary ‘selves’. There is no ultimate meaning, and there are no abiding relationships, only transient encounters. In this deconstructed world there is no place for God. The search for truth has been abandoned, life is meaningless, there is no correspondence between words and what they signify, and the self has disintegrated. The church also finds itself pushed out into the wings and secular society allows the church’s representatives back on stage only on its own terms. This transformation is so radical, and its challenges so complex, that there are far-reaching implications for church structures, leadership, spirituality, worship and evangelisation.

The loss of confidence in previously entrenched certainties, coupled with a growing suspicion of the institutions built around those certainties, has led to a new openness to explore alternative explanations of the world of experience. If Christians are to engage people who are earnestly seeking alternative explanations that are more convincing and comprehensive, however, we need a commitment to listen patiently and discerningly. We must unconditionally accept those who are content to live with ambiguity, and be humble enough to communicate in open dialogue with those who hold a pluralistic worldview. The confidence of the witness must be in Christ alone and not in religious institutions or in the impregnability of a Christian apologetic.

The witness must be prepared to be questioned at every point, not only in the area of basic beliefs but also in relation to obedience based on those beliefs. Do we practice what we preach? Are we seeking to live by an unconditional and radical commitment to our beliefs, whatever the personal cost? The postmodernist is prepared to live adventurously as an individual, constructing his or her own ‘reality’ as an autonomous self, discovering fulfilment independent of the restraints of the precedent and of community.

Who will be the change agents in this day and age?

In other words, who are the people who are able to transition from living in the past to engaging with the present in an authentic and meaningful way? Generally, those most aware of the cultural shift from modernity to post modernity are people who are not locked into the power structures. Those who shoulder the responsibility for the functioning and survival of hierarchies and local churches tend to be too preoccupied with bailing out the boat than to be setting a new course. Change agents are most likely to be pioneering church planters who have no congregational history to deal with and who are immersed in the cultures of the people they endeavour to reach. In the case of established churches, they tend to be those who are arriving fresh to the task. We must also recognise that God may have important things to say to the church through the complete outsider. New leaders are more able to see things with fresh eyes. Leading a church requires a clear sense of vision for a desired future that is significantly different from the present. It also requires an equally clear understanding of where the church is now. For the only place to start is where we are. Otherwise the vision is never brought down to earth, and consequently remains in fantasyland.

Although traditional settings are becoming increasingly rare, traditional mindsets still prevail in many churches of all denominations, whether liberal or evangelical, mainline or independent. This is because the church is an inherently conservative institution, and the average age of people who attend mainline churches is twenty years older than that of the general population. Moving a church through the stormy waters of change requires an understanding of the different ways in which systems work in both modern and post-modern cultural contexts. It requires a team-building ability to group people according to vision, and the gifts and competencies to express the vision in the many pieces of the fractured post-modern world. It requires skills in confidence building and mentoring. It requires strong faith in the guiding and protecting presence of the Lord in the midst of the storm. It requires gaining freedom to fail with dignity by ensuring that lessons are learned and lives are put back together again after defeat and disappointment. In a culture of chaos, experimentation and risk-taking are the order of the day.

If the church does not learn to respond to the changes that have happened, and are still happening, as a result of the transition from modernity to post modernity, then the church will become increasingly irrelevant. For the church to significantly impact the world in which it finds itself, it will have to radically and drastically move from living in the past to meaningfully engaging with the present!

2. From Market-Driven to Mission-Oriented

In the previous section, some of the challenges facing the church in a post-modern context were outlined. The next section takes a look at a common response of many churches to the challenges facing it today. An alternative response is also offered in this section.

The most widespread response by the churches today to some of the challenges is that of adopting a marketing approach. This approach begins by assessing a particular community through market survey. Marketing strategies begin by identifying the unfulfilled wants and needs of the total population or a population segment. Next they measure the extent and intensity of those needs and desires. Then the organisation asks itself which of those needs it has the vision and resources to meet. On the basis of this analysis it decides which needs that it will respond to, explore ways in which they must be addressed and develops programmes and delivery systems to meet the target group at its point of need.

The gospel, however, is not a ‘product’ developed for a restricted market. The church is mandated to pass on the message that has brought it into being to all peoples everywhere. This cannot be undertaken by a simple ‘blanket-cover’ approach, but has to be contextualised for each people group. Churches cannot stand apart from society and invite people to come to them on their terms. Rather, churches must go to people where they are and communicate in terms that will make sense to them, addressing the issues that shape their lives and speaking in their language. People should not be required to cross racial, linguistic or class barriers in order to become Christians. Society is not homogenous and all peoples’ needs are not the same.

Attitudes churches display to the world around them

Christians can become so unnerved by all that is happening in the world around them, or so hard-hearted toward the plight of the lost, that they simply withdraw from the world in a Jonah-like attitude of judgemental isolation. They believe that the world is under divine judgement and that the church must call it to repentance. In actuality, this is an unrealistic strategy, as the church cannot achieve its desired degree of isolation. The vast majority of its members are firmly ensconced in the world for most of their lives, whether they like it or not.

The second option is for the church to exist within culture but take a stance of protective separation. The church positions itself in the world and engages it on an ongoing basis, but in order to guard its own integrity it builds a high wall around its fellowship. Before individuals are permitted to enter, they must not only clean up their own lives but also undergo cultural indoctrination and initiation.

The third option is that of missionary engagement, in which the church recognises not only its distinctive identity in the gospel but also its calling within a specific culture. This option is radically different from the first two options that tend to isolate the church from society. Rather, this third option encourages Christians to move towards impacting society as opposed to being isolated from it. This will require Christians to meaningfully engage in and with society.

The questionable nature of a marketing approach

The danger of a market-driven mission strategy is that it distorts Christians’ views of unbelievers as well as the process of telling others the gospel with the allure of success – the bottom line in marketing is numbers. A church may be completely devoid of spiritual life and still be increasing in numbers and influence.

A second criticism is that it turns the gospel message into a means for personal fulfilment. If the gospel is reduced to a means to an end, then as soon as that fulfilment is achieved, the gospel can be dispensed with. Emphasising freedom and fulfilment to the exclusion of the need for the breaking of our prideful self-reliance and the crucifying of our rebellious spirit loses the essential paradox that is at the heart of the message.

A third issue concerns the consequences of basing one’s message on meeting human needs. When meeting the needs of individuals is made the determining factor, then there is a serious danger that the message itself will become distorted and edited down in the interest of relevance and immediacy. If the church’s goal is to meet felt needs, then the danger arises that the entire enterprise will be shaped primarily by those needs that the consumer desires to have satisfied. This consumer orientation in the church echoes the retailing industry’s maxim: The customer is always right. Some Christians might legitimately worry that this emphasis on consumer sovereignty might undermine the integrity of the church’s witness. Basing a gospel presentation on meeting human needs not only results in a shallow identification of the nature of the human predicament, but leads to an escalation of demands that eventually overwhelm. Meeting needs does not always satisfy needs; it often stokes further ones and raises the pressure of eventual disillusionment. Generating a climate in which people demand to have their needs met creates an addictive situation, with people becoming increasingly strident and unreasonable in their demands. An obsession with need results in consumer indifference to specific, genuine, real needs. If true needs are a first step towards faith and prayers, false needs are the opposite.

Interpreting ministry in the New Testament from a marketing perspective

In reviewing the ministry of Jesus there are certain aspects with which marketers can identify. Jesus was acutely aware of people’s felt needs: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, delivering the demon possessed. Yet, in the final analysis, it was not the demands of the people that determined Jesus’ agenda. He came to do the will of His Father, and He restricted Himself to what He saw the Father doing. He did not attempt to heal every sick person, deliver everyone who was demon-possessed and feed every hungry individual.

