Finding Faith by Flory and Miller.

I took a break from doing heavy lifting with history books and read a 2008 book on dominant trends within current evangelicalism based on a study by two sociologists of religion, Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller. Their book is called Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation. They are specifically interested in finding the religious or spiritual trends among the under 40 crowd. To do so, they spent two years interviewing 100 people and visiting a dozen significant congregations around the country.

They build their analysis around 4 types of trends or styles that they see among evangelicalism: what they call Innovators, Appropriators, Resisters, and Reclaimers. The innovators are represented by people like Brian McLaren and Leonard Sweet, and, according to the authors, prefer smaller congregations with a high level of engagement with the larger community and social issues. The Appropriators are the large Mall type mega churches that offer hundreds of programming choices to the religious consumer. The Resisters are those who are critical of postmodernism and resistant to any accommodation to current cultural changes and who keep a strong focus on rational faith and careful exegesis of the scriptures and ultimately desire to move young people back to a rational, text-based faith. Finally the Reclaimers are those evangelicals who are leaving evangelical churches in order to associate with strongly liturgical churches such as the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Anglican. They are reclaiming the ancient traditions of worship of the early or Patristic church.

What do you think of these four types of response? Are there any responses that you might feel that they left out? Which response do you most identify with?

The Decline And Fall Of Christian America... Yes... but No.

the article that we posted previously from newsweek about the decline of Christianity in America is coming out on the cover of Newsweek. Dan Kimball wrote a very positive and uplifting response on his blog:

Vintage Faith

I am posting some highlights from Dan's blog below:
......................
[Dan Kimball]
I just read the cover story article of Newsweek which is coming out on the 13th. It is titled " The decline and fall of Christian America The cover looks gloomy almost like a horror film with an all black background and red letters.

So I think maybe there is a decline of a certain shape and sub-culture(s) of "Christian America" as the article states. But at the same time, there is a rising and surging of missional church leaders, church planters, and Christians who have already recognized that we are in a "post-Christian" America as the article states. But that recognition has simply fueled creativity, prayer and passion for mission and because God is God, people are coming to a saving faith in Jesus.

I am so optimistic for the future and have great hope. Yes, there is a "decline and fall" as the article states of certain types of "Christianity" and church perhaps. But there is also a rising and churches and Christians who are rethinking what it means to be "be the church" and to be the church on mission.
Perhaps in 5 years or 10 years we will see another article "The Rise of Rebirthing of The Church In America". A different kind of church perhaps. But oh my, what wonderful, crazy and hopeful times we are actually in.

Go here to read the entire post by Kimball

The End of Christian America?

An interesting article was published in Newsweek about the apparent decline of Christianity in America. You can access the article at the link below:

Newsweek: The End of Christian America

Below are insightful email comments from pastors Dennis C., Michael M., and occasional troublemaker John M. regarding the significance of the demographic trends:

[Dennis C.] I found in it a lot of confirmation regarding the thrust of our conversations over the past weeks. Her understanding of the church/state separation issue and the religion/politics integration issue is important. She really has a grasp of the issue in American history since the colonial era and up through the founding and the reason for the thought that went into the first amendment. I find her analysis of the current dilemma in the evangelical world and the recent history of getting into bed with a political party to be very persuasive also. By reaching back to Augustine, Paul and Jesus she is really promoting a kingdom perspective re: the mission of the church throughout the ages.
Dennis

[John M.] Below are a couple quotes that stood out to me:
"The American culture of religious liberty helped create a busy free market of faith: by disestablishing churches, the nation made religion more popular, not less."
"Let the religious take their stand in the arena of politics and ideas on their own, and fight for their views on equal footing with all other interests."

For me the fact that fewer Americans are claiming a specific religious affiliatioin and tend to identify more with "spirituality" than "religion" is actually encouraging. Ultimately, truth will stand in the "free market of faith".
Also, the survey results can be interpreted in more than one way. It may depress Dr. Mohler, but it also means that the harvest is ripe and getting riper. The last time I filled out one of those forms regarding religious preference I gripped to my wife that I could not find a category that I fit into. I was very tempted to put "no religion". Apparently, I'm not the only one...
John

[Michael M.] John & Dennis, Hearty “Amen” to both of your observations, I could not agree more. [This is one of the better articles I have read commenting on the Survey.] Perhaps another “need” illustrated by the study is the lack of historical understanding both within and without the church. [I know, a real surprise opinion coming from a historian.] I believe it illustrates that along with our call to develop, teach and implement an “orthodox-relational-practical-cross filled” theology, we should probably add “historical.” Doing so will produce believers who understand that his kingdom comes, his will is done regardless of the friendliness of either our culture or government. In fact, we have ample illustrations (China?) of the faith exploding even when governments attempt to stifle the market place of ideas. Michael M

ok, so what do you think? Is this troubling or encouraging? How can or should we respond?

What will we do about it?

hi all: I found the article below in Scott McKnight's Jesuscreed (now on belief.net). I want you to remember that I said this a couple of days ago, and I have been saying it for the last several years in this blog and by email ... I didn't get it from McKnight, or McLaren, or even Gallup or Barna. We can see it with our eyes if we look around. There is urgency about this. Sorry to start another discussion thread -- you can keep responding to the previous thread, but this allows me to insert a link:

What will we do about it?
...........
Research from a number of angles says the same thing: 20 somethings are not attending church. There is nothing less than a crisis in the church, a crisis that is far greater than most church folk know about and care to confront with the energies and focus that are needed. Here are the two facts:

1. The elderly people are exiting the church's back door.
2. The younger people are not entering the front door.

This means the numbers are declining. If something isn't done about it soon, the church will be facing a crisis in the next twenty years unlike anything the American church has ever seen. At a pragmatic level, it will mean a dramatic reduction in budgets ... I could go on. The more pressing issue is speaking the gospel to a new generation.

