ABSTRACT
CASE STUDIES OF SELECTED CHURCHES UTILIZING EXPOSITORY PREACHING TO REACH UNCHURCHED SUBURBAN POSTMODERNS.
Chadney G. Sparks
Readers: Andrew Seidel and Scott Barfoot
The thesis of this dissertation is that suburban churches can better reach the increasing number of postmoderns in their growing communities through the use of expository preaching rather than with other preaching methods. However, two indispensable elements must be present: (1) a perceived sincerity in the mind of the postmodern attendee on the part of both the preacher and the church, and (2) a cultural identification on the parts of the preacher and the church with the postmodern attendee. The main body of this dissertation has three parts. It begins with a literature review regarding the biblical witness, historical development, and recent opinion and movement of the two hypotheses. The dissertation continues with a presentation of the research procedure and an explanation of the details of the process utilized. It argues that the case study approach is the ideal way to study churches that reach postmoderns with expository preaching. The third chapter presents the case study research. The case study churches form an ideal study cohort since they share similar strategies for evangelizing and discipling people by preaching the Bible. They also have sincere and gifted preachers who are committed to expository preaching. However, the two churches and pastors have distinctly different attributes, a fact that allows their influence on postmoderns to be compared and contrasted. The case studies demonstrate that when one of the two indispensable elements is not present, postmoderns are not reached as effectively. The dissertation concludes with a chapter outlining principles for effectively attracting, evangelizing, and discipling people influenced by postmodern culture.
CONTENTS
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
Rationale for the Study Reaching Postmoderns and Expository Preaching: Incongruent, Co- existent, or Symbiotic? Definition of Terms Defining Suburban Unchurched Postmoderns Who are Postmoderns? Modernism, Postmodernism, Postmodernity Postmodernity as Culture Postmodern Plausibility Epoch Seismic Shift Suburban Postmoderns? Two “Languages” Defining Expository Preaching Hypotheses for This Study Hypothesis 1: The selected churches/pastors employ expository preaching successfully by providing cultural contextualization. Hypothesis 2: The selected churches/pastors employ expository preaching successfully by conveying authenticity on the part of the communicator and the message. Potential Benefits of This Study The Practical Paradox Preview of Chapters
2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 25
Introduction Hypothesis Area 1: Cultural Contextualization Biblical Precedent Historical Development Recent Opinion and Movement Summary Hypothesis Area 2: Conveying Authenticity Biblical Precedent Historical Development Recent Opinion and Movement The Recognition of a Problem
v
The “Likeability Factor” Does the Preacher Like Me? Get Real Get Personal Experiential Christianity Being Rather Than Doing Two Kinds of Incarnational Summary Summary and Conclusion
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...... 100
Introduction The Case Study Primary Research Question Research Design and Process Selection of Locations and Churches Selection of Participants The Primary Preaching Leader Other Key Church Leaders Attendees of the Church Data Collection Printed Resources Interviews Observations Data Analysis Grounded Theory Establishing Trustworthiness Reporting the Case Study Conclusion
4. CASE STUDIES AND RESEARCH RESULTS ...... 116
Introduction Case 1: Bent Tree Bible Fellowship The Church and Her Community Pastor Pete Briscoe Defining the Need: Expository Preaching What Works? Questionable Trends Defining the Need: Reaching Unbelievers Inherent Incongruence or Sound Solution? Summary Bent Tree Bible Fellowship as It Relates to the Hypotheses
vi
Hypothesis 1 [cultural contextualization] Hypothesis 2 [conveying authenticity]
Case 2: The Church at Brook Hills A Surprising Narrative (History) Description Scandal Hiring a Young Pastor The Rock that is Higher than I (David Platt) Philosophy of Preaching Postmodern Pilgrims Core Cultural Change Contrasting Leaders A Whole New Crowd Preaching to Postmoderns Mythbusting: What Postmoderns Really Want Hungry for the Word Authenticity Belonging to Community Physical Environment Passion for the Nations The Radical Experiment The Experience Summary The Church At Brook Hills as It Relates to the Hypotheses Hypothesis 1 [cultural contextualization] Hypothesis 2 [conveying authenticity] Conclusion of Chapter
5. CONCLUSIONS AND RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS ...... 172 Introduction Interpretation of the Results Limitations Implications for Ministry Possible application for churches and pastors Personal application for the author Implications for Future Research Personal Ministry Specific Churches studied Body of Christ
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 195
vii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Preaching in a postmodern age, as in any age, needs to be biblical preaching. Styles of delivery should change, but we still must “preach the Word.” It is good news that emerging postmodern congregations are rediscovering the value of biblical preaching.1 Ed Stetzer
Rationale for the Study Postmoderns and Exposition: Incongruent, Co-existent, or Symbiotic? Imagine successfully evangelizing and discipling a growing community of diverse people by proclaiming the Bible verse-by-verse as the regular diet of a church’s main worship service proclamation. What is wrong with this picture? Should people consider expository preaching an ineffective methodology fit for the garbage bin of irrelevant styles as if an artifact of an ancient era? Or should it be recycled as a, perhaps even the, most effective use of the teaching portion of the church’s primary weekly meeting? Can it be essential for engaging and growing postmodern people? This much is true: explaining the Bible for the sake of spiritual transformation has been a primary strategy since the earliest days of the church’s existence:
So [Philip] started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch…. The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.
