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Transforming a city, nation, or a region

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

One of the problems in the Church today is that God IS calling His people to stand up, speak, and be heard. If they don’t, God holds them accountable. We have too many geldings in the Church instead of the stallions God is calling men and women to be. Geldings are nice, but they don’t bring life - they are sterile. And, as C.S, Lewis said, the problem with the churches so often is that we don’t have the stallions - we have a bunch of geldings. We castrate the stalliion and then tell him to bear fruit.

One of the best books speaking into this is John Eldridge’s Wild at Heart. Then read his Waking the Dead. It is one thing to read these books, it is another to act on it. It is time for the men and women of God to stand up. And I don’t mean just writing a letter to your congressman/woman.

Last month in Atlanta change agents gathered from 13 countries and 30 US states for the 2009 Church in the Workplace – Reclaim 7 Mountains of Culture International Conference. Leaders such as Lance Wallnau, a business coach, have identified 7 cultural mountains: business, government, arts and entertainment, media, education, family, and church. Culture is actually controlled by a small number of people at the top of each of these cultural mountains. These are the cultural gatekeepers. The Church needs to launch a broad-base attack in each of these areas to effect the transformation necessary in our culture. It is not impossible. George Otis, Jr. with the Sentinel Group has already identified hundreds of cities in the world where it has already happened.

Tags: change, church, city, transformation
Posted in Church growth, Purpose of the Church, Transfomation, evangelism, leadership, martyrs, visioning | 1 Comment »

Changes and Transformation

Saturday, February 24th, 2007

I like to talk about change, and during the next few months you will see some changes here I think you’ll like. Here are some of these you can expect to see:

Main menu changes to include The Journey, Prayer, Healing…
Better usability, such as interactive buttons.
The addition of professional graphics
The updating of resources
Additional cool content from Carl.

The changes will be slow and over time. I stay very busy with clients and this site is a ministry of love and calling. My financial resources limit what I can do in a given time frame. We need a new and faster computer as well as additional financial support to put more time here. We pray for that!

Posted in Healing, Inspiration, Kingdom of Heaven, Prayer, Transfomation, change, city-reaching, evangelism, leadership, power, purpose, visioning, web sites | No Comments »

What the Church Needs

Monday, December 18th, 2006

On December 4 I had the privilege of sitting in a conference with Tom White and George Otis as they shared about their perception of what God is doing today. The place where we met was a Rodeway Inn, and functions to the world as a part of that larger chain. In reality, it’s a church that draws over 500 for worship on Sunday, with businesspeople staying there the weekend finding Christ before they head on home from the nearby airport. A few years ago, the motel was the largest center of prostitution here in Portland. Some of those same rooms now serve as half-way housing for kids on the way for finding jobs, Christ, and directions in life.

Tom White had been responsible for getting George in – a challenge in itself with George’s busy schedule. Tom introduced some issues for George, but it was Otis that really dropped the dynamite on us.

In summary, Otis said that we are at a very dark time in history. A time when strange leaders have weapons of mass destruction with the intent to use them and other leaders seem powerless to stop them. A time when political, economic, social, and the rest of our human systems are failing us. And this is not just at national levels, it also true in cities and regions. He’s releasing a video in about two weeks detailing this, but it is short – probably 20 minutes or so. The video shows the story of how we’ve built human institutions with time (League of Nations, United Nations, etc.) and these have all eventually failed us. The world, Otis said, faces almost certain destruction without a supernatural intervention from God.

The Good News, Otis said, is that this supernatural intervention is happening. When Otis did his Transformations I video back in 1999, he had identified about 12 cities worldwide that were totally transformed by the power of God politically, socially, spiritually, and economically – any way you could measure it. Moreover, these were sustained transformations involving the entire city that continued there over time. (Only one was in the U.S.) The video showed what happened in four of these cities.1 A few years later I asked him the count at that time and he told me had about 24 cities. This week is said the count is now over 250 cites and growing very rapidly. This is not just revival, but a supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit with stories you would not believe. George spent Monday night telling us some of the stories. Moreover, he has identified some 550 what you might call “salty places” where the fire has begun to burn and already has begun to explode. Like an appetizer for a meal, in these places there is already a deep hunger for the main course.