What will we do about it? Call for a conference. What are we doing about it?
............
jh

‘wiki’ updates for the church - 17 theses summary

Ok… the ditty is now

♪♫ 17 theses to discuss on this thread…
17 theses to process!
take one down, discuss it all around,
16 theses to discuss on the blog….♫♪


1) there needs to be greater emphasis on spiritual formation (Joe -57).
2) there needs to be greater missional engagement with the secular world (Sarah -32).
3) there needs to be greater humility among Christians and respect for others(Sarah - 32).
4) there needs to be a deeper engagement with Scripture as God’s word (Brian -56).
5) there needs to be a deconstruction of church growth thinking: churches limited to under 250 people. Over that, churches should reproduce a daughter church (Brian -56). Move from church growth to church multiplication.
6) greater emphasis on “Real Church” as micro-church of 10 to 12. Big God parties less frequently (JohntheMusician - 23).
7) Repent of judging the lifestyles of outsiders (JohntheMusician - 23).
8) Greater focus on the role of the Holy Spirit (William - 20).
9) Move from a corporate model (with buildings) to a household/family/tribal model centered on the headship of Christ (William - 20).
10) Move to a 'kingdom' focus rather than a 'church' focus; a 'sowing'/scattering mentality rather than a gathering/building mentality. An 'outward' focus rather than inward (Joe - 57).
11) Eliminate badly composed, theologically vapid or erroneous "worship music." (Brian - 56).
12) All "senior leaders" (however defined) will have a grounding in all 2000+ years of church history (Course title: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). (Brian - 56).
13) Congregations (however defined) will creatively and meaningfully celebrate (however defined)Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday (however named)every year, because these events are at the center of our faith (Brian - 56).
14) Greater emphasis on bi-vocational, tent-making ministry in local congregations and in apostolic mission (Patrick - 24) Pat: I reworded it for you in a less inflammatory way ;-) joe, the low-key guy
15) The Evangelical church needs to regain a proper, biblical appreciation for the apostolic and move from a primarily 'pastoral' mindset to a primarily 'apostolic' mindset (Joe - 57).
16) The "church" should cease being congregations primarily defined by "religious" meetings and "services rendered," and to return to our calling -- to be the people of God who manifest and proclaim the kingdom of God in our way of life together (Steve H.- 58)
17) every "church" (however defined) should have a poet-in-residence, along with one other non-musical artist-in-residence (Brian, the ironic poet - 56).


Memorable comments:
(John M. - 59) "The Evangelical Church would do well to make a constructively critical and intentional evaluation of it's understanding and practice of ecclesiology; understanding from the outset that radical reform may be indicated and that the current, popular structure of the church is not sacrosanct or absolute."

(Patrick: - 24) "I would recommend disbanding Sunday morning congregational meetings, breaking into groups no bigger than the size of your living room and begin building relationships with people 'in the world' start in small steps."
Meeting together in worship
Maturing together in discipleship
Missioning together for the harvest.

95 'wiki' theses for Reform?

Ok guys, here we go with another discussion thread. It seems to me that we have come to agreement, that while holding to the creeds and the whole history of the church, there is a need for ‘wiki’ reformational updating in the Evangelical wing of the church.

I mentioned 5 things I think need a ‘wiki’ updating in the last thread. In this discussion, lets come up with a comprehensive list of things that need reforming in the current U.S. Evangelical church. I’ll start with repeating one area I think that urgently needs to be reformed. Let's look for "change you can believe in." (ok, sorry, just kidding!)

I composed a little ditty for this discussion…

♪♫ 94 theses to post on this thread…
94 theses to post!
Write one down, discuss it all around,
93 theses to post on the blog….♫♪

(click below for musical accompaniment ... these guys remind me of us talking theology in our blog... or of me and John Meadows on our way to the Kansas City Shepherds conference with Frank Dawson in 1975!)

The 'wiki' nature of the church: Why not convert to Catholocism or Orthodoxy?

While there is a bit of a lull in the previous thread, i thought I would post a couple of paragraphs from a great post today by McKnight in jesuscreed. He is answering a letter from someone who is asking him if he admires the historic communsions (RCC and EO) why he does not go all the way and convert to one of them from evangelicalism. His response is classic ... I recommend that you go do jesuscreed.org and read the entire post ... It is called Why I am not Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.

Here is a portion of his response:

"Third, the reason I think this way is seen in how Tradition plays itself out in each Church: for each of these communions the Tradition becomes massively authoritative and, in my view, each of these communions has become un-reformable. They read the Bible through Tradition and I believe in reading the Bible with Tradition. (my emphasis, not McKnight's)

And reformability is central to the “wiki” understanding of how God speaks: God spoke in the Bible in ongoingly fresh ways; that reveals the importance of returning to the roots in order to gain fire for the present. Return for reformation is the very essence of my “wiki” understanding of the Bible and of how God speaks.

I believe both the RCC and the EO, even with routine observations to the contrary by its adherents, are un-reformable.

I value, and value with profound respect, the great traditions of the Church, including Nicea and Chalcedon and Wittenberg and other moments as well. I check interpretation against these; but that does not mean I don’t think fresh light emerges or that something could be improved or modified (COMMENT: thats what I'm talking about! Let's have that conversation...)

Fifth, what this means — if you are still with me — is that I believe in ongoing discernment of what the Spirit is saying to the Church, and I believe this discernment is a function of church leaders and churches in communion with one another. Discernment for the day is different than infallible teaching for all time. Therein lies a major difference." (COMMENT: this 'discernment' is what I have been calling for along the lines of the Sons of Issachar...but there is a lot of pushback)