On April 10, our church was pleased to host author Reggie McNeal in a one day seminar on the future on the church in America. Reggie is Director of Leadership Development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention, and author of The Present Future and A Work of Heart. The conference was astounding and like an information dump truck had just backed up and buried us up to our necks. Below are some of the comments made by Reggie.
Don’t count critics; weigh them.
Talking about the future will lead Satan to crank up enough background noise that we cannot hear God.
Christianity is the fasted growing religious/spiritual group in the world today:
175,000 new Christians in the world each day
One church in [a strong Muslim country] has over 30,000, meeting in over 300 locations.
In 1900, 80% of Christians were white, Western, northern hemisphere. In 2000, 80% were non-white, non-Western and southern hemisphere. The kingdom is breaking out all over.
Every preacher ought to preach a sermon series called, “Dumb Questions Jesus Asked.”
The church in North America is not like the Pharisees–we are the Pharisees, and Jesus does not like Pharisees.
The Pharisees clumped together and built a parallel culture–refuge theology is Pharisaical. When dealing with Pharisaism, we are dealing with a religion that has nothing to do with Jesus. They have a heart for religion, but not a heart for God.
The missional church is the most radical resorting of Christians since the reformation. Those who are missional have more in common with those in other tribes than with those in their own tribe who don’t get it.
The kingdom of God is all about people, and God has seeded the value system of the younger generations (Xer’s and millenials) that will feed the shift He has begun.
Kingdom growth is profoundly anti- what we have typically been doing.
The church is not the destination; the kingdom is the destination. Jesus does not say, “Thy church come.” He spends 40 days before His ascension teaching about the kingdom. Acts closes with the kingdom. Jesus uses “church” twice, but “kingdom” 90 times. When the kingdom breaks out, things change. People’s lives get radically re-altered; their entire worlds get re-ordered.
God says to Abram, “I’m blessing you so that you can bless all those people who are not like you.” God reguarly blesses people with whom He disagrees.
Our conversation rate has to go up before our conversion rate can go up.
In a missionary culture a person does not look to the central hub for direction.
2% of people in apartment complexes attend any church.
There is not one county in America that has grown in percentage of Christians to the total population in the past decade.
The “post-congregationlist” category is at 5% of the population and will go to 30% in the next 20 years.
Newtonian physics was the basis for modernity while quantum physics is the basis for postmodernity. It teaches that inner space is just as vast as outer space.
Most people are burned out from dealing with prolonged trivia.
Modernity’s standard is mass standardization and mass production made it possible.
Postmodernity’s standard is mass customization and techological production is making it possible.
Humankind likes to work off prediction and planning. Most of the stuff that impacts our congregations happens outside our meetings and it is stuff that we cannot plan for.
People who live by a missionary set of values cannot abide those with a “club member” set of values.
The bandwith is expanded in a missional church: how many conversations are we having, how much life interface is taking place, how is our community service component, how many community leaders are we praying for, how many teachers have we partnered with, how many community groups have used our facility?
Great stuff. Also, on the Sunday night preceding this meeting, Reggie did a talk of generations in the church. It was fabulous. I would highly recommend giving it a listen and getting it to your key leaders, especially if you are in a transitional situation.
The first 15 people who leave their name and mailing address in the comments section will receive a free CD of that talk compliments of New Bethany.
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