Category: Emerging Church

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Emerging Church Leadership Journal's Out of Ur blog Megachurches

Andy Stanley Says There is No Such Thing as Distinctively Spiritual Leadership

Here are my comments on the article: Is Ministry Leadership Different? Andy Stanley and Jim Collins in an unexpected point-counterpoint by Eric Reed at Leadership Journal’s Out of Ur blog:

Andy Stanley, pastor of the third most influential church in the nation with more than 18,000 in attendance, is right in urging pastors to practice competent leadership regardless of its source. He says: “I grew up in a culture where everything was overly spiritualized . . . A principle is a principle, and God created all the principles.” He is right in saying that too often churches have permitted abuse, waste, and ineptitude in the name of forgiveness, family, and niceness. He is also right in declaring it makes sense to learn from others. We should be reexamining Scripture for wisdom as well as sifting through leadership and business management books for wise insight. (See my list of recommended business management books that are helpful for pastors here).

But Christian leaders are different from other leaders because of their Christian character (as Andy tacitly indicates in his words about the importance of prayer, counsel, and integrity when he speaks to church leaders). If leaders are not formed by Scripture, prayer and counsel [Eugene Peterson calls these the three angles in his book Working the Angles)], their vision and leadership will ultimately be shallow and self-serving. So I think Andy overstates the case when he says “There’s nothing distinctly spiritual [about the kind of leadership I do].” There is such a thing as spiritual (pleasing-to-the-Holy-Spirit) leadership that is often different from secular business leadership. Spiritual formation will actually change the way we do leadership. Some practices which would violate Scripture cannot be used even to meet seemingly good goals. In other words, Scripture restrains the use of some means. The ends do not always justify the means.

Eric Reed is right in pointing out that many young people are attracted to Andy Stanley but that he does not fit with the “emerging” leader profile which is also popular among young people. Reed writes:

“Stanley is becoming the model for the next generation of large church pastors [note Reed’s adjective large] . . . Because Andy connects well with younger leaders, who in general are bent more toward spiritual formation than church growth . . . I thought I’d hear something that backed up the pendulum swing we have heard prominent emerging leaders identify–that younger leaders don’t buy all the church growth stuff, that the models that built megachurches worked for boomers, but for Gen-X and younger? Fuggidaboudit.”

Many young suburban white young adults are attracted to Andy Stanley. He is what they want to be: attractive, making-a-difference, young, confident, and articulate with a gorgeous facility and a talented staff. But Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger describe in Emerging Churches a different set of young people who don’t want to copy management principles or accept megachurch assumptions. They want to emulate Jesus’ practices – wandering around talking to people, without a building, praying, telling stories, and helping people. Seeker churches like Stanley’s, on the other hand, want people to “meet Jesus” through getting them through whatever means to sit in the seats of their church.

My comments on the Gibbs and Bolger book Emerging Churches are here.

Most of the college students in my classes at Taylor University are attracted to both Andy Stanley and the Emerging church conversation. They are attracted to young charismatic leaders regardless of their ministry approach. Rob Bell and Erwin McManus are probably the two most popular among them since they have all the things Andy Stanley has (attractive, making-a-difference, young, confident, and articulate with a large facility and a talented staff) but also embrace some of aspects of the emerging churches: art, attitude, informality, stories, urban culture, and justice.

See my list of sermon audio links to listen to Stanley, Bell and McManus here.

For a scholarly presentation of how the apostle Paul dealt with secular ideas of leadership when they began to appear in Corinth, listen to New Testament scholar Bruce Winter‘s lecture "Secularization of First Century Christian Leadership – Inroads of Secular Models." Here is the synopsis.

Bruce Winter questions the word "leader" as the name we use when talking about church ministers. He says Paul intentionally does not use the Greek word for leader to describe the ministers in the early church. Winter also says Paul intentionally rejected the braggart, money-making, attractive orator image that was readily apparent in the culture at the time.

This must cause all of us to pause as we think of the kind of Christian leaders that are so often held up as "making a difference" in our culture. Most often they get famous as successful pastors because they are great speakers and attractive. Perhaps this is always the way to fame and there is no preventing it. But that does not mean we need to try to emulate the famous (as is so natural).

Jeffrey Fox lays out "the rules to rise to the top of any organization" in How to Become CEO. Here are a few out of the 75.

  • Keep Physically Fit
  • Dress for a Dance
  • Be Visible
  • Learn to Speak and Write in Plain English
  • Say Things to Make People Feel Good
  • Look Sharp and Be Sharp
  • The Concept Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect But the Execution of It Does

I am quite sure that Fox is right that if we applied these we could rise to the top of any organization including the church. The Corinthians would have sent Paul the book. "Work on your appearance, Paul. Don’t do manual labor. Charge higher fees. Try to be a bit more polished."