Also, our Lord not only ministered to meet those needs that people confessed to Him, but He went on to uncover needs of which they were not aware that they had tried to conceal. The example of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus is a case in point. He had to face the fact that his riches had become an obstacle in his life, and refusing to do so, he went away sorrowful. (Matt 19:16-30).

The underlying issue is that all marketing insights must be viewed with caution and discernment. They can be used for wrong ends and can be misused in a manipulative manner. Furthermore, the Christian church must not be subverted by a modern mentality into thinking that there is a technological solution to every problem. In communicating the gospel our confidence is not in the effectiveness of our techniques but in the inherent power of the message. Churches that adopt a market-driven approach to ministry also jeopardise their own integrity. It should not be the customer that determines the agenda of the church, but the Lord, whom the church is called to worship and obey.

An alternative approach to the market-driven orientation is for the church to become what has become known as a ‘missional church’.

What is a ‘missional church’?

The term ‘missional’ draws attention to the essential nature and vocation of the church as God’s called and sent people. It sees the church primarily as the instrument of God’s mission. A church that is missional understands that God’s mission calls and sends the church of Jesus Christ to be a missionary church in its own society and in the cultures in which it finds itself. Mission is the result of God’s initiative, rooted in God’s purposes to restore and heal creation. Mission means ‘sending’, and it is the central biblical theme describing the purpose of God’s action in human history.

The following twelve are empirical indicators of a missional church:

1. It is a church that proclaims the gospel

2. It is a community where all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus

3. The Bible is normative in the life of the church

4. The church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death and resurrection of its Lord

5. The church seeks to discern God’s specific missional vocation for the entire community and for all its members

6. Christians behave Christianly towards one another

7. The church is a community that practices reconciliation

8. People within the community hold themselves accountable to one another in love

9. The church practices hospitality

10. Worship is the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future

11. The church is a community that has a vital public witness

12. There is a recognition that the church itself is an incomplete expression of the reign of God

The above represents a process of becoming, rather than a state of being. It is a goal to strive for, if seldom fully realised. It forces us to recognise that the church here on earth is both imperfect and incomplete.

How can the missional nature of the church be rediscovered?

The missional church will need to examine the Scriptures constantly, bringing different questions to the text in the light of changing circumstances and new insights that arise out of engaging with the culture. It must also recognise that it brings to the text its own biases and limited range of vision. The local church will therefore always need the witness of the wider church to point out those aspects that are being overlooked, whether deliberately or intentionally. The wider church brings the richness of its own understanding and experience of the gospel into the cultural setting of the local church.

The missional church must also be attentive to the voice of the world, even when the tone is strident and the message is hostile. We need to acknowledge that God may have something very important to say to the church through its strongest critics.

A second and equally important realization that must dawn upon the church is that mission is not a one-way movement but one that entails the willingness to receive as well as the desire to go. Churches throughout the western world are becoming increasingly aware of their need to learn from churches in the Majority World (Africa, Asia, South America). These mission churches that have learned to witness effectively in situations that are both pluralistic and hostile to Christianity, and where local congregations have few material resources and yet are rich in their testimony, have much to teach us.

What is beyond dispute is that change is coming at the church at an escalating pace, and the world is becoming an increasingly polluted and dangerous place. The planet does appear to be fitted with a time clock. But whenever the Lord returns, sooner or later, each generation of Christians is responsible to make the gospel known as widely as possible to its own generation.

In conclusion, in making Jesus known it must be remembered that mission can never be reduced to marketing. Otherwise its motivational drive will be subverted by promotional considerations. The church’s outreach may be informed by marketing insights, but it must never become market-driven, because mission proceeds from the heart of God. In order to meet some of the challenges facing the church today it will need to move away from a market-driven approach to a mission-orientation.

3. From bureaucratic hierarchies to apostolic networks

The transition from modernity to post modernity has contributed to the collapse of an integrated and self-contained worldview. Now we are faced with a fragmented society characterised by confrontation as each piece strives to secure its own survival and extend its power base. It is also a society of discontinuous change, which has rendered long-term strategic planning all but impossible. Targets have moved after you have fired the arrow, new targets pop up in unexpected places, and we are trying to take aim from a lurching platform! This cultural chaos has affected all institutions, including churches.

This chaos poses particular challenges for leadership in general, which includes church leadership. What are some of those challenges facing the leaders of the church today?

- Increasing diversity

In a post-modern world, diversity is celebrated. This should not come as a threat to biblically informed Christians, because creativity and variety are characteristics of the world that God created and that He saw was very good. The church is an organic miracle of diversity expressed in a unity of purpose.

- Distrust of institutional authority

In the post-modern world, rejection of authority and institutions is stronger than ever. This sense of distrust has clear implications for the church. Its authority base must be less positional and far more relational than in previous generations. In other words, authority is invested not by virtue of the office bestowed but by the trust and respect that are earned.

- Financial concerns

Thousands of churches with small, aging and dwindling congregations are finding themselves in a financially precarious position. Many manage to keep their doors open only because they can draw upon endowments or outside subsidies. Denominational churches are suffering particularly where denominational loyalty is on the decline. Church members resent their dwindling resources being siphoned off to shore up bureaucracies they no longer trust. Benefactors and donors in the twenty-first century will not be interested in shoring up failing causes; they will require a return on their investment.

- Increasing pastoral load

In an age when the family structure is under so much pressure, pastoral loads have increased. There are many dysfunctional families, young families without the support of the extended family, single parents and an aging population. In order to respond to so many pastoral demands, leaders must establish relational networks to provide the support everyone needs, so that 80% of the pastoral needs are met by small groups.

- Control issues

‘Do denominational leaders disempower others?’ This is an important question to ask as some denominational leaders sometimes protect and consolidate their position by creating rules that strip subordinate churches of their independence. Church leaders must learn that people need to be released to use their God-given gifts in response to a God-given calling. The task of the leader is to serve in a mentoring relationship of mutual accountability, so that discernment may be exercised to identify the true motivation of the person being mentored while providing wise counsel and spiritual support. People must be free to make their decisions and to carry the responsibility for the course of action to which they commit themselves.

The changing shape of western Protestantism
As we see the demise of one section of the church happening (particularly those traditions that are centrally organised with a hierarchical system), we see the flowering of another.

One of the signs of this changing shape is the emergence of ‘new apostolic networks’. In other words, these new churches have a new authority structure. We are seeing a transition from bureaucratic authority to personal authority, from legal structure to relational structure, from control to co-ordination and from rational leadership to charismatic leadership.

In recent decades there has been a welcome, renewed emphasis on the apostolic calling of the church. This apostolic ministry is seen in terms of the restoration of the first-century role of apostle:

• · restoring the New Testament office of the apostle
• · imparting Christ’s apostolic anointing to equip, mature and activate the people of God
• · a dramatic revival of supernatural signs, wonders and miracles of the kinds that followed the first-century apostles
• · a worldwide deployment of thousands of apostles; their development will transcend groups, denominational hierarchies and agencies , and will not be the work of any one organisation

Apostolic leadership, as experienced in the first century of the church, cannot be replicated in the vastly different scenario of the twenty-first century. For the first century represented a pioneering phase of missionary expansion, with brand-new communities of believers brought to birth in pagan contexts. New churches were being led by recent converts who were dependent on oral teaching that came to them with an apostolic guarantee of authenticity.

