Emerging Postmodern Ministry

1. Emerging Postmodern Ministry Sources: Brian McLaren, Ken Baugh, Neil Cole, Dieter Zander john.chandler@vbmb.org

2. Between Two Worlds • Waves simultaneously entering and departing • Today: Modern and Postmodern waves creating rip-tides

3. Six Transitions in Christianity • Jewish -> multicultural • Persecuted minority -> Favored religion (325) • Roman -> multi-cultural and Greek • Greco-Roman -> Celtic/medieval • Medieval -> Modern (Reformation) • Modern -> Postmodern

4. When in transition … • Breathe deeply and coach calmly • Look to lower anxiety by focusing on the single next step • A beginning point: look for parallels between 1c and 21c

5. 5 Parallels between 1c and 21c • One dominant superpower • Rome, U.S.A. • One spoken trade language • Koine Greek, English • Advances in technology make the world a smaller place • Roads, Internet

6. Parallels between 1c and 21c • Rise in Eastern influences • Greek in 1c, World Religions in 21c • Rise in pagan and occult practices • Acts 17, Wicca

7. New Postmodern Preferences • High value of relationship • Journey > Destination • Authenticity > Excellence • Experience > Proposition • Mystery > Solution • Diversity > Uniformity

8. What might this look like? • Indigenous and intimate • Lowering bar of “getting into church” while raising bar on “becoming a disciple” • More conversational

9. What should the church embrace in postmodernism? • Willingness to utilize evolving methodology to communicate gospel • Lowering talk of “absolutes” and “certainty” in favor of “full knowledge” • The move from the ordained to the ordinary • The common Christian will be the missionary

10. Where should the church resist in relation to postmodernism? • Dealing with issues of unity and love between moderns and postmoderns in an explosive and defensive climate

11. Postmodern Preaching • From regularity of alliterated outline … to a curious conversation • From delivered by preacher… to shared within sermon and in dialogue with the congregation • No longer incubated only in study, but in out-there conversations • From stories to illustrate the points to stories that are the point • From the merely aural to the also-visual and multi-sensory

12. Postmodern Worship • From well-produced (“cheesy”) to feeling thoughtful but real • Upping the octane beyond “ritual” toward “encounter”

13. Spiritual Formation • “Equip, empower, and release” as key words • Move beyond serving church to serving world • Focus on the means and plan to “becoming a better person” and “making a difference in the world”

14. Strategies toward Formation • Read Scripture repetitively, in context, and in community. • Confess sins confidentially and with accountability. • Pray for lost friends strategically.

15. Missional Church • “Benediction” as the key liturgical point • To be chosen by God is not just to be blessed, but to be a blessing to the world • From the church saying, “y’all come” to “we’ll go”

16. Transition Possibilities • Engage postmoderns non-defensively & non-judgmentally • Privately and in church • Count the cost to be paid with moderns in church • Plan to study, read, watch • Allow for un-learning • Tolerate high anxiety • Invest in lives of those who can do what you cannot

17. Teaching Key • Not just lowering lights and upping sound; not just “smells & bells” • To teach what Jesus taught in the way that Jesus taught it • “the Kingdom of heaven is like ….”

18. Evangelism Key • You can’t just believe in “evangelism in theory” to reach postmoderns • When fishing, they don’t come scaled, fileted, and shrink-wrapped

19. Mental Keys • Change the metaphors • From legal and judicial to family and community

20. Emerging Postmodern Ministry Dr. John P. Chandler The Ray and Ann Spence Network for Congregational Leadership www.rasnet.org John.chandler@vbmb.org Copy right John P. Chandler, 2007