Eddie Gibbs' recent book, LeadershipNext
(InterVarsity Press, 2005) is a great tool for church leaders who are trying to get their bearings in this era of rapid flux (and mounting fluff!). It is my intention to blog through the book hitting on some of the highlights and sharing a few quotes. I'm going to attempt a more bulleted approach -- although I want to dialogue a bit with the content at points. As always comments are welcome.INTRODUCTION
+ "The ministry training I received over forty years ago was for a world that now no longer exists...Today'?s leaders need the courage and ability to risk their false sense of confidence and to surrender their predetermined 'wired' responses, and outdated and inaccurate mental maps." (9-10)
+ Cultural shift from religiosity and churchgoing -- "The only debate is regarding actual percentage of the population that attend a worship service in an average week." (11)
+ Four North American trends -- decline of major denominations, loss of the under-thirty-fives, struggle to keep the doors open, fewer seminary trained leaders to replace aging clergy.
+ Religious entrepreneurship in the US masks the magnitude of the problem. Success of church-planting movement does not represent new growth but a redistribution of the existing churchgoing population.
I might add, though, that it has slowed the bleeding, even though "they have not made an impact to the extent that they have been able to reverse the downward trend." (11)
+ Rise of baby boomers has lead to a "consumer-focused approach to ministry." (12) But that failed to capture the generation.
+ Furthermore, younger adults react to the consumer-focused approach to church and the associated style of leadership that is PLOC (plan, lead, organize, control) centered.
+ How did the first century church spread so rapidly in an indifferent -- even hostile environment? Missional leadership.
Gibbs is on the mark. If we're going to have an impact on the world as it exists today (as opposed to yesterday) we're going to have to rethink and retool -- adapt and change the way that we lead the church. This is a tall order because the church itself has invested a lot in infrastructure (buildings, programs, institutions...) which were designed with the previous generation in mind. People worked hard to get things to the way that they are (and not so long ago) -- and there is enough growth to lull us into thinking that we're making a difference. But we're suffering from a kind of ghetto thinking that keeps us from seeing the bigger picture.
2 comments:
Brad, I'm wondering if it is too late for the American church? Are we just on the 'Europe-track' now and sliding toward a mostly churchless society?
If Eddie Gibbs says, "The ministry training I received over forty years ago was for a world that now no longer exists..." is it not also true that the overwhelmingly majority of all churches in the US were formed for and exist on models for a culture that no longer exists?
I'm not attempting to be an alarmist. I ask those questions very sincerely and with a great deal of concern. I recognize there are some great churches doing fabulous ministry. And there are some interesting trends like the emerging church. But it seems like the church is loosing ground at an alarming rate and doesn't recognize it. Haven't we become Barna's 'frog in the kettle'?
Do you have any reason to believe otherwise?
Gibbs writes of trends "fewer seminary trained leaders to replace aging clergy." That's not a Covenant Church problem is it?
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