Thousands of cites have contacted him to come and help them get started after seeing the first video. George says he has no program. He’s only researching what is common to all of these and reporting what he sees. George says you can’t imagine yet what God wants to do. Moreover, he says taking our coffee into the Sunday Service and doing our chit-chat isn’t going to do what needs to happen. It won’t happen until there is a deep, deep, deep hunger for the coming of the Holy Spirit. In these cites people became desperate for spiritual awaking. Then the Holy Sprit comes. Moreover, here is an interesting quote from him:

The greatest breakthrough today is where the Spirit of God comes down and attaches Himself to the broken and humble. It’s where God goes when He wants pleasure.

At various conferences I’ve met several of the pastors that have led these transformations in the cities. They all fit this definition, even to the extent of these pastors being ridiculously humble. Otis says what he is seeing is much like Ezekiel 8 and the supernatural story there and the humility of Ezekiel.

To hear the sessions:

http://www.prayersummits.net/?pageid=59321

Posted in Church growth, Healing, Inspiration, Portland, Prayer, Purpose of the Church, The Emerging Church, Transfomation, city-reaching, evangelism, leadership, power, revival, visioning | No Comments »

Revival in North Carolina

Sunday, September 17th, 2006

REVIVAL IN THE CORNFIELDS OF NORTH CAROLINA
———————————————————————————-

NOTE: Below is an extract from a secular newspaper in Asheville,
North Carolina, USA - from a few days ago. The thing that struck
me about it was not so much that Revival has begun - but that
there are clear signs of a DEEP SPIRITUAL HUNGER in the
community at large. I wonder how widespread this is across the
USA right now? (By the way, these were Baptist Revival meetings
under a big tent. -The response far exceeded all expectations).

“THOUSANDS TURN OUT for REVIVAL, RIVER BAPTISMS”
by Susan Reinhardt,
-Asheville Citizen-Times, Sept 11, 2006.

CANE RIVER — Thousands walked Sunday from the revival tent
through clay and dirt toward the glittering gray river. They didn’t
bother to roll up their jeans or hitch their skirts, but waded with
purpose into the rain-chilled waters, meeting with the pastors who
submerged and lifted them, cleansed of sin and received of salvation.

Diane and John O’Shields of Burnsville were first in line and had
more than one reason for getting wet in what some revival officials
say was North Carolina’s largest river baptism. The baptism came
as the faithful stretched into six weeks what was conceived as a
two-week Cane River Tent Revival led by the Rev. Ralph Sexton Jr.,
of the ministry by the same name. No one in this small idyllic
Yancey County town just northeast of Asheville has ever seen
such a sight — thousands coming nightly to sit under a giant
white tent and hear messages of hope. Before the baptism,
murmurs circulated throughout the tent that this event would go
down in history. And Sunday, as up to 3,000 or more people
flowed like refugees from the big tent in the cornfield, those
already at the river sang “Victory in Jesus.” ‘That sweet, sweet
spirit’ Diane chewed her nails as she tried to contain her emotions.
Crowds swelled on each side of the riverbank. Wearing a black
pantsuit and pearl earrings, she wiped tears from her eyes as she
waved at watching loved ones. She and her husband held hands,
closed their eyes and mouths and briefly disappeared under the
water. The couple, married for 21 years, decided let this chance in
the water with a reverend, the presence of God and countless
witnesses work double-duty. “It’s our Baptism and wedding at the
same time,” she said, her dress soaked and her face salted with
tears. “We weren’t married in a church, so this is our marriage
ceremony, too.” Theirs was just one among of the hundreds of
stories and reasons people had for wandering into the waters,
wetting their Sunday best or blue jeans. Dee-Dee Carver said the
devil had hold of her the past two years. It’s not that she sinned or
carried on wildly, she said. She’d just turned her back on God.
“The past five years,” she said, her face going from glowing to
pained, “I’ve been dealing with a rebellious son.” She said he was
into drugs and trouble and she needed the Lord’s strength to see
her through. She’s been a Christian for years. But like many who
gathered every night for six weeks at revival, she needed a fix — a
Jesus fix. The polish and shine had worn off her soul and this was
the ticket to fix it.