We could work on those things or instead we could learn to pray the Psalms.

1 Sam 16:7. But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (TNIV).

May God give us wisdom to do our tasks well – gathering wisdom wherever we may find it – from secular and Christian mentors and books. But may God also form us as people after his own heart so that we do the right tasks in the right way.

Categories
Books Emerging Church

Gibbs and Bolger’s Emerging Churches Focuses Almost Exclusively On Small House Churches

Gibbs, Eddie and Ryan K. Bolger. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.

Disclaimer: I liked the book and I recommend that everyone read it. It articulates the ideals of the Emerging Church movement very well and gives practical examples of each ideal. Bravo! Now for the critique . . . which perhaps is no surprise considering the fuzzy nature of the movement . . . I didn’t like how they limited the definition of "Emerging Churches."

It seems almost everyone agrees that Gibbs and Bolger have written the most responsible, comprehensive and current portrait of the Emerging Church movement. Their methodology seemed sound. They interviewed 50 emerging church leaders and tried to collate those responses into a report from the frontlines. I thoroughly appreciated the work and plan on writing more about its positive points. But today I have a warning for the reader: Gibbs and Bolger basically just focus on small house churches. Though there are large church pastors, traditional church pastors, youth pastors, and Next-Gen pastors “in the conversation” at any emergent conference or emerging church website, you will not hear from them in this book.

Gibbs and Bolger have made the crucial decision to exclude Gen-X megachurches and Gen-X/young adult services from their portrait of the emerging church. They admit that these forms of church are often what people think of when they use the term emerging churches. But apparently Gibbs and Bolger have decided to try to change that. They write, “Popularly, the term emerging church has been applied to high-profile, youth-oriented congregations that have gained attention on account of their rapid numerical growth; their ability to attract (or retain) twentysomethings; their contemporary worship, which draws from popular musical styles; and their ability to promote themselves to the Christian subculture through websites and by word of mouth” (41). Though most people consider these youthful expressions of church part of the emerging church movement, Gibbs and Bolger dismiss these expressions as hopelessly “modern.” They write, “Taking postmodernity seriously requires that all church practices come into question. In contrast, Gen-X churches involve simply changes in strategy from what came before (e.g., adding stories, video, raw music, vulnerable preaching, art, and candles). However, to be missional is to go way beyond strategy. It is to look for church practices that can be embodied within a particular culture. In other words, theologies given birth within modernity will not transfer to postmodern cultures” (34). I think they are wrong to dismiss the possibility that Gen-X churches are missional. (Popularized by Darrell Guder’s The Missional Church, this term simply means a fresh application of the techniques of missiology to Western culture. There is no reason only church plants or house churches can do this. In fact, the book is written by Guder who is a PCUSA person with the intention to shake up the mainline churches especially). They are also naïve to assume that “emerging churches” can possibly remove themselves from the influence of modernity. Emerging churches will still likely use modern inventions such as printed Bibles, automobiles, public transit, computers, phones, etc.

Because of their definition, it seemed to me that the description by Gibbs and Bolger of “emerging churches” sounds a lot like “house churches” to me. A small group of 10-100 people come together, discuss some Scripture, care for one another, stress participation in worship, eat a meal together, share leadership, do good to those in the community, and do friendship evangelism. They write, “When emerging churches meet in a large congregational setting, they widen their community ties and build on the intimacy developed in their small groups. These networks of small groups may gather together on a monthly basis. However, the large group meeting is of secondary importance” (112). There are a lot of church leaders which are not specifically house church-oriented that have been highly involved in discussing how to minister to postmoderns.

It seems to me most of the leaders of the emerging church they interviewed would consider the Gen-X church leaders part of the “emerging church conversation.” Listen to these definitions.

a. Jonny Baker: “Church, as we have inherited it, is no longer working for vast groups of people. The world has changed so much. So I think the term emerging church is nothing more than a way of expressing that we need new forms of church that relate to culture” (41).

b. Ben Edson: “So emerging church for me is quite simply a church that
is rooted in the emerging context and is exploring worship, mission, and
community within that context” (41-42).

c. Karen Ward: what is “coming to the surface that is new, unformed,
still happening, emerging” (42).

