Product Description

A 2001 Christianity Today Book of the Year!What will the church be next?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 each have strengths and limitations. Eddie Gibbs, a 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 Gibbs shows 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 quantum shifts taking place in our culture along with concrete suggestions for implementing a proactive mission strategy.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #252603 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 252 pages

Review
Gibbs analyzes the new church models that are springing up and proposes nine areas that the church needs to change in order to be true to its message and its mission. -- Christian Retailing, April 1, 2000

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Customer Reviews

ChurchNext: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry
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."

Dealing with Chaos by Changing to Mission Church
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.

Very academic... but worth the read.
Eddie Gibbs distinguishes himself and his writing in a genre that is already burgeoning with repetitive and less-than-helpful texts as he takes a hard look at the dominant expressions of Christianity in the postmodern transitional period of the past forty years and then proceeds to evaluate them from a missiological perspective.

The academic credibility of Gibbs findings are complimented by his wide-angle approach to the issues, which leave the reader with a solid and well-rounded analysis of the issues concerning the emergence of the next generation church. Gibbs divides his work into nine major sections, with each exploring a polarizing concept critical to the shaping of the postmodern church.

Although I cannot fully agree with all of Gibbs conclusions, he does an excellent job of presenting the issues and suggesting the dominant themes of transition for the North American church. These themes deserve a greater investigation in a theological sense, but to do so (for the most part) would be out of place in this book, which finds its primary purpose in defining the catalyzing issues of 21st century christian-spirituality.

I personally have found myself enriched by Gibbs' in-depth and thoughtful analysis on the implications of pursuing authenticity in the context of leadership, structure, and spiritual experience; these themes, finding their apex in chapters 3-5 are quite possibly the crown of Gibbs work in this book. They reflect an honest personal search on behalf of the author, and offer truly relevant points for consideration.