“I’ve been coming every night I can,” the 51-year-old Madison
County woman said. “I come here and feel that sweet, sweet spirit.
I think it’s God’s way of saying, ‘I still love you.’”

MORE than 4,000 a NIGHT

Sexton began this revival in a cornfield six weeks ago with
nearly 30 area pastors and churches who came together for a
single cause: healing, soothing, saving and bringing God into
troubled personal lives and into a world in a state of unrest and
war. It started July 31 and was supposed to end two weeks later,
but people kept coming, clogging roads and bringing the need for
fire trucks and helicopters.

Sexton said he is humbled and encouraged by what he’s seen in
the cornfields owned by John Young, who pastors baptized
Sunday afternoon. “I’ve had opportunities in the past to be involved
in area-wide meetings,” he said. “But this exceeds all
expectations.” Asked why some nights more than 4,000 would
show up, including teenagers, Sexton credited the Lord and the
times we live in. “In our communities, there seems to be a hunger
to return to basic moral and faith values,” he said. “We have an
unsettled world. Every continent has a madman and every country
is asking for peace and safety and we’re finding none…“

WHAT was PREACHED
-extracts from Ralph Sexton’s website:

“Bro. Ralph encouraged the congregation with the stories of young
people who began seeking God for revival.. Last week at Mountain
Heritage, they couldn’t have class for kids and teachers talking
about the power of God. In South Caldwell County, 125 or more
young people had been meeting at the flag pole at 7:30 each
morning to pray for their school and their community. In Haywood
County, some young people were skipping lunch to pray for revival.
A group of young men from Henderson County had been in the
Mountain Heritage Crusade for the first 10 nights. They had been
fasting for 21 days, and they came early in the afternoon and went
into the cornfields to pray for God to move in this community.

Bro. Ralph asked the question,”If the church of the Living God
does not have revival, what is going to happen to us?”. We have
dropped our defense, we have lowered our guard, and we are being
lured away…”

….”Bro. Ralph preached a message from Proverbs 22:6 entitled,
“Spiritual Child Abuse.” According to a Holy God and His Word,
when we pass up the opportunity to walk with Him and live holy,
we are abusing our children spiritually. We need to invest our life
in them. We can buy them stocks and bonds, but the greatest gift
we can give them is knowing God!

The light of God exposes our real nature. Preaching pulls the
covers off sin, and it brings us to the intersection of grace and mercy.

When was the last time God heard your cry? We don’t know if this
will be the last time God passes by our way. When He is this
close, we don’t want to miss Him!

Over 150 souls have been saved in the past four services! We have
received letters, calls, and emails from teachers, government
officials, and business leaders. The “Cane River Revival” has
invaded the community.”

…”Bro. Ralph preached a message from Matthew 16:21-26 entitled,
“The Devil’s Flea Market.” He asked the question, “What will a
man give in exchange for his soul?” The devil will make you a deal.
He doesn’t give up! Everyday he is on the corner saying, “Give me
your prayer life, give me your sweet fellowship with the Holy Ghost,
give me your tears.” He says, “You can have anything you want if
you will just give me your soul.” He is a liar and a deceiver. He
doesn’t make a deal worth your soul!

When parents listen to the devil and go back to the world, their
babies are usually following them. We need to have an urgency
and a desperation on the Church. There is no guarantee of another
night under the tent or another night to get right with God. Bro.
Ralph told us that we can see a harvest of souls if the Church will
get cleaned up. Please don’t put off getting right with God!”

