Winning the World

12 Wi nn i ng the Wor l d: Fac i l i tat i ng Urban Chur ch P l ant i ng Movement s

I. The Church under Siege: The Need for Critical Thinking Today on Ecclesiology

Ecclesiology, or the study of the Church, is perhaps at an all-time low. A book such as Barna’s Revolution would probably not have been written by an evangelical 100 years ago, let alone be received as a valid proposal for a new relationship to the local church.

A. The increase of spiritual fragmentation and the irrelevancy of the Church

1. Barna’s research is telling and accurate; his commentary deserves critical response: His thesis claims that the local church may be irrelevant to the spiritual lives of millions of Bible-believing Christians.

2. Privatization of the faith is eroding loyalty to the notion of membership in the local church .

3. The lack of understanding of the biblical teaching on the Church is leading to dramatic spiritual fragmentation: Individuals are piecing together in a personalized patch work their own distinct, unrelated models of church and body life.

B. Postmodernity run-amok: the fierce changes in cultural paradigms

1. The dramatic emergence of the assertion of right to privacy as nearly an absolute coupled with cultural norms designed to highlight personal choice have bled into every facet of Christian community and spiritual disciple ship, even and especially in the evangelical church.

2. We relate to spiritual things as we do to commercial offerings in larger society: We select our spiritual allegiances based on a consumer marketing model of choice .