Church Next
by Eddie Gibbs & Ian Coffey

Church has always been potentially just one generation away from extinction. But now, with a generation of under thirty-five-year-olds turning away institutional expressions of Christianity, churches in the West must recognise that they face a missionary challenge that is more urgent and radical than it has been for many generations. Whereas just a decade ago younger people were saying no to church but yes to Jesus, increasing numbers are now in search of a transcendent spirituality in which Jesus no longer occupies a central place.

Yet in the midst of moral uncertainties and spiritual confusion there are encouraging signs of spiritual vitality and examples of Christian communities engaging the challenges of a new day. It has always been the case that new wine must be poured into new wineskins. But those new wineskins cannot simply be freshly made versions of the old models. Neither can they be cut from a template made from blueprints provided by a handful of high-profile churches that have succeeded in bucking the national trends.

Indeed, we may find that the most helpful models might be drawn from the first 150 years of the Christian church, when it began as a movement with neither political power nor social influence within a pluralist environment. Furthermore, churches in the West are discovering that they have much to learn from growing churches in the Majority World, which are thriving in pluralistic environments without either the social influence or the material resources that the churches of the West enjoyed for so many centuries.

The purpose of the chapters in the book is to attempt to identify some of the major storm centres through which churches have to navigate. These storm centres do not simply represent a short-term threat churches must survive in order to return to the familiar and more tranquil conditions that they have previously known. Rather, these storm fronts represent boundary lines that seperate two very different worlds. The major themes covered include the church's mission, its structures, leadership emergence and mentoring, worship, spirituality and evangelism.

Contents of church next:

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