….”Brother Ralph preached a message from Psalm 130 entitled,
“Why Is God Looking Our Way?” He has been reading on the
revivals throughout history for the days that we have been unable
to meet under the Old Gospel Tent. Each of the revivals have one
overwhelming tie - a soberness and a holy hush along with the
realization that what was going on was from the Hand of a Holy God!…

Sin has never been bolder, but even the lost people know that God
is in the neighborhood. “If not now, when will we have revival?” We
have a generation of young people who have never seen the power
of God! We have no promise of tomorrow.

Revival is not an alternative; it is imperative! The beginning of revival
is one soul who will get so broken hearted that they say, “More
than I want to see the sun come up in the morning, I want God to
meet with us!” Are we desperate for Him? Let us get on our faces
before Him as we prepare for the last night of the meetings….”
—————————–
~SOURCES - (1) The Asheville Citizen-Times Newspaper -
http://www.citizen-times.com/
(2) http://www.ralphsextonministries.com
—————————–

–
YES! - You have permission to post this
to friends or to other groups, etc.

Posted in Prayer, Uncategorized, evangelism, revival | 2 Comments »

The Coming of the Kingdom - Part II - The Strategy

Wednesday, June 28th, 2006

Part II: The Strategy

Jesus told many stories (parables) about the Kingdom and the coming of the Kingdom. A really good devotional is to do a search in a concordance on Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospels and then read all the passages that are returned.

The strategy of seeing this Kingdom today involves two components: one male, one female.

Jesus describes the male part in:

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. Matt 11:12-13 NKJV

And in Ephesians 6 we read ”Put on the while armor of God…”

Unfortunately, the concept here is often misread and we tend to add our own agendas to the reality. There IS a real war going on and we battle against a very powerful enemy that deceives, lies, and uses any method at his disposal to win the war. One of the major problems of the Church today is that most Christians don’t know there is a war going on. How many seminaries, for example, train pastors with a course on spiritual warfare? How many sermons have you heard preached on it?

When we started spiritually mapping my own city in the mid-eighties we didn’t know how many churches were here, church attendance, nothing! That’s like going into a war and not knowing how many soldiers you have, how well trained they are, and where they are located. In the secular world, you would fire a general that did that (ok, I could make a joke here, except it isn’t a joke).

What did Jesus mean? In Luke 9:2 he sent his disciples out:

Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
Luke 9:1-2 NKJV

The Greek word here used for “power” is dunamis, and does NOT mean power to control or manipulate, but rather power to do. In other words, there is a spiritual gifting given to them to accomplish the healing and deliverance. The purpose of the gifting is to glorify God. In the healing the Kingdom comes.

Now take a moment and let’s look at the female component of the coming of the Kingdom.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.1 Thess 5:3 KJV

This is spoken of the Day of the Lord, an End-Time event fraught with theological discussion among the learned minds of today. In a more present sense, however, it refers to the birthing of the Kingdom even as the wars for the Kingdom are fought today. Peter Wager has noted (Prayer Shield) that among those prayer warriors and intercessors that stay closest to him as mentors, about 80% are women. He doesn’t know why this is true, but thinks it has something to do with the fact that women understand the birthing process better than men. And the coming of the Kingdom is also a birthing process.

For each of us, these two components of the Kingdom are very real and active. The Kingdom is coming today, but it involves love and healing. Jesus compared the coming of the Kingdom as requiring us to become as children – a strange mixture of humility, servanthood, and vulnerability. This coming is loaded with what we think are contradictions – the weak become strong, the servant become leader, the last becomes first, giving is receiving, dying is living, losing is finding, and poor is rich.. The result when the Kingdom comes is that God is glorified. It has nothing to do with glorifying us.