Today there are countless local churches that benefit from the leadership of the biblically literate and spiritually mature ministers and laypersons. But the church is far too fragmented and multi-layered for apostolic authority to assume leadership of a geographical region. Consequently, what is emerging is a ‘network’ led by an apostle. This leadership may be exercised over a number of churches that choose to associate with the network and place themselves under the ‘covering’ of a particular apostolic leader. Or the congregations may be part of a network by virtue of having been planted by the mother church of an apostolic fellowship of churches. The function is no less vital today, but it will be expressed in varying ways and modified by changing circumstances.

The age of networks

It has already been stated that the western world today is characterised by the era of discontinuous change. Whereas hierarchies can operate in societies that are homogenous and centralised, they begin to fall apart when societies become pluralistic and each segment develops its own agenda. Some of the characteristics of networks are outlined briefly below:

- Flattening of organisational structures

The network-based movement represents a significant change in the decision-making process. In the hierarchical pyramid, decision-makers are removed from the scene of action and delegate their decisions to the people responsible for their implementation; but in the network, decision-makers are available when needed to ratify a decision.

- Relational dynamics

In networking organisations, authority is based on relationships, not on status or position. Individuals who can build strong relationships and expand networks of people are those who relate well to one another and who exercise incredible influence within networks. Leadership in a network is precarious because the authority of the leaders can be challenged at any time. Individuals and groups are free to sever their links and to start independent networks. Whenever possible, leaders of existing networks celebrate the creation of new networks because it honours their own leadership in developing a new generation of entrepreneurs. This results in greater overall growth and further opportunities for creative innovation.

- Permission-giving

To move from a delegating to a permission-giving leadership and management style requires significant adjustments. Controllers operate from a premise of distrust and suspicion. They build dependency networks around themselves, which bolster their egos and ensure their position by making them indispensable. Items requiring decisions are pushed up the layers of management. Controllers tend to be insecure people who surround themselves with ‘clones’ or individuals of lesser ability who will pose no threat.

Permissions-givers, by contrast, are secure individuals who trust their team members and acknowledge their expertise in their particular area of ministry. They work closely with each team member in a mentoring relationship. Organisation is fluid, not represented in a hierarchical and departmentalised way typical of organisational charts. Rather, the leadership team reconfigures according to the issue being addressed, and outside resource persons are invited to join to bring their expertise and insights. Permission-givers are ambitious for the people working around them and are not intimidated by the people more able than themselves. Permission-givers are in the business of growing people, not of ‘cloning’ people.

- Equipping

Networking organisations train people on the job. The best models ensure that theory and application go hand in hand. Theory informs practice, but – equally important – practice develops new theories.

- Empowerment

Church leaders are prone to disempower the people of God through the exercise of restrictive controls that exclude the laity from ministry and from taking initiative. With even more devastating consequences, they may fail to recognise the calling of laypersons in the world as their primary area of ministry. The people of God are disenfranchised when their primary ministry is ignored and when the preaching and teaching in the church ignore the questions and challenges of the workplace. The issue therefore is not ‘how to get the laity involved in the ministry of the church’ but ‘how to get the church involved in the ministry of the laity!’ In networking organisations, hierarchies are dismantled, and the focus is placed on supporting people to function beyond their church commitments. This requires leaders to keep in touch with the situations in which people live and work, and to keep restructuring the church so that its fellowship and support are available at the point of need.

- Diversification

Networking churches consist of a range of self-organising ministry teams. The range will be in constant flux as some teams disband when they are no longer needed, while others are formed around people who have identified a fresh need they feel called to meet. Teams are not elected, representative bodies. Instead, they are formed by invitation or by calling volunteers with specific skills and experience. However, in order to be a team member, a firm commitment has to be made. Each team recognises itself as one team among many, and perceives that together the teams make up the church, with the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

- Decentralisation

The pyramidal structures inherited from the past need to be replaced by a much more democratised structure with a high degree of decentralisation and empowerment in the present cultural context. In order to achieve decentralisation without experiencing the chaos of fragmentation, the church will need leaders with a strong commitment to vision and values. It will also require a steering committee that is in close touch with the team leaders. The challenges for a church moving from a centralised, programmatic mindset to becoming a networking entity are great. The transition will need to be made slowly, with two operational modes functioning side by side during the transition period. The same individuals cannot be committed to both modes. Some leaders will not be able to make the transition and will need to be given the opportunity to step aside gracefully.

- Accountability

One downside in the network organisation is that relationships can become loose and self-serving. And leaders may emerge whom, through force of personality, through misuse of their God-given charisma, or because of their sheer creative genius, end up assuming too prominent position. They become increasingly dictatorial and arrogant, and their demise can unravel the entire network. At all points in a network there needs to be mutual accountability, not only for the safety of the network but for the spiritual well-being of the participants.

- Exponential growth of potential networks

By definition a network is an open-ended system. The larger the network the greater its potential for growth, because growth very often occurs through initiatives taken at the periphery rather than through directives issued from the centre. The periphery does not represent distance from power. Rather, it is where the bulk of the significant action takes place.

In conclusion, networks gain added strength and influence through partnerships with yet other networks as they form relationships that work to their mutual advantage. Healthy networks are concerned not with control but with empowerment; this means that they are able to work co-operatively and not in competition with other networks.

4. From training specialists to mentoring leaders

Another principle to be considered is a shift in thinking that moves away from the idea that it is the seminary or theological college’s responsibility to train leaders. Generally, the end result of seminary / theological training is that trained specialists are produced rather than leaders who are able to lead the church through the stormy waters of change required within a post-modern society. Rather, the challenge is posed to churches that they need to play a far more active part in recruiting and mentoring individuals they deem suitable for receiving further training.

Pastors involved in ministry to the congregation and mission to the community in the post-Christian and neopagan world will find that they are in leadership vocations that have less and less social acceptance and professional affirmation. Tomorrow’s leaders are unlikely to be the respected figures in their communities that yesterday’s clergy were. They must be prepared to make significant personal sacrifices in ministry. Those assuming leadership must not consider their calling primarily in terms of a professional career path but as a holy calling with minimal material rewards. They must be able to operate with few resources, think creatively and live the life of day-to-day trust in the Lord’s provision and guidance.

People who are being prepared for ministry need to be challenged to consider it as essential preparation for a high-risk mission. During our preparation for ministry, as well as in the performance of ministry, we need to reflect on the price paid by our Lord and by those who came after Him. There are many passages in Scripture that state frankly and sometimes in graphic detail the sufferings and privations that the leaders in the early church endured.

Another consideration is that more and more theological students will probably find themselves in a position, either during or at the end of their training, where there is no job open to them in an existing church. Rather, they will have to be ready to plant a new church, not as an isolated church-planter, but as a member of an entrepreneurial team of ‘dreamers’ with a God-given vision. Church planting will become an increasing priority due to the closure of many small churches that are no longer viable and are unable to adapt to a new challenge. It will also be significant because many of today’s churches are unlikely to be able to win for Christ and disciple those under thirty-five.

Leadership in the Christian community

It is imperative that people preparing themselves for ministry are properly trained and mentored within the leadership arena. This is equally important for those who are already functioning in a ministry context as it takes a leader to mentor other leaders. Within a networking environment, leaders need to be taught that leadership does not consist in persons being appointed to positions, either by their being proposed or by their being elected through a political ballot. Leadership emerges through demonstrated competence in specific areas. It also entails an ability to work alongside others in such a way that relationships deepen and ideas are generated that give rise to further ideas.

Networking leaders are not jealous of one another’s positions. Instead, they recognise the gifts of those around them. They do not feel threatened and ‘upstaged’ by persons with greater expertise in areas vital to the success of a project. They are ambitious for the people around them. Networking leaders see structures in terms of organic interconnectedness and not as an inflexible, mechanistic framework.

