In his book The Younger Evangelicals, Robert Webber suggests three paradigms expressed by the evangelical church in the past one hundred years.
Traditional Evangelicals (1900-1980) – characterized as modern with a rational worldview.
- Pastor- and program-centered in their ministry and traditional in their worship style.
- Spirituality is determined by attendance, adherence to rules, and position in the church.
- Facilities are recognized by their architecture, including steeples and stained glass.
- Most visible religious figure is Billy Graham.
- Mission focus was oversees – a few went, a few more gave, others prayed.
Pragmatic Evangelicals (1980-2000) – a high value of ministry effectiveness.
- Includes church-growth and seeker-church movements still prominent today.
- This is a transitional paradigm between the modern and postmodern worldviews.
- Primarily boomers
- Churches make great use of media, technology, and innovation.
- Market driven and success oriented.
- Worship is contemporary and performance oriented.
- Tend to be ahistorical and minimize religious symbols and architecture.
- Most visible religious figure(s): Bill Hybels, Rick Warren
- Mission focus is all about evangelism – both personal and corporate. Focus is on church growth through “seeker service”
- Because the “traditional” paradigm ignored the unchurched and dechurched there were plenty of people available to come “back” to church
- Theology says, “Come unto us, and we will give you Jesus.”
Younger Evangelicals (2000- ) – prone to deconstruct and reconstruct ministry.
- Primarily younger
- Have an aversion to performance and programs in the church.
- Prefer to emphasize the development of authentic Christian community.
- Love to blend the ancient with the contemporary in their worship environments (e.g. stained glass on video screens)
- Prefer an authentic spirituality in which the leader is a sojourner with them.
- See themselves and their church as a small part of something larger that God is doing, not as the center of spiritual activity.
- No one leader has risen to prominence.
- Entirely different view of evangelism – because most postmoderns have no church experience they seek to engage the culture by caring and relating to individuals on their own turf.
- Theology says, “We will show you Jesus as we share life together.”
- View the church not as the kingdom of God, but as God’s agent in the world to usher in the reign of God.
- For this reason they do not strategize to take people from the world and put them in the church: they engage the church in the world to represent the kingdom of God and His desire to reconcile the world to Himself.
“Members of the emerging transformissional church will find authentic spiritual community and develop spiritual friendships with lost people while engaging the culture and serving the community rather than creating programs to serve only the converted and attract the unconverted. The church is only truly transformissional when it is able to engage in both the social transformation of the culture and the spiritual transformation of individuals.”
LEADERSHIP
- Traditional Evangelical – requires pastor/priest
- Pragmatic Evangelical – requires CEO
- Younger (Transformissional) Evangelical – requires a leader who engages the surrounding culture for the sake of the gospel. He leads by doing. He leads by the example of his own spiritual journey and practices. He leads by his own authentic participation in community. He leads by taking, not just sending, his people into the culture to meet needs and make relationships.
EQUIPPING LEADERS
- Traditional Evangelical – train leaders in Bible and theology at Bible colleges, seminaries and in Sunday Schools. Training focused on knowledge with some emphasis on personal spiritual formation.
- Pragmatic Evangelical – Trained leaders in specific strategies and models of ministry through short-term, focused, and practical seminars. Focus has been on the communication of models and skills, with little emphasis on personal spiritual formation and a decreased emphasis on biblical and theological knowledge.
- Younger (Transformissional) Evangelical – neither seminary nor seminar will prepare us to do ministry in the postmodern future. Equipping leaders will be “just in time, on the job, on the Internet, in the church, and in the trenches.”
IMPLICATIONS –
- SERVE/MISSIONS – Embrace a servant based evangelism with the focus on building relationships, meeting physical needs, impacting communities (schools, housing, comprehensive needs)
- LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT – Develop equipping modules that are accessible on the Internet and paired with personal ministry coaching.
- WORSHIP – Evaluate the impact of worship that is historical and relational. This may happen first in smaller gatherings rather than weekend worship.
- PASTOR/STAFF ROLES – Must lead by example of transparent, authentic relationships, personal involvement in the community, minimize “church work” so we can be known for being in the community.