Posted in Healing, Kingdom of Heaven, Purpose of the Church, Transfomation, Uncategorized, change, city-reaching, evangelism, leadership, visioning | No Comments »

The Coming of the Kingdom - Part I

Monday, June 26th, 2006

Part 1: The Purpose

What is life all about, anyway? What is God doing, and what are we supposed to be doing?

Jesus made it clear that the purpose of life was the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth as it already was in heaven. In the Model Prayer Jesus told us to pray:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Matt 6:9-10 NKJV

In the Lord’s prayer in John 17:

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. John 17:20-22 NKJV

Jesus spend a lot of time explaining this Kingdom to those that followed, often start a story “The Kingdom of heaven is like…..”.
We see this Kingdom in the Garden of Eden, and then again in Revelation. The Model Prayer contains a plea for this Kingdom on earth now.

Many church leaders see our objective is the growth of the Church. The Church, however, as the Body of Christ actually may sacrifice itself so that the Kingdom may come. The objective is the growth of the Kingdom, and this is done by glorifying Christ at the personal level, as well as through the Church.

And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.
John 17:10 NKJV

God is glorified in the coming of this Kingdom.

Has this happened today? When the early pilgrims came to America, they were looking for religious freedom, but beyond this they were looking for that Garden of Eden – the Kingdom. As men and women moved west, again the move was on to find that Garden. Eden as we begin traveling into space, the search is still on for that Kingdom that was lost in the Garden when Man first sinned.

George Otis, Jr. has spent much of his time the last decade looking for places where the Kingdom has come. His video tape, Transformations, describes what happened in four cities with the coming of the Kingdom. His next video, Transformations II, describes the coming of the Kingdom in three regions. In each case, his criterion is a total transformation of the area – political, economic, spiritual, and sociological. His book Informed Intercession describes in more detail what was common in each story. It’s not just a dream. It can happen, it has happened today. The spiritual gifts that enable it didn’t disappear after that first century. They are here today.

The transformations are never perfect. There is a war going on and at times a battle is lost. We know, however, who wins the war.

Coming: Part II The Coming of the Kingdom: The Strategy

Posted in Church growth, Kingdom of Heaven, Prayer, Purpose of the Church, Transfomation, city-reaching, evangelism | No Comments »

Church Growth Insights - Australia

Wednesday, March 15th, 2006

Anyone doing research on the growth of the Church in America will tell you there is a serious problem. In the younger age group of the Millennials (born 1984-2000), only one in ten attends Church. And this is the generation that has to carry the church to the next generation. Most of the current Church funding is from the Builders (born 1926-1945). This indicates a serious problem for the future of the Church. If you look, however, God is raising up the Church in a new a different form from what many of us grew up with. The message hasn’t changed. God is in the business of restoring us to Himself and the relationship He had with Man in the Garden. And Jesus made and makes it possible.

In Australia, the NCLS (National Church Life Survey) reported that Church attendance, in general, declined 7% from 1996 to 2001. Mainline denominations carried the main part of this decline. Roman Catholics, the major denomination in Australia, declined by 13% during this period. The Anglicans, the next is size, declined 2%. Even the mainline Protestants showed little growth - The Baptists grew by 8%. The Anglican and Protestant denominations together grew by only 1%, not enough to offset the Catholic loss.

Even with the 7% total loss, however, there were some solid increases. This was primarily in the evangelical pentecostal churches. The Apostolic and Assembly of God churches each grew by 20%.

What is really dramatic, however, is the growth of a “movement” that has shown such a remarkable increase that it is already being labeled by researchers as a denomination. The Christian City Churches grew 47% during this same time period. Who are they and why are they growing so fast?

Christian City Churches started as a church plant with 12 people in 1980 by Pastors Phil and Chris Pringle on a northern beach in Sidney, Australia. It is now known as Christian City Church of Oxford Falls and is one of the largest churches in Australia, with a membership of over 6000. It has three ministry schools and has planted over 35 churches. The movement itself is now international and has churches in North America, New Zealand, Europe, and other countries. It is evangelical and pentecostal, with high energy worship services that draw a large number of young people - the lost generation in other churches. The churches are highly relational (another young people draw) with emphasis servant leadership based on spiritual gifts.