George Barna provides a definition of leadership that is compatible with some of what has been outlined above: ‘A Christian leader is someone who is called by God to lead and possesses virtuous character and effectively motivates, mobilises resources, and directs people toward the fulfilment of a jointly embraced vision from God.’ In an uncertain and rapidly changing environment, it is even more important that leaders demonstrate courage and dependability. As values are being questioned and renegotiated, character is as important as charisma and competencies. Before people are prepared to follow someone, they want to know that the person is one they can trust.

Just as it takes a disciple to make a disciple, so it takes a leader to mentor leaders. The problem is that individuals with leadership gifts do not, as a rule, mentor many pastors and potential leaders in the various ministries of the church. What is needed today is not the training of religious technicians but the formation of spiritual leaders. The church needs to play an active role in mentoring spiritual leaders. This training should be designed to produce the church-planters of tomorrow – training people who will be comfortable and competent ministering outside the structures of the local church as witnesses and team-builders in pieces that make up the mosaic of urban, industrialised and high-tech societies.

Who are the new-paradigm leaders? These leaders tend to be at the younger end of the boomer bracket, and increasingly they are drawn from Generation X. This is to be expected from a younger movement. The average age of their congregations is probably two decades younger than that of traditional churches. These new-paradigm church leaders tend to be initiative-takers who are prepared to accept the risks involved in innovative ministries. They are internally motivated, creative and sometimes even gregarious, and they surround themselves with people who share many of these same characteristics. They are the prime influence for recruiting and mentoring more leaders to maintain further momentum in the movement.

In order for the church to survive an unpredictable future, it must take the task of developing and mentoring leaders seriously. At the heart of training these leaders must lie a thorough knowledge of Scripture, coupled with the skills to apply the Word of God to contemporary situations, many of which will have no direct correspondence with the situations addressed in the biblical text. There must also be a stronger emphasis on spiritual formation to ensure survival in a high-stress and culturally hostile environment. This training also needs to provide healthy leadership models. It should provide a mentoring experience that will be so valued that people will seek other mentors in the future to help them pursue lifelong learning. Finally, learning opportunities must be provided throughout a person’s years of ministry to address Christian responses to new situations, current events and the vital topics of the day.

5. From following celebrities to encountering saints

This section deals with the leader as a model of Christian spirituality.

Over forty years ago A.W. Tozer made the comment that it was increasingly difficult to get Christians to meetings where God was the chief attraction. Since that time the celebrity focus of evangelical Christianity has been further enhanced by the Christian media. Much of the Christian publishing world is also driven by the need for celebrity authors who generate big sales. Being an evangelical superstar places the individual on a precarious pedestal of fickle popularity; it also undermines authentic spirituality by emphasising publicity hype and image at the expense of substance.

In today’s world, one cannot find one’s sense of well-being and security in one’s professional position as a church leader. Ministers are increasingly aware that they cannot find the answers to effectiveness or survival in either their training or their ministry skills and experience. As never before, they are seeking to be renewed spiritually and to discover and strengthen their identity in Christ as forgiven sinners and adopted sons and daughters. In addition, there seems to be a more balanced appreciation of the three Persons of the Trinity, as opposed to the overemphasis on the Holy Spirit that was characteristic of many of the charismatic movements in the 1980’s. There is a welcome fresh appreciation of the distinctive, complementary and mutually dependent roles of the three Persons as they function as community in unity.

The answers to pastoral effectiveness depend not on one’s ability to develop the charisma, communication skills and management acumen of ministers leading superchurches, but on one’s authenticity as a follower of Christ. Most of us do not have an extraordinary combination of gifts and are not in locations where we can expand our facilities to attract large crowds. Yet we can still play a significant role as part of a network of Christian communities, developing reproducible units that will facilitate the church’s continuing expansion.

Once relieved of the pressure to emulate celebrities, ministers are freed not only to be themselves but also to become the authentic persons that the gospel frees them to realise. As we move from modernity to postmodernity, the church must focus on saints, not celebrities. Poets and prophets must replace the pulpiteers. The spiritual superficiality that has characterised so much church leadership in recent decades has resulted in spiritually shallow churches. Congregational members seldom arise above the level of their leaders.

Confusion in the search for authentic spirituality

GenXers have created their own religious beliefs. They have celebrated the diversity present in a pluralistic society that affirms toleration of other faiths and alternative lifestyles. The predominant mindset is, ‘If your beliefs work for you, that’s fine!’ Given people’s underlying assumption that religious faith exists for the personal benefit of the individual, it is only natural for them to assume that defining, organising, and practicing spirituality in ways that satisfy their personal needs is completely legitimate.

Like their parents, GenXers are deeply suspicious of religious institutions, from which they are a step further removed. The majority of GenXers did not attend Sunday school, so they are ignorant of the basic stories, personalities and teachings of the Bible. Many have no personal memory of the church, but see it through the eyes of disillusioned parents and cynical media idols.

GenXers delight in shocking religious traditionalists, to the extent that their less reverent statements are all too readily interpreted as verging on blasphemy. We should caution against interpreting their irreverence in this way, because by so doing we miss an important challenge that the church needs to hear from Generation X. Christians need to avoid going on the defensive. Instead, they need to learn to decode the gospel message. If the Jesus the GenXers are ridiculing is not the authentic Jesus as presented in the biblical witness, but rather a commercialised and sentimentalised Jesus, than they are making an important point. A blanket denunciation is not an adequate response; rather, the church needs to engage with GenXers so that together, in a biblically informed dialogue, they may come to a more comprehensive understanding of the person of Jesus. GenXers will also challenge us to turn our orthodoxy into orthopraxis (a term that signifies living out what we say we believe).

With their suspicion of institutional religion, their rebellion against being told what they must believe, and their strong commitment to freedom of choice, GenXers are eclectic in their approach to religion. Theirs is a pick-and-mix spirituality, cobbled together from an amazing variety of sources. They move freely in and out, across religious boundaries; many combine elements from various traditions to create their own personal tailor-made meaning systems. Choice, so much a part of life for this generation, now expresses itself in dynamic and fluid religious styles.

GenXers are able to juxtapose Christian and pagan symbols, the worship of Mother Earth and Satanism. The result is not a coherent syncretistic pluralism but rather a ragbag of scraps from here and there. This lack of focus, however, should not be interpreted as indicating superficiality, because the search for significance through transcendence is genuine and deeply felt. It is the product of a mindset shaped by a postmodern worldview.

It is not for us to dictate how God will make Himself known to a new generation. It may be through experiences that will trigger a soul search, drawing them to God revealed in Jesus Christ. Only as they encounter in the Scriptures the truth they seek will they recognise it as the ‘pearl of great price’ for which they are prepared to sell all that they have.

Increasing numbers of young people who have been raised with little or no reference to the church have become fascinated by the worship styles and meditation techniques of non-Christian religions, and come with an open attitude and a desire to experiment. The approach to God that they encounter in the Christian church must be equally holistic.

The goal of the worship experience is not to bring about an altered state of consciousness as a way for the devotees to detach themselves from the mundane experiences of daily life. It is not an escapist activity but an empowering one – the whole of life is infused with a sense of God’s presence.

The spiritual search of Generation X does not consist primarily in an intellectual quest. This is not a generation seeking answers to the philosophical questions that have preoccupied Christian apologists, such as arguments for the existence of God, the origin of the universe, the believability of miracles or even the deity of Christ. They are not interested in listening to people who presume to have all the answers. Rather, they want to meet people who have a transforming relationship with God.

