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Reinventing Your Church

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REINVENTING YOUR CHURCH

By Brian D. McLaren

There are many books being written these days on the need for change in the church. This book certainly should be included among the better in this category. It is remarkable for its clarity of thought and its balance in venturing into this somewhat controversial area. The author does not hesitate to suggest bold and radical departures from "tradition", but not without good reason.

For example, he distinguishes between renewed, restored and reinvented churches. "The renewed church is an old church that, after having lost touch with its own people, goes through a process of change in order to relate to them and better meet their needs again." (p. 20).

The restored church is the result of a sincere effort to establish a "New Testament Church". Often this involves resurrecting some detail of New Testament church life, and making it the litmus test of faithfulness to the Biblical pattern. For this reason, McLaren suggests that the restored church often becomes "The Church of the Lost Detail". The "lost detail" can be almost any form that is found in the book of Acts, such as speaking in tongues, elder rule, house churches, one church per city or whatever. McLaren is not nasty about it, but he does conclude that eventually this lost detail assumes a significance beyond all sane proportions.

"By contrast, the reinvented church not only changes its style, but it changes its attitude. Change is accepted as an unchanging fact of life. The reinvented church not only catches up to the present but also corrects those tendencies that would make it keep falling behind. It removes the anti-change bias." (p. 21)

The reinvented church is characterized by "paradigm pliancy". Paradigm pliancy requires a strategy of maximizing discontinuity, "which means not trying to fix up the horse to get a few more miles out of it, but burying it and looking for a new one. The journey is the important thing, not the horse that you take to get there." (p.23)

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this book is the fact that the author has actually gone through the trauma of "re-inventing" his church. In 1982, he planted a church that grew from 11 to about a hundred in three years. He was dismayed, however, that practically all the growth had come by transfer from other churches. He therefore proposed to his church that they "maximize discontinuity" by disbanding it for a period of ten months, after which they would launch a new church with a new name in a new location with a new mission of reaching secular people. Those who like lists, especially long lists, will love this book. The chapter titles are a list of 13 strategies for reinventing your church. In addition, many of the individual strategies consist of long lists as well. For example, he lists:

a) 14 observations on system thinking

b) 6 traditions to trade up for Tradition

c) 5 characteristics of an ineffectual apologetic and 5 new apologetic themes

d) 5 hunches on learning a new rhetoric

e) 16 conclusions on abandoning structures as they are outgrown

f) 7 characteristics of the new breed of leaders

g) A long (21!) list of problems in missions and a short (6) list of solutions

h) 5 core values of postmodernism

i) 15 ways of engaging postmodernism

A major thrust of this book has to do with better equipping Christians to engage meaningfully with unbelievers. He decries the "Christian nation" myth, which breeds an "us and them" mentality and makes us hostile to those to whom we should show compassion. For example, in his second strategy of redefining our mission, he insists that we need both more Christians and better Christians. By this, he means that the key to reaching unbelievers is to be better Christians, that is Christians who better incarnate the Gospel of Him Who was a "friend of publicans and sinners". Even more than seeker-sensitive churches, we need seeker-sensitive Christians. Instead, we often find Christians that are "seeker-hostile", as parodied in a Moody Monthly cover story entitled "Sinners in the Hands of Angry Christians".

McLaren has several excellent thoughts on leadership as well. The title of the chapter on leadership: "Save the Leaders" suggests the many perils that leaders face, and he expresses his regret that many qualified leaders have left, or are considering leaving, the ministry. Perhaps his most helpful insight on leadership is a list of reasons why imitating success in leadership can guarantee failure:

He also gives some very helpful guidelines for understanding and engaging postmodernism, which he sees as a reality with which we must come to terms. He writes: "Opposing postmodernism is as futile as opposing the English language. It's here. It's reality. It's the future." (p. 69)

McLaren questions the assertion that post-moderns don't believe in absolute truth. He suggests that the real issue may be one of absolute certainty. He further argues that post-moderns may care so much about truth that they are skeptical of the ability of fallible human beings to apprehend it or communicate it accurately. Seen from this point of view, it is easy to see how our certainty about knowing absolute truth can come across not as faith but arrogance. Furthermore, many post-moderns probably question our commitment to absolute truth because we seem to have such a hard time agreeing on what it is. He writes: "We have to distinguish between genuine Christianity and our (individual and various culture-encoded) versions of it." (p. 178)

There are several other very helpful chapters on topics such as leadership, church structure, apologetics, theology, and missions that make this book well worth the reading. It will be especially enlightening and helpful for those who are seeking to "go to" the lost and engaging them with the Gospel.

John Ed Robertson

November 27, 1998

Brian gives us a book that actually tackles the postmodern subject without losing the reader with philosophical jargon. I found that his approach is so practical because he is living it out. He writes out of experience and gives us a framework to enter this bold new world with a sense of optimism rather than fear, excitement rather than dread.

His writings on leadership and missions are a must read for every church practitioner.

This book is a "must read" for every church leader and Bible College student. If you are struggling with how to understand and communicate with those steeped in Postmodern thought this book has many answers. Its not just another mega-church "how to" book. Reinventing Your Church goes much farther. This book is a refreshing and practical look at what it will take to communicate Jesus to the world in the next generation. The chapter on missions is especially insightful.

Provides the real challenges for real change in today's culture and our love for past formula's, our disdain for a world we disagree with.

This book is not filled with a statistics that tells the church what it already knows - "things are bad and the church is losing effectiveness."

McLaren digs into our thinking habits and compares that to the culture around us. He provides a bridge that helps us maintain our spiritual integrity but reaches out to a world that has fully embrassed the postmodern philosophy.

McLaren, a pastor affiliated with the Willow Creek Association, asks us to imagine what our churches would look like if we started them today from scratch. Down to earth and tolerant, he raises a variety of questions and invites us to decide how they apply to our own contexts.

His strategies include: Practice systems thinking; Trade up your traditions for Tradition; Abandon structures as they are outgrown; Learn a new rhetoric; Save the leaders. The book concludes with a lengthy sub-section on postmodernism, which some will find controversial and of which others will sigh, "About time!"

McLaren evidences a humility and openness sometimes rare in books on church revitalization; there is no tone of "this is the only way." Perhaps because of this openness, the strategies offered are relevant to churches of any size and of any denominational heritage. His many lists and evocative suggestions make for interesting reading. The book also includes exercises for group discussion.

The title does not accurately describe the contents of this book. Reinventing Your Church is not about comprimising the values and morals of Christ for the sake of the world, but just the methods of how the church chooses to communicate them. Brian McLaren really takes an honest look at why people are so turned off by church today. He states that our culture continues to change, and that churches need to adjust their mothodologies to spread the gospel effectively. He doesn't condemn any particular denomination, but explains how each church needs to understand who they are trying to reach and how to create an environment to welcome those individuals.