If you google Christian City Church, you will get a large base of web pages. Some are duplication the NCLS information and others are the web sites of the individual churches. We’ve tried to select some of the best sites. These sites are listed for dialog purposes - you may agree or disagree on what the author says about the Christian faith or their perception of CCC. Some writers are confusing this movement with the emerging church label, and there are some clear distinctives that separate CCC from this. Remember this in reading these articles, some of which are lengthy.

Christian City Churches International
The Christian City Church of Atlanta (from the Atlanta Journal Constitution and recommended by my pastor)
Wikipedia article on Christian City Churches
Recent Speakers at the Oxford Falls Church
The New Believers by Diana Bagnall
Jumping on the Bandwagon by Hughie Seaborn
Charisma Article (no longer online?)

If you are in the Portland, Oregon area you can taste this more directly and even (if the Lord leads you) decide to become a part of it. Bethlehem Church is exploring a merger with Southgate City Church of Wilsonville. Southgate is pretty far along in the process of becoming a Christian City Church. If we join with them, we would become a CCC church as well. Services are Sunday Mornings starting at 10:00 AM at the Bethlehem Church site in Lake Oswego.

Posted in Church growth, The Emerging Church, Transfomation, city-reaching, evangelism, visioning | No Comments »

Believing is Seeing

Saturday, February 25th, 2006

Carl will be speaking Sunday, 2/26/2006 at Bethlehem Church in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The service starts at 10:00 am. All are welcome. His title will be “Believing is Seeing“.

“Some things have to be believed to be seen.”
Ralph Hodgson

Posted in Church growth, Healing, Prayer, Purpose of the Church, The Emerging Church, Transfomation, change, evangelism, visioning | 2 Comments »

Church Planting

Monday, January 30th, 2006

(posted for dialog)
NORTHWEST CHURCH PLANTING WORKSHOP
MARCH 17-18
CASCADE COLLEGE, PORTLAND, OR

Leonard and Holly Allen will be our presenters at this year’s Northwest Church Planting Workshop. Leonard, director of ACU Press, author, and Restoration historian will present lessons on How the Trinity Grounds God’s Mission and How the Spirit Empowers God’s Mission. These are fundamental, theological insights, not just for church planters, but for every church that is continuing to pursue God’s purpose and mission for them in their communities.

Please look through the attached pdf brochure for our other topics and workshop information. As well as an pre-workshop registration break, we are also offering a special registration price for Saturday only of $45. This includes the workshop notebook and continental breakfast as well as coffee and snacks through the day.

In our last email we considered the concept of DNA as an analogy to help us understand how and why we do the things we do as churches. I suggested that our DNA is derived from three sources: 1) our theology,
2) our history, and 3) our personal, church experiences.

One of my Harding graduate students asked a great question from that email. He is in a ministry that is working with some homosexually oriented people. This student pointed out that we accept the people, but work with them to change their behaviors to reflect God’s intent for their lives. We do not accept the notion that a person has no choice in the behaviors they display. And he’s right. The same goes for this analogy of DNA for churches. While our DNA highly orients us towards certain ways of believing, thinking, and acting, we are automatons, thoroughly at the mercy of our DNA. No, we are able to make choices. We are not destined to always be the same; by making different choices we change our DNA and thus help our churches continue to mature and grow.

Last week I had the privilege to attend and speak on church planting at the Oklahoma Christian University Bible Lectures. There were some excellent, thought-provoking presentations. Dr. Evertt Huffard, dean of Harding Graduate School, reminded us in his presentation looking into the future of the Churches of Christ that the western world around us is changing in the following three significant orientations:

1. The western world is becoming post-modern
2. The western world is becoming post-Christian and
3. The western world is becoming post-denominational

Let’s take some of the DNA strands within Churches of Christ and quickly look at how they connect (or not) with these three changes in orientation in our western world.

