Customer Reviews

ChurchNext: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry

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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."

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.

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.

This book has some great content. However, getting into can be very difficult as the writing is so dense and hard to sink your teeth into. Definitely not a Donald Miller style writer. However, as said, the material is very good and challenges you to ponder some great questions. The chapter titles should be good enough to entice most readers.

The great thing is... there is a new version/edition of the book just printed in 2005. It is co-written by someone else (sorry can't remember) and comes at the discussion from a more 'American' point of view rather than British. From looking it over, it is practically a whole new book, completely rewritten but maintaining the same chapter titles. This is the book I wish I had purchased and I was a little upset that Amazon did not inform me of the update. Too bad.

For the content, the book gets at least a 4.5. For the readability, scartching at a 2.

Eddie Gibb's, Professor of Church Growth at Fuller provieds us with a great picture of how ministry will need to change in the post-christian west. In this book Gibbs examines several "older" models like being market driven, celebrity driven, bureaucratic, generic congregational and comments on the future of these models. He proposes that the church needs to adapt to how we have done ministry we need to be mission oriented, saintly, apostolic, and incarnational. One of Gibb's most interesting insights is that he notes that the church is being pushed out from the center of society and is becoming another option for those outside the christian community. In our modern pluralistic world, the church is seeing itself on the margins of society much like the pre-constantinian church. We must learn from the early church especially the fact that it was a movement of infiltration rather than an institution of invitation. In our modern society the church has nothing to offer that other institutions cannot. Because of this we must focus on the only thing that sets us apart from the world, the Gospel itself. The Gospel must be at the forefront of all we do.

Eddie Gibbs and Ian Coffey, church next: quantum changes in Christian ministry (Leicester: IVP, 2001)

Reviewed by Darren Cronshaw

Gibbs and Coffey argue it is urgent to change ministry to reach a new generation who are turning away from the church. Their constructive analysis urges churches to transform their approach to ministry: from market-driven and bureaucratic hierarchies to mission-oriented networks, from schooling professionals to mentoring leaders, from attracting a crowd to seeking people, from generic congregations to incarnational communities. Moving right away from strategic planning and slavish models, Church next champions big and bold thinking, flattened and permission-giving structures, using the resources of diverse Christian spirituality, celebrating transcendence, adventurously infiltrating culture, and communicating with ancient forms, dialogue and story.

Review originally appeared in Darren Cronshaw, `The Emerging Church: Introductory Reading Guide', Zadok Papers, S143 (Summer 2005).

Examining the thunderous changes that have beset our world as it moved from the traditional to the modern and now to the post modern, the author identifies nine areas in which the church must transform to meet those cultural and paradigm changes. He goes on to examine the implications of these changes for church leadership. Along the way, we are constantly reminded of the outlook of the up and coming Generation X, for if we fail to reach that generation, we will have come one step closer to the extinction of the church.

Barna is quoted as noting that, even in the case of the baby boomers, 24% of those who consider themselves Christians do not attend a church on even a once a month basis. Though a number of factors are suggested for this decline, one particular notable observation was that people are not looking so much for worship that is relevant as they are for worship that is real (Page 155).

Wonderfully relevant as next week's newspaper, Gibbs brings out principles that are applicable for both the large and the small church and even for personal living as he points out the many ways we have been influenced by modernity and post modernity. We live in an increasingly post literary age; one that is oriented toward the visual. This means that we must learn to speak the language of our culture, not only in words, but in ways that communicates through that visual medium.

A particularly telling point is made regarding the course of future seminary education: The issue is not whether theology per se is important, but what kind of theology. It must be theological training that provides the skills to apply the biblical texts to contemporary situations (Page 99).

Gibbs calls us to develop an apostolic mindset in the way we do ministry and in our making of disciples as a lifelong process. This involves having a vision of people-centered ministry that decentralizes control and utilizes networking to get people involved in ministry that changes from an inviting to an infiltrating mindset.

In describing a return to Celtic Christianity, the author describes the emphasis of life as a journey and how such Christians see themselves as hospites mundi, guests of the world. Emphasis is placed on the going rather than on arriving at one's destination at some holy place, believing that "Is shall not find Christ at the end of the journey unless he accompanies me along the way." (Page 137).

Did Gibbs or any of the audience he is targeting stop to think that they are trying to "save" or salvage something that longs for change. God is a God of love - period. There are many paths to love and to make another wrong is to live in the arrogance and ignorance of a belief system that the world is flat, that women are to be subsurvient, and that particular races are less refined than others. All beliefs that were KEY when the Bible was scribed. If you are willing to except the change of these things, why can't you see that what was heresy (holistic practises, herbs)hundreds of years ago is now recognized for its value today. Stop trying to "fix" people from expansion and personal growth. The experience of God is wondrously beyond definition.