Church Next: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry

by Eddie Gibbs, Ian Coffey

A 2001 Christianity Today Book of the Year!What will the church be next?CHANGE IS NOW. Competition from nontraditional and Eastern religions join with the pressures of both modernism and postmodernism to squeeze Christianity.While new church models have sprung up to meet these challenges, they each have strengths and limitations. Eddie Gibbs, a well-known church strategist and practitioner, candidly analyzes these models while proposing nine areas in which the church will need to transform to be biblically true to its message and its mission to the world.With vigor and insight Gibbs shows how we can move from living in the past to engaging the present from being market driven to being mission oriented from following celebrities to encountering saints from holding dead orthodoxy to nurturing living faith from attracting a crowd to seeking the lost Here is a book that brings together deep understanding of the quantum shifts taking place in our culture along with concrete suggestions for implementing a proactive mission strategy.

Genres: Church, Theology, Leadership, Church Ministry, Nonfiction

260 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Eddie Gibbs (DMin, Fuller Theological Seminary) is director of the Institute for the Study of Emerging Churches at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts and a senior professor in the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is the author of numerous books, including Emerging Churches and the critically acclaimed ChurchNext (winner of a Christianity Today book award), and is cohost of the popular Church Then and Now Web site.

Reviews

[Brian Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been ten years since it's publication in 2000 and it's amazingly relevant in 2010. Eddie Gibbs has skillfully avoided the pitfall of suggesting whimsical fads to address the real issues facing the modern/postmodern church today. His research is thorough, his observations are keen, and his conclusions are rock solid.

Many of the churches in America have gotten distracted with the trappings of operating an institutional church that it has unwitting lost it's ability to connect with a postmodern culture. He advocates a return to discipleship and reforming our church structure to address many of its pain points.

[Stephen Boutry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still relevant after all these years. Prophetic, but also sobering in how much there is still to do as the church responds to an every changing culture.

[Joel Blunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uninformative. Obvious to anyone who has been a member of a church for the last decade.