In our traditional, theological view Churches of Christ have held a high regard for scripture as God’s divinely inspired and authoritative word and human reason as the essential means for understanding God’s word. Our position has been the word is true. If a person comes to the word correctly, using their mind in “truth-oriented” ways, they will see the truth (just like we do) and obey it. But post-modern people accept neither the absolute, universal truth of the Bible nor do they trust human reason. In the modern world in which Churches of Christ developed our high regard for Scripture and for human reason spoke well to the people around us. Today’s post-modern peoples look upon these items with great skepticism. So here, one of our traditional, DNA themes causes us difficulty as we try to speak truth to people around us who do not view truth or reason in the same way we do.

The second orientation is that of post-Christendom. Europe is several decades beyond where we are in the United States in their post-Christendom mindset, but we are following after quickly. Europeans are highly skeptical of Christianity. From their viewpoint of a century of bloodshed and atrocities that were “Christian upon Christian”, Christianity lost it’s seat of ascribed power and status. They tried it and it didn’t work. That puts us as Christians not just at a neutral starting point, but at a negative starting point, as we engage people in dialog on God, faith and the church.

One of our major themes as a movement has been the concept of Restoration. So strong is this concept within us that we distinguish ourselves as a Restoration Movement fellowship. But how does the idea of Restoration, in all its meanings for us, sound in the ear of someone who has never experienced Christianity positively and for whom Christianity is often associated as the enemy? First, they see nothing to restore or return to (how well I remember our Back to the Bible campaigns, and they were effective in the 60’s and 70’s). Second, why would they want to return to something that demonstrated itself to be insufficient if not deceiving in its promise? The Restoration idea is perceived as irrelevant, meaningless or ludicrous to the post-Christian person.

Finally, we are seeing a post-denominational orientation developing in the United States. I’ll admit, I find it difficult if not impossible to think about the religious world without the idea of denominations. It is the world I grew up with. But my children do not think in those terms. Their religious world is constructed not of denominational divisions and boundaries but of religious experiences that are either closer or more distant to what they see in scripture. If truth be known, they are probably much better equipped to connect people with early Christianity, which did not have these sort of normalized divisions, than I could ever be. Here is where our Restoration theme would seem to have more to say. But, it is at this point that our second great historical theme, that of unity, is brought into play.

Our movement was birthed with the call to unity. Our belief, through Alexander Campbell, was that as the reason of the unfettered mind was brought to bear upon the Word of God unity in belief and practice would be the natural result. Others in our history saw different bases for unity, but Campbell’s was the one which took lasting root. But the world in which Campbell lived was the strongly, denominationalized world of modernity. That world is passing away and becoming post-denominational. How does our unity theme play out when the very structures which made it important and viable no longer exist?

So here we are. We are living in the west among people who are increasingly becoming more post-modern, post-Christian and post-denominational, but our DNA heritage prepares us best to speak to people in a modern, Christian, denominationalized context. What do we do? Do we abandon our heritage and seek for something else? Or, do we continue on unchanged, demanding that those “out there” come into our world if they want to converse? I believe we are called to do just what our heritage has prepared us to do well, to return again and again to scripture with these new questions, these new orientations, and to seek God’s will and God’s way afresh. This seems to be the essence of restoration, not the outward restoring of physical practices, but the seeking of truth and understanding that connects our God of unchanging truth to a world that is continually changing, challenging and demanding relevance to the questions of life. As my grandfather in Arkansas might say, “that Restoration dog will hunt.”

Stan Granberg
Kairos Executive Director
sgranberg@kairoschurchplanting.org
www.kairoschurchplanting.org

The Kairos mission is to recruit, equip and support church multiplication leaders to strategically plant new church planting churches of Christ in order to produce regional church planting movements.