1 Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 282.
1 2 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.”
The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus (Acts 8:27 NIV).2 Ever since Philip explained and applied the Scriptures (vis. Isa 53) to the Ethiopian eunuch, the Holy Spirit has been leading Christians to “stay near” to unbelievers who are curious about the unique book which claims to be God’s specific revelation and to help them “understand what [they] are reading,” particularly as it pertains to the “good news about Jesus.” Placing high worth in this kind of examination and proclamation of the sacred texts of God’s Word is a core value that has ebbed and flowed in popularity yet has persisted throughout Christian history, particularly finding favor since the Protestant Reformation. In recent decades, however, a shift from this exegetical emphasis seems to be occurring, particularly among those churches whose stated purpose is to reach unchurched people in the growing suburbs of American cities who, like most segments of the population, are becoming increasingly postmodern in their worldviews.3 On the one hand, numerous suburban evangelical churches in the United States practice expository (e.g. verse-by-verse) preaching as the regular diet of their primary worship service proclamation. More than a style or a tradition, these churches
2 Unless otherwise notes, the ESV version of the Bible will be used in this dissertation.
3 George G. Hunter, III. The Celtic Way of Evangelism, Tenth Anniversary Edition (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2010), 9. Preface to the Second Edition.
3 believe expository preaching is essential for the spiritual and theological health, missional focus, and continued evangelistic effectiveness of their churches. On the other hand, numerous suburban churches (both evangelical and non-evangelical) attempt to engage and recruit postmodern unchurched people. These churches believe reaching this growing majority of the population is crucial if the church is to accomplish the Great Commission in this and future generations. The purpose of this project is to examine the effectiveness of two specific suburban churches that intend to do both: preach expositionally and reach postmoderns. Few issues are more critical for the future of the church in the United States than how it accomplishes Christ’s Great Commission in this season of seismic cultural shift away from a population that is predominantly modern in worldview to one that is rejecting increasingly the tenants of modern thought and perspective. Much has been written about reaching a postmodern or “emerging” generation of primarily young singles in large cities. Yet despite the attention given to the new urban growth of population “trendsetters,” the suburbs are still the fastest growing areas of this nation (by comparison to urban or rural areas). And the majority of new suburbanites are increasingly postmodern and unchurched.4 If expository preaching resurges as the primary way for the church to engage and disciple the postmodern suburbanite, the outlook for the future is significantly brighter. Because of changes in the way postmoderns interpret existence, fulfillment, and truth, Christians who communicate the Word effectively in postmodern language have perhaps the greatest opportunity for global evangelism since the time of Constantine.5
4 David T. Olson, The American Church in Crisis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), 167.
5 An explanation of postmodern language will be given below.
4 Definition of Terms Defining Suburban Unchurched Postmoderns While the suburban and unchurched designations are clear enough standing alone, adding postmoderns to the phrase demands some explanation.
Who are Postmoderns?
In short, postmoderns are people whose way of interpreting the world (including their own existence) and relating to others is influenced more by postmodern thought than by modern thought. Cultural postmodernism (hereafter, “postmodernity”) can generally be understood as the popular culture that has resulted from the shift away from modern thought by a majority of a given population. Postmodernity is difficult to define, since its essence includes “the desire to avoid all forms of totalization (complete definition).”6
Modernism, Postmodernism, Postmodernity Modernism has been a predominant worldview since the Enlightenment.7 For at least three centuries, those influenced by modernism comprehended the world primarily through rational, scientific, and logical means. This optimistic view presupposes humankind can understand and control an objective progressing world. Modernism believes that objective truth exists, it can be found and empirically tested in virtually any realm of life, and the pursuit of truth will benefit humankind ultimately.
6 Scott J. Simmons, “Postmodern Evangelism: Being Postmodern without Being Postmodernistic,” http://www.aplacefortruth.org/postmodern.evangelism.htm (accessed August 13, 2007).