GenXers want to see individuals who demonstrate God-inspired service to their fellow human beings. They are attracted to people who are prepared to speak the truth whatever the personal cost. They respect honest people who are prepared to admit that there are things they don’t understand as well as to own up to their own shortcomings. And as we move into a new millennium, they want people who have hope for the future. The source of that hope is not confidence in human abilities to solve the intractable problems of war and peace, epidemics and environmental damage. The hope arises not from an apocalyptic vision in which the universe is dissolved in blinding light or searing heat but from a vision in which there will be a transformative divine intervention. Theirs is a faith prepared to live with ambiguity. GenXers don’t mind the question marks.

In responding to the challenge presented by the generations that follow them, church leaders must resist the strong temptation simply to reproduce a single model that seems to be making an impact. Instead, we must recognise that there may be a wide variety of models that are equally effective for reaching different subgroups. In addition to surveying the contemporary scene, there may also be valuable and long-neglected insights from the past the need to be rediscovered and reinterpreted.

Biblical spirituality is concerned with bringing our body and soul into an intimate relationship with the heart of God. It is concerned with holiness, which means that it relates to every aspect of live, as lived from day to day, rather than focussing attention on transient experiences. Its development rests on a disciplined life, without which we cannot live as disciples. It employs the classical spiritual disciplines of meditation, Scripture study, silence, solitude, frugality, fasting, contemplation (dwelling quietly in the loving presence of God), intercession, simplicity, submission, service, worship and celebration. The spiritual life does not consist in self-realisation but in the vision of God. A genuine spiritual search is not characterised by self-preoccupation but must be lived out in community and in love for one’s neighbour. It requires taking time to meditate upon the Scriptures, ponder life and appreciate nature. Then there is the hardest discipline of all in our hyperactive culture, which stresses doing at the expense of being: to be still and to focus on the presence of God.

One encouraging sign of renewal in contemporary evangelicalism is a growing desire for an authentic and rich experience of God, and for that experience to be related to a personal call to holiness and to service in the world. New-paradigm churches are recapturing a sense of the transcendence of God encountered through His immanence.

6. From dead orthodoxy to living faith

We now move from personal spirituality, which we discussed in the previous section, to the church’s corporate spirituality expressed in its worship. In true worship, God is the audience, not the congregation, and those who lead worship are not the centre-stage performers but the off-stage prompters and facilitators. The question posed in this section is: ‘Is there an authentic divine encounter as the people of God gather to worship?’

How the church responds to cultural shifts

How the church responds to cultural shifts has an important impact on the form worship takes in the post-modern context. At the outset, a distinction needs to be made between ‘seeker-sensitive’ and ‘market-driven’ in our consideration of worship forms in modern and post-modern contexts. The former represents a serious attempt to engage with the cultural setting in which the local church is endeavouring to bear witness. The latter signifies a church that tailors its message and employs any gimmick in order to attract a crowd. The focus in this section is on the church that operates with theological integrity, evangelistic passion and pastoral sensitivity. In any attempt to reach those who are not yet Christians or who have become disillusioned with institutionalised Christianity, every obstacle erected by people needs to be removed. The only ‘offence’ that must remain is that of the cross of Christ, where all roads to the Father must eventually converge.

Any church leader applying the seeker-sensitive model must be driven by a concern to reach the lost rather than simply to fill the church. This ministry model is fundamentally a missionary model, not simply an ecclesiastical one. The seeker-sensitive minister and missionary are attempting to engage culture, to understand the perspectives, priorities and needs of the people around them so that they can communicate in such a way that they will be heard. For this to occur, both the medium used to carry the message and the way the message is expressed will have to be carefully chosen and skilfully employed.

In response to the seismic cultural changes taking place, many churches have become so unnerved that they have resorted to fright-flight, while others shout in moral outrage from a safe distance, and still others adopt the approach of sending raiding parties into enemy territory as their primary form of witness. At its best, the seeker-sensitive approach attempts an incarnational presence in the community it seeks to reach in the name of Christ.

Incarnation entails contextualisation because God characteristically deals with us directly and specifically in ways that, at times, can be alarmingly revealing. The entire biblical narrative is the record of God engaging with a particular people in the nitty-gritty of their daily lives, meeting them in the context of their contemporary world of family tussles, societal disorder and injustices, and political machinations. What is true of God’s dealings with His people throughout history also holds true for the way the gospel relates to culture. It is indeed ‘good news’ in bad times. But this does not imply that it is a panacea, baptising culture with a heaven-poured whitewash. While the gospel supports some cultural affirmations and fulfils some unrealised cultural aspirations, it also addresses the demonic element present in every culture. Therefore, contextualisation is from a critical, not a naïve standpoint.

In relation to worship, this means the recognition that all worship takes place within a cultural context that provides a distinctive texture, whether it be the subculture of a particular closed-off, ecclesiastical tradition or a reflection of the broader cultural context. The challenge facing seeker-sensitive worship is to find enrichment by drawing from a particular culture without being subverted by its self-serving and demonic elements.

Assessing the significance of the seeker-sensitive approach

Research indicates that a high percentage of youngsters reared as churchgoers are likely to turn away from the church at some point in their lives. In the USA, the average time a person is a lapsed churchgoer is eight years. Once young people are ready to return, churches must receive them with open doors and a genuine welcome. Sadly, in some cases, the response of churches resembles more closely the judgemental attitude of the jealous and resentful older brother, as opposed to the waiting father in the parable of the prodigal son.

When they return to church, the formerly churched often come back initially with a lower commitment level, because having left once they find it easier to repeat the desertion. They often have a casual relationship with the church. If the relationship moves beyond the casual level, it is more likely to be contractual. That is, they will make commitments but only on condition that they prove to be self-gratifying. And once they feel that the contract has not been lived up to or has been deliberately broken, they will renegotiate elsewhere.

This reluctance to make commitments is reflected in all relationships, not simply with the church’s fellowship. Even marriage is increasingly regarded as a contractual affair, sometimes based on prenuptial agreements. The challenge facing the church is to move its members from a casual and contractual relationship to a covenant. A covenantal relationship entails a commitment to one another through thick and thin.

There is growing evidence, both statistical and anecdotal, that a significant percentage of people who returned to church in the 1980’s are leaving in disillusionment.

One of the reasons for this could be that worship has degenerated into spectatorism and boredom eventually sets in. For example, the seeker-sensitive model requires a continuous flow of creativity in order to sustain the entertainment factor. Smaller, resource-strapped churches soon run out of ideas, and their performance level is often embarrassingly amateurish and lacking in audience appeal. The result is that people become prone to drift from church to church waiting for the next “show in town”.

The reality is that people are looking not so much for worship that is relevant, but for worship that is real. People are tiring of celebrity-based religion, built around the personality and communication gifts of one pastor, and are searching for a church where God is the centre of attention.

Sadly, many of our churches are not producing worshippers. Rather, we are producing a generation of spectators, religious onlookers, lacking, in many cases, any memory of a true encounter with God, deprived of both the tangible sense of God’s presence and the supernatural relationship out inmost spirits crave. In true worship, God is the audience, and the congregation are the participants. Worship is the wellspring of our witness.

At the heart of the worship crisis encountered in many evangelical churches is the fact that our tradition has been too activist to understand the true nature of worship. Many church leaders say the primary purpose of the church is evangelism and growth. Yet the evangelistic motivation cannot be sustained indefinitely without the heartbeat of worship. It is difficult to witness convincingly about a God we do not know and love in our inmost being. When it comes to worship services we see that seekers are not the least bit interested in watching us go through the motions. They are hungry to see evidence of God at work in our hearts.

