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ChurchMorph: How Megatrends Are Reshaping Christian Communities (Allelon Missional Series)

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Eddie Gibbs, ChurchMorph: How Megatrends Are Reshaping Christian Communities (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009). $17.99, 222 pages.

According to Eddie Gibbs, five megatrends are convulsing the Western church. They are the shifts from modernity to postmodernity, from the industrial age to the information age, from Christendom to post-Christendom, from production to consumerism, and from religious identity to spiritual exploration.

The response of Western Christians to these shifts varies. Some are ignorant of the megatrends; some purposefully ignore them. Others, however, are rethinking what it means to be a church in the new Western cultural context. ChurchMorph is a taxonomy and interpretation of their efforts.

Many of these efforts can be described as emergent or missional. Although those terms arose in different contexts--the former from the grassroots, the latter from the academy--they share a goal: to retool the Western Christian church as a missionary force within the West itself.

Gibbs groups these responses into six categories: fresh expressions, megachurches, urban mission, the new monasticism, non-denominational church networks, and alt.worship. For each category, he provides numerous examples of churches in American, Canada, and England that fall (roughly) under the category. He summarizes their varying approaches, explains their rationales, and offers a critique.

Only time will tell whether any of these efforts will retool the Western church and help reverse the decline of Christian faith in the West. But failure to make any adjustments to the West's new cultural realities is a commitment to missional failure. The church that refuses to morph in some way, as Gibbs puts it, is already becoming moribund.

This book is a must read for all involved in both leadership and ordinary folk in church. It highlights the importance for the church to wake up and smell dhe coffee of the ever rapidly changing world we are in. There is an excellent chapter looking at fresh expressions of church in the UK.
A challenge not only for the emergent church but for the whole of the church.

Eddie Gibbs excels at grasping the trends of churches and cultures and translating them into insightful reading for Christian leaders. Readers who have read Gibbs' and Bolger's "Emerging Churches" will recognize several shared themes and discussions. In some ways, this book is a refresher on that book. "Churchmorph" is a great introduction to the trends facing churches in the West as the culture transitions from modernity to postmodernity. Gibbs paints the landscape and helps readers see how the church must morph to maintain its viability to a culture that is threatening to leave it behind.

The book is a combination of current trends among churches and Gibbs' suggestions of trends that churches must take up for their own health. His writing is insightful, enlightening, instructive and pastoral as he advocates mission and community for churches. Gibbs provides big picture views and particulars through this book that is sure to be a helpful resource to readers.