7 The exact dates of the Enlightenment are debated. According to the Global Dictionary of Theology, “The Enlightenment was an intellectual and cultural movement in Europe during the eighteenth century which subjected traditional ways of thinking to rigorous critique and looked to reason, science and social reform to produce a better world. As a historical movement the enlightenment was over by the early nineteenth century, but its legacy continues to shape modern life” (William A. Dyrness, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, eds., Global Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 270. The enduring legacy of the Enlightenment is the period, worldview, and culture known as modernity.
5 Postmodernism stands in stark contrast as a reaction against the rationality and optimism of modernism. James Sire named five depictions of postmodernism:
(1) Things and events do not have intrinsic meaning. There is only continuous interpretation of the world. (2) Continuous examination of the world requires a contextual examination. We ourselves are a part of the context. (3) Interpretation depends not on the external text or its author but on the relative viewpoint and particular values of the interpreter. (4) Language is not neutral but relative and value-laden. (5) Language conveys ideology.8
Though some, like Donald (D. A.) Carson, distinguish “deconstructive postmodernism” from “less virulent” kinds,9 all forms deny objective truth (as it has been classically understood).10 Though there is not unanimity in these designations, sacred and secular thinkers alike distinguish “postmodernism” (postmodern theory espoused by academicians, historians, artists, philosophers, and other critics of modernity) from “postmodernity” (an epoch in which postmodern thought eclipses modern thought as dominant in our world and the culture resulting from it).11
Postmodernity as Culture Postmodernity is the culture that has resulted from the rising influence of postmodernism and the period of that culture’s dominant reign in Western civilization, especially in the United States. Postmodernity is, according to Stanley Grenz, “the time
8 David S. Dockery, The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 12; quoted in James W. Sire, “Logocentricity and Postmodern Apologetic: On Being a Fool for Christ and an Idiot for Nobody” (paper presented at the Wheaton Theology Conference, April 1994), 7–8
9 Donald A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 73.
10 Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 1996), 163.
11 Simon Malpas, The Postmodern (New York: Routledge, 2005), 9.
6 when postmodern outlook increasingly shapes our society. It is the era of the postmodern society” (emphasis added).12 As Millard Erickson states it, “Postmodernism...is perhaps more correctly referred to as ‘postmodernity,’ a characteristic of our culture that is gradually coming to distinguish much of human activity” (emphasis added).13 “Postmodernity” in this work, is a broader term than “postmodernism.” It refers not only to what people are thinking in the academic or philosophical world but also to how real people are living in the actual world. It is descriptive of contemporary culture and the patterns of thinking that people share (consistently or inconsistently) with postmodernism.14 Postmodernity is not just another style shift or fad—as when fashion trends in popular culture changed from straight-legged jeans, short hair for guys, and big hair for girls of the 1950s; to bell-bottom jeans, long hair for guys and straight hair for girls of the late 1960s and 1970s; to the 1980s, when straight-legged jeans, short hair for guys, and big hair for girls became stylish again. Likewise, postmodernity does not speak of generational trends, nor is it a generational designation (like “baby-boomer”). Postmodernity is much more significant—a seismic shift in worldviews.15
12 Ibid., 12.
13 Millard J. Erickson, The Postmodern World: Discerning the Times and the Spirit of Our Age (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002), 9.
14 Simmons, “Postmodern Evangelism: Being Postmodern without Being Postmodernistic.”
15 Michael Slaughter, Unlearning Church: Just When You Thought You Had Leadership All Figured Out (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2002), 36.
7 Postmodern Plausibility Since postmodernity is a cultural mindset—a way of seeing the world—it is difficult (if not impossible) to determine who is postmodern by some outward indicator or just how postmodern someone might be. As Scott Simmons writes,
Likewise, postmoderns are people who live in postmodernity…. Some of these people may well have embraced major tenants of postmodernism, perhaps without even knowing it. Others perhaps are simply dissatisfied with the structures of modernity.16
Regarding the way postmoderns intrinsically see the world, Boston University
Professor of Sociology Peter Berger speaks of “plausibility structures,” which he defines as “assumptions and practices which determine what beliefs are plausible and what are not.”17 According to Berger, every culture conditions people living in that particular culture to think according to a certain shared perspective, and that becomes the lens through which they interpret everything in their world. This is how people determine the difference between what is plausible to them or not plausible; or what seems true or untrue. Referring to this terminology, Simmons writes: “With the shift from modernity to postmodernity, the climate of plausibility in our culture has changed. For instance, within modernity, people trusted scientists as philosophers of life. Within postmodernity, that trust is gone.”18 Moreover, he believes that the same holds true for matters of faith and explains, “People are not nearly as interested today in making sure they have the right theological system as they are in understanding a story.”19
16 Ibid.
17 Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 53.