d. Mark Scandrette: “The emerging church is a quest for a more
integrated and whole life of faith. There is a bit of theological
questioning going on, focusing more on kingdom theology, the inner life,
friendship/community, justice, earth keeping, inclusivity, and inspirational
leadership. In addition, the arts are in a renaissance, as are the
classical spiritual disciplines. Overall, it is a quest for a holistic
spirituality” (42).

e. Doug Pagitt: “He sees three types of responses to the current
context: (1) a return to the Reformation (e.g., Mars Hill in Seattle); (2) deep
systemic changes, but Christianity and the church are still in the center and
theological changes are not needed (e.g., University Baptist in Waco and Mosaic
in Los Angeles); and (3) seeing the church as not necessarily the center of
God’s intentions. God is working in the world, and the church has the
option to join God or not. The third approach focuses more on the kingdom
than on the church, and it reflects the perspective of Solomon’s Porch in
Minneapolis and characterizes what Pagitt would classify as emerging”
(42).

Gibbs and Bolger essentially decide to accept Pagitt’s most exclusive third approach as their working definition and ignore the more broader definitions articulated by Baker, Edson, Ward and Scandrette. (It should also be said that the third approach is not articulated well in the quote above. How is the church not the center of God’s intentions? I think what they are trying to say is that these churches have a fresh awareness of the importance of a kingdom perspective but this is overstated and unclear in the quote).

I understand that Gibbs and Bolger could not profile everyone who is part of the emerging church conversation. They have to draw the line somewhere. So they have decided to argue that the emerging church is very different from other expressions of church. But it seems to me their definition ends up excluding some of the leading voices in the movement: Brian McLaren, Chris Seay, Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, and Erwin McManus. McLaren, indisputably one of the leaders of the movement, is rarely quoted in the book and his church is never mentioned as an example of an emerging church. Rob Bell, who is not explicitly part of the movement but was featured in the Christianity Today article by Andy Crouch on the emerging church and is extremely influential among young church leaders, is never mentioned. Chris Seay, who invited Tony Jones (coordinator of Emergent) to speak at the anniversary of his church, is dismissed. The Younger Evangelicals by Robert Webber, The Church on the Other Side by Brian McLaren, and The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball have other weaknesses but they do not exclude these other voices. They include the fact that many pastors are trying to help traditional, seeker and modern churches become more adept at ministering in a postmodern context. For Gibbs and Bolger, if you haven’t planted it from scratch, then it doesn’t count as an “emerging church.” I would say there is a range of emerging churches who are involved in the conversation. I’m interested in what all of them have to say. However, Gibbs and Bolger limit themselves to just numbers 8-9.

1. Mosaic (Erwin McManus)
2. Mars Hill Church (Mark Driscoll)
3. Traditional churches that are being led by young pastors who are trying to adapt them to reach a postmodern culture
4. Gen-X/young adult services
5. Gen-X Churches
6. Mars Hill Bible Church (Rob Bell)
7. Cedar Ridge Community Church (Brian McLaren)
8. Solomon’s Porch (Doug Pagitt)
9. House churches / post-modern church plants

To be fair, Gibbs and Bolger intend to include the overhaul of traditional churches and also large churches in their analysis. They write, “Most of these emerging churches are new, while others represent the rejuvenation of long-standing congregations and ancient traditions. Some of these frontline churches are large, the biggest attracting crowds of several hundreds or even thousands, but the majority are small, consisting of independent groups of less than thirty or clusters of house groups totally less than one hundred” (29). But in the end I had difficulty identifying any churches that have “thousands” in attendance or are the result of a traditional church being adapted. They also try to distinguish these emergent churches from “house churches” (60). “Unlike the stereotypical house church, emerging churches do not exist in isolation but establish networks for mutual support and encouragement” (113). Still I think the churches they describe are very similar to house churches. I think it would have been more fruitful to pick out how all sorts of churches are trying to reach postmoderns.

Categories
Books Emerging Church Preaching

Review of Preaching Re-Imagined by Doug Pagitt

I read Doug Pagitt’s book Preaching Re-Imagined Zondervan (September 1, 2005) today.

Doug is the pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis and a member of the leadership of Emergent.

Summary:

He questions the value of 1-way lecture preaching. He calls it "speaching." He modestly presents his own model which he calls "progressional dialogue." Concretely this includes having a Bible study on Tuesday night regarding the upcoming Sunday sermon with a number of people from the congregation. He can learn from them and quote them in the sermon. He also gives 10 minutes of open-mic discussion time after his sermon so that people can suggest applications, ask questions, and hear from one another. He also encouraged people to blog about the sermon afterward.