Worship must not be used for other means that result in its becoming both subverted and diverted. Worship is not entertainment. It is not an expression of cultural elitism. It is not religious education. It is nor emotional self-indulgence or a vehicle for evangelism. Worship does not produce a quick fix but flows out into the whole of life, and then the whole of life is drawn into worship. Worship is designed not to make people feel good about themselves or to help them become better informed about theology and the Bible, but to make them holy!

Worship leaders are not performers attracting the admiration of onlookers but prompters who model the act of worship. On order to function authentically in this role they must prioritise worship as the highest form of service to God. Indeed, in Greek, ‘service’ and ‘worship’ are the same word.

Whatever style of worship is making a significant impact in today’s post-modern culture; the crucial need is to maintain the balance of word, emotion and will. We must eschew the tendency to bounce from one extreme to another. Furthermore, God must be seen to be operating in every area. Our worship represents the bringing of our entire being to God, personal and corporate, as a human response to His gracious self-revelation, then God’s response is even more holistic. Post-modern people will not tolerate any separation of the body, mind and will.

7. From attracting a crowd to seeking the lost

The changing nature of western cultures, poised between modernity and post modernity, with a powerful tug of war between the two sides as well as a confusing intermingling of presuppositions and values, presents new challenges for the mission of the church in society.

In traditional societies the churches have operated on a come-to-us philosophy, but this is no longer adequate when the church finds itself marginalised and existing as just one piece in a complex social kaleidoscope in which the pieces are constantly realigning. The church must be not only inviting but also infiltrating the groups it seeks to introduce to the Saviour.

To become infiltrating is not simply a matter of developing better marketing strategies or presenting an updated image. It demands a transforming experience of God and a deeper engagement with Scripture, both in fashioning the internal life of the church and in defining its mission in the world. Churches will need to become genuinely apostolic congregations committed to living out their faith in the world, feeling comfortable operating on the frontlines and prepared to venture into new territory. They will need to recognise that without the sovereign activity of the Holy Spirit, people who are outside of Christ and immersed in a neopagan culture are ‘dead through the trespasses and sins … following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient … following the desires of flesh and senses’ (Eph. 2:1-3). People who are spiritually ‘dead’ are not aware of any needs until they are ‘awakened’ by the persistent prompting of the Holy Spirit and the glimpses He gives of a more attractive alternative condition.

In their desire to reach the lost, many churches have resorted to copying a seeker-sensitive approach that is working successfully in some parts of the world. However, it is debatable as to whether these principles are transferable throughout the world. The US experience suggests that if churches trying to adopt a seeker-sensitive approach are located in young, growing suburbs with fairly homogenous populations, and pastors with a gift of evangelism and the ability to empower others around them in developing need-meeting ministries, then these models may have great value. To leap to the conclusion that all that is needed is to transfer the seeker-sensitive model from Willow Creek or Saddleback to another part of the world is both naïve and misguided. In the providence of God, however, biblical principles are transferable from one culture to another, and it is here that the studies of large, growing churches in the US will prove most fruitful to those looking in from the outside.

The fundamental question that is raised by the seeker-sensitive approach is: who are the seekers? From the Gospels we learn that it was the ‘Son of Man [who] came to seek out and to save the lost’ (Luke 19:10). The Great Commission entrusted to the church was to go into the entire world, not to beckon to the world to come to it. The Good Shepherd does not stand by the gate of the sheep-pen calling lost sheep to return, but goes out in search of those that are lost.

However, the practice of churches in the West has been vastly different to the above and churches have often relied on what has been termed ‘welcome evangelism’. Donald McGavran expressed the concern that effective strategies should be used to reach potentially responsive populations, and employed the term ‘harvest theology’. This is a concept that needs to be reinterpreted in light of the current challenges facing the churches in the West. Harvesting is done in fields, not in barns. But the problem facing the contemporary churches is that in preparing the people of God for ministry, the main focus has been barn-based activities, rather than sending out teams of field-workers. Seeker-sensitive worship is an inadequate evangelistic strategy in non-churched culture in which 80% of evangelism must be conducted outside the church building. In other words, the church needs to move from the Constantinian model – which presumed a churched culture – to an apostolic model to penetrate the vast, unchurched segments of society.

Seeking the seeker

When the apostle Paul declared that he was prepared to become all things to all people in order that he might by every means save some, he was thinking not in marketing but in missional terms. His strategy was to make the transformation not on the security of his own familiar turf but on the turf of those he was endeavouring to win for Christ, which was a much more risky and demanding task.

The apostle Paul’s strategy was not extraction but incarnation. Paul could do this precisely because he was out among these different people, trying to figure out how to communicate the gospel to them in their own terms. He was not trying to figure out how to design a worship service or ministries that would attract them to a building.

The challenge of reaching the lost is more radical when the worship service is seen from a missional and not simply a marketing perspective. The so-called seeker-sensitive approach will remain significant as long as there are seekers out there who are coming to the church for answers. However, we should not rely on a seeker-sensitive approach as our main strategy for urban evangelism in the coming decades.

There is increasing evidence that disillusioned American boomers are now looking outside of Christianity and that a disturbingly large number of GenXers have given up on church. In their case the church must become the seeker, following the example of Jesus.

In practical terms, what will it mean for the church to become the seeker? In the first place it will require the church to come to a fresh understanding that it is called to live not for itself but for the world that the Lord came to save. The church will need to review all its activities in the light of the great objective to be a sign and a servant of the kingdom of God in the world. It will mean facing a long list of hard questions, headed by the challenge. ‘Is there sufficient evidence within the confessing community that the King is indeed in residence among His people?’

In doing this, the issue of the priority of the church’s internal mission to live out its calling within its own ranks is raised. The reign of God is given; it is received; we are invited to enter. The reign of God also embraces the eschatological tension of God’s reign being a present fact and an anticipated future. ‘The [church’s] first mission is always the internal mission: the church evangelised by the Holy Spirit again and again in the echoing word of Jesus inviting us to receive the reign of God and to enter it.

In engaging in the task of evangelising others, the church itself is constantly being evangelised. Its own members cannot present the gospel to others without themselves continually facing the promises, claims and challenges of the gospel afresh. The gospel is good news even after it has been heard a thousand times. It never becomes mere platitudes from history. When the church addresses itself at the same time as it addresses others, its approach is more believable and winsome.

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. In joining us they will enrich our fellowship by the questions they ask, the enthusiasm they demonstrate and the freshness they bring. The presence of seekers and new believers provides a necessary reality check that at times will be discomforting as well as invigorating.

In conclusion, evangelism would move from an act of recruiting or co-opting those outside the church to an invitation of companionship. The church would witness that its members, like others, hunger for the hope that there is a God who reigns in love and intends the good of the whole earth. The community of the church would testify that they have heard the announcement that such a reign is coming, and indeed is already breaking into the world. They would confirm that they have heard the open welcome and received it daily, and they would invite others to join them as those who also have been extended God’s welcome.

8. From Belonging to Believing

In societies where there is widespread suspicion of exaggerated claims, ploys for power, manipulative marketing techniques and organised religion, the church will have to adopt different communication strategies to avoid suspicion. Its stance must be less confrontational and programmatic, and more relational and contextual. We have a lot of unlearning to do if we are to relate to a growing segment of the population that has either given up on church or for which church has never been part of its life.

In the West, the most widely adopted evangelism strategy was a brief presentation culminating in an invitation to respond immediately to the gospel. The proposition is that such a strategy has proved to be inappropriate and ineffective in a post-modern context. Consequently, there has been a swing away from confrontational approaches towards relational ones.

