C H U R C H N E X T

THEN

ChurchNext came about in response to a book published at the turn of the millennium by Revd Dr Eddie Gibbs. In the book 9 quantum shifts were unpacked which outlined the current changes in culture and how the contemporary church needed to respond:

from living in the past to engaging in the present
from following celebrities to encountering saints
from schooling professionals to mentoring leaders
from belonging to believing
from attracting a crowd to seeking the lost
from market-driven to mission-oriented
from bureaucratic hierarchies to apostolic networks
from dead orthodoxy to living faith
from generic congregations to incarnational communities

These 9 transitions resonated deeply with us and interpreted to us (in more academic language than we were able!) the heart cry of our activities as we experimented with what it was to be church.

At that time we were involved in networking, encouraging and resourcing new expressions of church across the UK and wider, whilst looking to do the same ourselves, normally as fresh expressions of church within the traditional denominations. This was focused on what we called Tribal Gatherings & led to the development of a number of forms of Young Leaders training, a vibrant library of worship resources which has had 100’s of downloads each week – (if you are looking for this, go to the old Tribal Generation resourcing site pages here) & lots of networking of similar hearted people, even leading to a few marriages! Eddie Gibbs visited what we were doing and gave very helpful input, the permisson to take the label he had created and encouragement to continue to flesh out some of the dynamics he was pointing to…

NOW

The adventure continues… Over the last decade many new forms of church have sprung up and we have continued wrestling with these challenges of what it means to see these fundamental transitions become reality in the church. In a church that is said to be dieing the range of vibrant and creative new initiatives is awe-inspiring; and the mainstream church is increasingly supportive of these parallel initiatives.

Peer Learning for leaders has become a key component as we have looked to develop Learning Communities for both Church & Training Leaders.

This coupled with other expressions of Training, Networking, Gathering and Resourcing these kind of initiatives continues to be our heartbeat. We work with a number of networks & organisations to continue to embrace Eddie’s challenge outlined in the original ChurchNext seismic shifts. The main fruit of this are seen not in a big national movement; but in the local networks of people growing organically all around that are trying to respond in their community.

It’s a quiet revolution but it’s close to you…

Go to the old Tribal Generation resourcing site