Posted in Church growth, Purpose of the Church, The Emerging Church, Transfomation, change, city-reaching, evangelism | No Comments »

New Wineskins - Where is the Church today?

Saturday, December 31st, 2005

Our post quoting Andrew Strom is stirring a lot of interest. Let me carry the issue further by looking at the church attendance statistics by generation group. Generational definitions vary with the research, so we will define some boundaries here for our purposes.

Builders - Born 1926-1945
These are the people that built the institutions that serve us today, including the church. Worship starts with a Call to Worship, then you sing a few hymns, take an offering. Then the choir sings (at 11:25) and the preacher preaches for 30 minutes. Sing an invitation hymn and go home.
Church Attendance: Some 60% of the Builders attend church today.

Boomers - Born 1946 - 1964
Hymnbooks don’t work. You can’t hold a hymn book and worship at the same time. Worship music needs lots of percussion. The church is purpose driven. Small groups are very important for spiritual growth in this group.
Church Attendance: Some 42-44% of the Boomers attend church today.

GenX - Born 1965 - 1983
These live in small groups. Relationships are big, big. Their work ethic is dramatically different from the boomer - they don’t work for the job, the job works for them. They can’t follow a sermon that is not authentic.
Church Attendance: Some 18-22% of the GenX attend church.

Millennials - Born 1984-2000
These people are volunteers and integrate their witness into everything. They are the true digitals and into iPods, video, DVDs, CDs. They do a lot of multitasking and multimedia. They have a very short attention spam. Don’t expect them to sit still for a 30 minute sermon. To reach these, the message must integrate video, music, drama. They do Internet, Instant Messaging, email, blogging and phoning - all at the same time.
Attendance in Church Today: Less than 10%

Nexters - Born 1001-2005
?

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These numbers were provided to me by Reggie McNeal, author of The Present Tense: Six Tough Questions for the Church. He is director of leadership development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. To quote Reggie, “Looks like the church is working, just got to tweak it a bit.” (Reggie is quite humorous.) Sure.

Here’s another serious quote from Reggie’s book:
“Those whose message is an appeal for church members to make the church successful and significant will lose when the institutional loyalist’s money runs out (by current reckoning, less than a generation away).”

Those younger generations no longer will choose to join an institution. They are not institutionally driven. What they want to join is a vision, a passion. Something that will change the world. They work from small groups, but the groups are highly relational and unlike those of the Boomers. Often they live in their small groups.

This does NOT mean the younger generations are unfaithful. Many of these have a strong faith. It is just that this faith is not insititutionally driven. In the Northwest (unlike other regions) the single largest segment of the population is composed of those who identify with a religious traditionbut have no affiliation with a religious community. Even when people are affiliated with a church, the church is often independent. The fastest growng churches in the Portland area are the independent churches. Even churches that are a part of a mainline denomination are often only loosley affiliated with the denominational headquarters.

We don’t know the size of the early churches or their organization structure, but we know they had vision and passion. They were dying for it. Read Hebrews 11, or Revelation. The early leaders led from vision. They were more of a movement. You chose a personal relationship with Christ. Then you became part of a movement. Most denominations started as movements, then became institutionalized. Then they die.

I asked Reggie where he got his statistics from. He said it was from George Barna, Thom Rainer, and others. These are all in his Chapter 1 footnotes of his book. Interested in more?

See these books:
REVOLUTION - by George Barna.
MEGASHIFT - by James Rutz.
Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest (This has other editions for other areas of the country)
The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal

See also Discovering Your City by Carl Townsend and Bob Waymire. This was written in 2000 but contains forecasts of what you are seeing today. (This is also at Amazon, but Amazon orders don’t help our ministry any - order from us using the link here.)

Posted in Church growth, Purpose of the Church, Teenagers, The Emerging Church, Transfomation, change, evangelism, leadership, visioning | No Comments »