One problem with the confrontational forms of evangelism, whether in a mass meeting or person-to-person, is that people will acquiesce only under duress. There is a great deal of truth in the old saying, ‘A person persuaded against his will is of the same opinion still’. As fallout to this method, there are many people who claim a ‘born again’ experience but whose lives do not evidence any change of heart or ways. Lone-ranger evangelistic encounters can lead to people making a decision without ever getting involved in a community of believers. Premature, intrusive procedure can result in the aborting of a potential new birth.

In a secular society that individualises and privatises faith, self-confessed Christians delude themselves into thinking that they can survive alone. They revert to their accustomed manner of life, secure in the belief that they now hold an eternal-life insurance policy.

As with any approach, the confrontational approach has its strengths. Those who adopt a confrontational strategy do so in the belief that ‘as many as possible should hear as soon as possible, as clearly as possible’. This strategy emphasises the theological and missiological urgency of the task. Our responsibility is to communicate the gospel as widely, quickly and efficiently as possible so that as many people as possible might have the opportunity to hear and respond to Christ. People who use a confrontational approach also operate under the conviction that there is inherent power in the message, and that with each gospel presentation, the supernatural power of the Spirit is able to achieve God’s purposes in the life of the unbeliever quite independently of the presenter. Therefore, they are prepared to embrace all means that are ethically appropriate in order to reach all people.

One of the weaknesses of the confrontational approach is that it can be intrusive when there is an overbearing manner or insensitivity in regard to timing. The confrontational person often gives the impression that he is setting himself above the other individual. Bad experiences make it more difficult subsequently to reach people who have been put off by such approaches.

However, those who criticise the confrontational approach of evangelists and other Christians who are eager to share their faith with all who cross their path must beware lest their opposition be, in reality, a cover for their own lack of evangelistic concern. When Dwight L. Moody was criticised for his evangelistic methods, he is reported to have replied that he didn’t care much for them himself. But ‘on balance, I prefer my way of doing it to your way of not doing it!’ Some defend the confrontational method on the grounds that it must be used because the vast majority of believers are not accepting their responsibility to witness to people around them. They have a valid point.

Communicating through the Christian community

In a world where the church exists as a minority movement in an increasingly hostile culture, the church needs the strength of community to reinforce its message. Donald Posterski expresses this in terms of Christian communities becoming ‘meaning-makers’.

The world needs to see what the Christian life looks like. People who think God is unnecessary, or just optional in life, need fresh images of how life is meant to be lived. They need hard evidence that following Jesus really makes a difference. In order to engage today’s world with a credible Christianity, contemporary followers of Jesus will need to be strategic. Injecting fresh meaning into the old gospel will not be achieved by buying more prime-time television or by handing out coloured tracts. Rather, the gospel will be perceived as a feasible alternative when those who do not know God have some positive personal experience with people who do know Him.

From belonging to believing

The never churched need to be enveloped by small communities of believers so that they can see the impact of the gospel in their relationships and experience some of the benefits through intentional spillover.

The use of the term ‘belonging’ does not imply that the unbeliever is spiritually incorporated into the body of Christ, for that cannot occur apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. We must recognise that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ, we do not belong to Him. When the term ‘belong’ is used, it means full acceptance as a human being made in the image of God, even though that image is marred by sin.

A sense of belonging places seekers in the position of observer-participant so that they can learn what the gospel is all about. They can observe at close quarters how it impacts the lives of the individuals and shapes a community. Through this process the seeker comes to know when he or she is ready to make a personal decision to identify fully both with the Lord and with the body of Christ.

In a fragmented and pluralistic society it is even more important than ever for the church ‘in each time and place to embody and communicate the life of Christ exactly where it is … Christians are called to live the story, not restate it in the forms of universalised propositions … Christianity is not an ideology to be recovered or a philosophical system to be remembered.’ As communities of believers are scattered throughout every segment of society, non-believers will find those fellowships accessible. They will discover people like themselves, who are working out the implications of their faith in every area of life – people whose lifestyles and occupations closely correspond with their own.

In other words, non-believers will be exposed to the gospel in a highly contextualised form. They will not be confronted with a generic, prepositional 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. What’s more, they will not be presented with an idealised version of the story that will later lead them to become disillusioned. Instead, they will engage in open and honest dialogue with people they know well and consider credible witnesses.

Great preaching and high-quality music may be able to draw a crowd, but they do not build an organism in which all have a functional role. In a phrase, the gospel is about the restoring and building of relationships with a holy God and with one another in the body of Christ, as well as with the wider community we serve. We receive one another with unconditional love. But that does not mean the church is a society in which anything goes. The goal of acceptance is to work towards transformation, not that people should feel more comfortable about their sins.

In a bureaucratic society, the individual is reduced to the level of a non-person. Against this postmodernists react strongly – and rightly so. For, from the perspective of biblical theology, people are made in the image of God, and the vestiges of that remain despite the fall. Consequently, every person has intrinsic worth and must not be reduced to a statistic or turned into a dispensable functionary – a human resource – who will eventually wind up on the human scrapheap.

Among boomers and GenXers there is an apprehensive craving for community – apprehensive because people are wary of becoming overly committed and because these two generations have already experienced abuse and betrayal. They do not want to be exposed to further hurt and harm. Yet they still want to keep their options open.

We live in a culture that is not community-friendly. This is a special challenge for churches both large and small. Large churches face the challenge of ensuring that individuals do not get lost in the crowd but are gently and persistently wooed into supportive and accountable relationships. Small churches risk forming an exclusive group that is difficult for newcomers to penetrate because they cannot get past the ‘gatekeepers’. Misfits have nowhere else to go in a single-cell church. They disappear to try their luck elsewhere, or they resign themselves to going nowhere.

Welcoming unbelievers into the fellowship puts believers on notice that their personal lives and corporate interaction are under close scrutiny. By the ways in which we interact, do we make it easier or harder for the visitor in our midst to believe in a gracious God? Making it easier to believe will happen only as we learn to treat one another in the same way that the Lord treats us – with generosity and longsuffering. ‘Effective evangelisation is the saying of the gospel in full harmony with the being and going of the witness. Within the community of faith, we need to hear the gospel in ever-renewed readiness to have it confront and convict us as believers, whose faith is as yet too small.’

Full of grace and truth

Having been with Jesus during the three-year period of his earthly ministry, John could write, ‘We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). ‘Grace’ speaks of the costly generosity of God toward the undeserving, and ‘truth’ refers to the reliability of all that Jesus taught and his personal authenticity. In other words, He was for real. Furthermore, Jesus did not just display these qualities; he imparted them to His followers. The first disciples bore witness to the fact that ‘from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace’ (John 1:16).

The apostle Paul made the same point, though he had never had the privilege of knowing Jesus as had the other disciples. ‘And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit’ (2 Cor. 3:18).

Yet we need frankly to acknowledge the shortcomings of the church. Critics of Christianity excel in pointing out the wide credibility gap, which is plainly evident, between what the gospel espouses and what the church actually is and does. We cannot emphasise the incarnational nature of the church and its work and then deny that incarnation by making the ‘true church’ into an ephemeral, spiritual entity that is neither historical nor experiential.

Being exposed to the gospel within the context of a Christian group emphasises the importance of the friendship factor. God’s way of speaking to us and of ministering to our needs is through a Person: ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only Son’ (John 3:16). Each friendship constitutes a bridge, both to further understanding and into the network of relationships. Small groups provide a quality context in which the new Christian can grow. They offer a ready-made opportunity for several people to share their stories and explain the gospel in a variety of ways.