Reaction to thesis:

As someone who is currently a college professor, this seems obvious in the classroom. Yes present content but don’t always lecture the entire class period. Give some opportunity for some interaction and questions.

I also teach my students an interactive classroom and small group teaching method called "Shared Christian Praxis" by Thomas Groome from his books Christian Religious Education and Sharing Faith.

However, the sermon is a different thing and for a variety of reasons this 1-way lecturing is the norm. In short (this is my summary – not Doug’s), there are people (especially Reformed) who believe this is the right way. Second, there is tradition. Third, it is impractical in a college lecture hall of 100 people (or a church auditorium of 1000) to have good discussion.

Pagitt says the 1-way lecturing model of preaching has a particular effect on the relationship between the pastor and the congregation. It cultivates a sense in which the pastor is admired, unquestioned, and isolated. He or she "the one who knows the Bible." He doesn’t think that these effects are particularly biblical nor good for the community nor good for him in the long run.

Still, Doug advocates that the preacher should not just give into the whims of the congregation. The preacher is to prepare and speak courageously to challenge the community in the area of its blindspots. There will simply be times when they point out his blindspots as well and times when they will challenge one another.

Application of thesis:

For me, there have been times when I have listened to sermons that I badly wished it was appropriate to ask questions. Sometimes the preacher says something particularly insenstive and I want to be able to ask: "Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought you said . . . but I’m sure you don’t really mean all the nasty implications of that if it were taken the wrong way, right? I just wanted to give you the opportunity to clarify."

Recently, I was at a conference at Granger Community Church and we were allowed to put questions in a bowl on our table. At the end of the morning and afternoon sessions, they tried to answer the questions. That was great!

When I led a young adult ministry, I invited in speakers and invited them to speak for 1/2 hour and then take questions for 15 minutes and then we would encourage people to stay around for dessert. The whole evening was around round tables (dinner, worship, speaker, Q&A, dessert) so that also facilitated discussion.

Similarly, I have done a lot of preaching and one of the first shocks in preaching is how little real feedback you get. During a sermon, people nod off and sleep. Very few people physically or verbally interact with you as you would if you were talking in a small group. (This is not true in an African-American church. I just visited Enon Tabernacle in Philadelphia in January and the interaction was incredible).

Afterward, people typically say, "nice sermon" but that’s about it. To get some decent feedback, I eventually had some of my fellow preachers fill out a form for me each time I spoke: (1) what helped me hear was . . . (2) what would have helped me hear better was . . . (3) this sermon inspires me to . . .

I have loved studying the passage I will be preaching on with my small group before I give the sermon. They have reminded me where people are at and given me fresh approaches. I highly recommend that practice.

All in all, I think Doug’s approach has much to commend it and I plan on continuing to push the envelope like Doug in encouraging interaction.

Recommendation of who should read this book:

If you have questioned the polished, manuscripted, impersonal, talking-down-to, zero-feedback, difficult-to-apply-to-everyone sermon, this book will be a fresh breeze. If you have forgotten those very real concerns, this book will be a good reminder to keep things fresh.

I think this is a great little provocative book to have students read in preaching classes. I think students in preaching classes are intuitively asking the questions Doug is asking and this book would give them a forum for dealing with those questions. They are asking:

Who am I to preach?
I don’t want to use a manuscript – that’s boring. I want to walk around and gesture.
How do I not manipulate people but keep them with me?
How do I apply this sermon to people I don’t even know and who are at totally different places in life?

This is a must-read for preaching professors (if that needs to be said).

I read the book during my son’s two 1-hour naps today so it is a pretty easy read. I only intended to read chapter 2 because Doug says this is the summary of the entire book. If you can’t do anything else, do that.

This book is not perfectly written. The book has some quotes from people in his congregation which could probably have been condensed, etc. It is not meticulously researched as he cites just four outside sources in the entire book. But I don’t think these things really matter.

This is Doug telling us why he does it the way he does it. I think it is valuable, fresh, honest, and in most cases persuasive.

Resources:

Here is Doug Pagitt’s blog and the blog for the book and you can find discussion at North Park professor and New Testament scholar Scot McKnight’s famous and outstanding blog: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Also, you can hear Doug on a panel at the Princeton Seminary Emerging Church/Theological Education Caucus (#2) if you like audio like I do. See also my preaching bibliography, teaching bibliograpy and use of media in teaching and preaching bibliography.

Listen here to Richard Holland of Master’s Seminary who vehemently disagrees with Pagitt’s take on preaching. If you would rather not listen to the MP3, see the notes Mark Shivers took here.

I love listening to sermons and lectures. Here is my list of some that are available on the net.