The Present Future, Chapter 3 (Part One)

Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. I remember, it seems like many moons ago, posting about the book The Present Future, about how much I liked it and how the next several posts would be devoted to it. And now, several posts later, I'm finally making good on that declaration. Silly me.

Anyway, in case you have forgotten the first two chapters (I have), here is the basic theme of each chapter.

Chapter 1 dealt with the current church culture in North America, and how it is collapsing. The idea that "if we just do church better, people will come" doesn't work anymore. Well, let me rephrase that. If our mission is to reach unchurched people, just because we have better or more programs, a snazzier sound system, a more talented worship band, and culturally-appealing messages doesn't mean that "they will come". As McNeal says, a non-Christian isn't waking up on a Sunday morning thinking "What church out there can I bless with my presence?" They're not thinking about church at all. Just because we dig deeper in the hole we have already dug, it doesn't mean we'll find something. We might be digging in the wrong hole. We need to step back, examine what we're doing, and see if our mission - based on who we really are reaching and what really is taking place in our churches - is really our mission. As McNeal says, we need to recapture the mission of the church. "The movement Jesus initiated had power because it had at its core a personal life-transforming experience." Is the church of today more interested in getting more butts in the seats, or is it more interested in seeing transformed lives?

Chapter 2 dealt with the Church Growth movement, which has been happening in America since the 1970's. There are some good things about the church growth movement, and some bad things about it. As it has been noted by Barna and other research groups, the highest percentage of growth that a megachurch experiences is through people who are already Christians who are just transferring membership from a smaller church that doesn't meet their needs to a larger congregation that meets their needs in every way. This doesn't necessarily mean that the mission of these larger churches is to "steal sheep" from other churches, it's just a reality that happens. Again, McNeal hits on the reality that by doing things better, adding more programs, adding more staff, and putting more money into ministries within the church doesn't necessarily mean that life transformation is happening, or that the mission of the church to reach unchurched populations within its community is being fulfilled. The rest of his chapter deals with some of the same things I brought up this Sunday at church - does the Church have a reputation of loving others? Does the Church - and everything within the church (money, resources, gifted people) - exist for itself, or does it exist for the community and the world around it? As McNeal says, "This is what it's going to take to gain a hearing for the gospel in the streets of the 21st century - the smell of cleaning solution, dirty fces, obvious acts of servanthood."

So, now we are on to chapter 3, titled "A New Reformation: Releasing God's People".

The main idea behind this chapter is that for the Church to not just survive but thrive in the 21st century in the America, we need to decentralize ministry, get rid of the hierarchical structure of leadership within the church, and free up the people within our churches to be able to do ministry. This chapter exposes a major fallacy within the American Church: that the only "venue" that people can use their gifts, talents and resources is the church itself. Most of the giftedness training and recruiting is primarily to fill spots within the church itself. "Ministers have waged an enduring campaign to convince the laity to support church efforts with energy, prayer, time, talent and money." The wrong question in this chapter, according to McNeal is "How Do We Turn Members Into Ministers?" There are a couple of reasons why this is the wrong question.

First, getting all those church holes filled continues to be a more difficult proposition for staff members. McNeal attributes this to the idea that these staff members "don't get it." They view the recruitment difficulties as a motivational issue, which it's not. The problem is that there is a shift in how people decide how they will spend their lives, and "working for" an institution, whether it be a job, church or civic organizations is becoming less and less of an interest in people's lives. If the mission of an organization fails to capture the interest of someone, they will just move on.

Secondly, turning members into ministers isn't motivating for people, because honestly people really don't want to be "ministers" if it means doing what people perceive ministers these days doing. As McNeal says, "On the one hand, when they see ministers being where the action is, helping people, turning lives around, partnering with God's work in the world, they line up. On othe other hand, too many church members view clergy as professional ministers who have been cranked out by the church industry to manage church stuff. They have not been exposed to church leaders who are leaders of a movement. Instead they are familiar only with institutional managers."

The tough question is this: "How Do We Turn Members Into Missionaries?" Which we will talk about in part 2.