In a small-group setting, unlike a one-off encounter, there is no time constraint to pressure people into a premature decision. Individuals who have little prior knowledge of the gospel or exposure to Christian community especially need time to grow in understanding before they are ready to commit themselves. Group members can get to know such an individual, coming to appreciate his or her personality, background and current situation, which helps them to speak the gospel with a closer application. Time needs to be allowed for ‘courtship’ to develop. While it is true that from some couples it is ‘love at first sight’, this remains the exception rather than the rule.

As with any approach, there are weaknesses when it is advocated as the only legitimate way to present the gospel. An exclusive relational approach can result in our never going out of our way to reach those out of touch with Christians and may deaden us to the potential significance of chance encounters. There can be an over-emphasis on relationship building, to the point that there is an unhealthy shift of focus from the message to the personality and experience of the witness. Also, those who stress relational evangelism over confrontational evangelism tend to display an aversion to methodology, tools and systematic strategy. Where there is an absence of training, usually there is a lack of effective outreach. There is also the danger of holding back for fear of jeopardising a friendship.

In post-modern culture there is strong resistance to prepositional statements dropped from above as it were, which have to be accepted without examination and questioning. We need to recognise that many of the prepositional statements about God recorded in Scripture were hammered out on the anvil of human experience. Revelations are not given in a disconnected dream world. They are given as we cry out to God in out extremity or wait upon Him with an issue turning over in our minds and churning our emotions.

God’s big story is not one we can impose arbitrarily. Rather, we must emphasise the fact that it has inner coherence; and it is a story that holds attention because it provides the vital clues by which to interpret our own story (whether personal, societal, national or global). The role of the Christian community in communicating this story: ‘A faith narrative is more worthy of our consent if it is able to encompass a variety of life experiences, and need not deny experiences that persistently present themselves (poverty, illness and death).

Christian testimony contains a number of elements. We witness or attest to what Christ has done on our behalf on the cross. We give full credit to Christ for all that He is doing in our lives through the Holy Spirit and our various responses to His working. We acknowledge what Christ is doing through us in the lives of those with whom God has brought us into contact. We draw people’s attention to what Christ is doing around us through His church and outside His church. And we witness to what Christ holds before us as our future hope, which He has guaranteed to us through the witness of His Spirit in our lives.

We need to present the gospel to people in a way that we retain the respect and interest of those we are seeking to reach. On the basis of friendships developed over months, we take the opportunity to relate discipleship to the everyday – which seems a very New Testament idea that we need to recapture.

9. From Generic Congregations to Incarnational Communities

Churches need to be discouraged from basking in the success of highly publicised large and thriving churches only to discover that they represent models that are not readily transferable. Such churches, which are touted as models for the future, are usually the product of a convergence of favourable factors, including gifted leadership emerging in the context of favourable factors, including communities with upwardly mobile populations. When a vital component is missing for those seeking to build their churches along similar lines, then frustration occurs, eventually resulting in disillusionment.

The burden that runs through this material is that evangelical churches in the new millennium must expand from their suburban strongholds to impact urban and rural communities. Some need to move beyond their preoccupation with baby-boomers to give more attention to reaching those under thirty-five, referred to as baby-busters or Generation X, without whom there will be no church of tomorrow. In contemporary society, which is increasingly permeated by post-modern thinking, maintenance-minded churches need to be transformed into missional communities, which will decentralise their operations. Church leaders will need to facilitate this transition by giving higher priority to working outside the institution, functioning as teams of believers located in a highly polarised and pluralistic world. From a strategy of invitation the churches must move to one of infiltration, to being the subversive and transforming presence of Jesus.

In doing this we need to consider the following:

- Understand the mission challenge

The church’s ministry must be modelled after that of Jesus Himself. Paul sets it out for us in Phil 2: 1-11. For the church to be the incarnational presence of Christ in the world will demand our dying to self – to our self-reliance, self-centred promotion and selfish concerns – in order for Christ to be glorified among His people.

- Get missionary training

The church does not enjoy immunity from the influence of culture. Churches therefore need to equip themselves to face the current cross-cultural challenges facing them.

- Become a counter-culture movement

Instead of becoming a church that is simply absorbed by culture or that vainly endeavours to exist in isolation from the broader culture, the church must engage in dynamic interaction within the culture in which it is immersed. The church must resist the temptation to define itself by its culture.

- Work from the margins

To be on the margin means to be in turmoil, which the church handles either by denial and protective introversion or by warfare among the various constituencies. Working from the margins describes the transition process accompanying a change of state or social position. The church needs to learn to work in the cultural mosaic, acting as salt, leaven and light, bridging and permeating other pieces of mosaic.

- Provide pastoral care, leadership and outreach among each generation that makes up the congregation

The escalating pace of change has resulted in at least five generations comprising the church. Pastors of established churches face the challenge of shepherding people in every one of these age bands.

- Develop contemporary models of discipleship through building authentic community

Discipleship simply means the imitation of Christ. A disciple is someone who embodies the message he or she proclaims. Undiscipled church members present one of the greatest challenges facing the church today. Churches need to integrate discipleship in the context of authentic community.

- Develop an apostolic commitment

In the New Testament we see that discipleship was linked to apostleship. Learning together leads to going out into the world. The vision of local churches is not restricted to activities in the church community itself, but has the apostolic vision to venture into new territory to reach hitherto unreached people who have been either overlooked or deliberately avoided.

- Be strong on envisioning but flexible in strategising and planning

The church of today must recapture the same dynamism as of the New Testament church. The church began as a movement driven by a vision. It consisted of small groups of people who believed that Jesus was the Son of God. These groups replicated themselves throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond. The church of the twenty-first century must recapture this same dynamism, and must not fight to try to regain the prestige it enjoyed in past days.

- Keep in touch with the front line

The inclusion of the grass-roots and frontline people – those who are actually in the trenches, so to speak, doing the ministry – is an important aspect that cannot be overlooked by church leaders. It is the people on the frontlines who are most acutely aware of the nature of the changes taking place around them.

- Move from being an inviting church to becoming an infiltrating church

The church will need to be turned inside out in order to bring those outside in. The church will have to be the church in the world – gathering for worship in order to go out in mission.

- Be prepared to live adventurously with diversity and paradox

As we venture into the world, we shall soon discover that it is a confused and messy place, which is to be expected of a society in rebellion against God. This can bring a measure of uncertainty to the church. For the church to minister effectively in postmodern societies it will need to learn to live with paradox. Inability to live with this will result in paralysis.

CONCLUSION

Adapting to the new paradigm

As we review the churches that are engaging with culture to make a significant missional impact, we find that a new paradigm is emerging. The churches and networks comprising the expression of this new paradigm do not represent models to be replicated in identical form. But they do provide principles to be contextualised, recognising that some situations will yield results far more quickly than others. The lessons in the parable of the sower remind us that we sow the seeds of the gospel in various kinds of soil with differing results: the same sower and the same seed, but different levels of receptivity and results.

New-paradigm churches have a leadership that recognises the centrality of worship and emphasises a transformational encounter with the living God. Their leaders are concerned with equipping the people of god for mission in the world. They are committed to identifying training, granting peer support to and mentoring fellow-leaders. They empower emerging leaders and are ambitious for them. Leaders of new-paradigm churches are accessible and vulnerable, and they have earned the authority that they exercise. They minister on the frontline and alongside their people. They are aware of cultural values and trends, and relate the gospel to the community outside their wall. They are as comfortable mingling with the unchurched as with church people, and are able to gain their confidence and trust. Lastly, they are assured of the presence of the Lord with them, in continuing fulfilment of His promise to His original band of disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20).

Article inspired by Eddie Gibbs