18 Simmons, “Postmodern Evangelism: Being Postmodern without Being Postmodernistic.”
19 Ibid.
8 Postmoderns experience the world without the framework of absolute truth and generally are suspicious of those who claim to understand truth absolutely.20 The new media and technologies influence them, as well as the speed, volume, and content of information transference unimagined by people of previous epochs. Because all these things are becoming more prevalent, it could be assumed that the younger people are, the more likely they are to be postmodern. It would be a mistake, however, to stereotype postmoderns with conventional categories:
It is important to note that postmoderns are not demographically definable. They are not an age group or a socio-economic status. . . . They are simply people of all walks of life who no longer find modernity plausible. And as our culture becomes increasingly postmodern, more and more people will find modernity very, very strange.21 Therefore, it is extremely difficult to identify positively postmoderns without surveying them to know how they think. For the sake of this project, generalizations must be made due to the virtual impossibility of objectively knowing just who is a postmodern and who is not. Pastors and other leaders in churches can know generally who among their congregations are postmodern, or if any postmodern people are attending at all.
Epoch Seismic Shift
Postmoderns are people caught in an enormous shift of worldviews. How enormous? Chris Altrock writes that the entire history of “western culture can be divided
20 Dockery, The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement, 132. After quoting Steward and Blocker who observe, “Postmodernism challenges the fundamental epistemological assumption of modern philosophy and science—the possibility of discovering the truth about anything. Postmodernists claim that any attempt to verify the truth of a claim by its correspondence with reality is an impossible illusion” (David Stewart and H. Gene Blocker, Fundamentals of Philosophy, 3rd ed. [New York: Macmillan, 1992], 241). Gary Phillips writes: “Because truth is individual and subjective, there is no aim for consensus, except the consensus that there is no consensus.” While these speak of academicians, cultural postmoderns intrinsically follow suit.
21 Simmons, “Postmodern Evangelism: Being Postmodern without Being Postmodernistic.”
9 into three epochs, each characterized by a different worldview…pre-modernism, modernism, and postmodernism.”22 No one can predict the eventual nature of the shift or knows what the resulting worldview will be. In itself, it is not likely that postmodernism is a view of the world that will remain predominant as long as did modernism. It is, after all, post-modernism. It is not defined by what it is, but what it is not. In many ways, it is a rejection of what has come before it. Indeed some are proclaiming its end already (perhaps prematurely).23 Presently, however, it is the prevailing mindset among most people who live in Western society, and there is no sign of it slowing down or ending.24
Suburban Postmoderns While a dizzying number of opinions exist, written and otherwise, about postmodern cultural advancement—even its relation to Christianity and the church— there is very little discussion about suburban postmodernity. This is a curious fact since growth trends still show that a majority of the population growth in the United States is in suburban areas. Contrary to the buzz about the “new urbanization” trend, the objective data shows that Americans are still fleeing cities and moving to suburbs:
In the United States, growth and development continues to be concentrated in suburban and exurban areas. Moreover, strong domestic migration continues away from the center cities and close-in suburbs, as evidenced by the fact that between 2000 and 2008, 4.6 million domestic migrants left the core counties of
22 Chris Altrock, Preaching to Pluralists: How to Proclaim Christ in a Postmodern Age (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2004) 7–8.
23 People from different philosophical positions, from evangelicals like Charles Colson and Anne Morse, “The Postmodern Crackup: From Soccer Moms To College Campuses, Signs of the End,” Christianity Today, December 1, 2003, 72.) to secular Philosophers like Alan Kirby, (“The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond,” Philosophy Now, November/December 2006.)
24 George Barna, Think Like Jesus (Brentwood, TN: Integrity Publishers, 2003), 37. Also: Mark Driscoll, Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009), 211.
10 the metropolitan areas over 1,000,000 in population, while 2.0 million moved into the suburban counties.25
But despite these facts, some make the opposite case, which has become somewhat popular folklore in the mainstream media. A recent article from MSNBC entitled, “Demographic Trends now Favor Downtown: Growth Across the Country Moves Away from Suburban and Exurban Fringe” makes it sound like people are fleeing the suburbs for the cities. Jonathan Weber writes, “Most demographic and market indicators suggest that growth and development across the country are moving away from the suburban and exurban fringe and toward center-cities and close-in suburbs.”26 Accompanying this story’s claim is a picture of Portland Oregon, a city Weber calls, “The Model.” But government statistics show that even in Portland, the suburbs are out-growing the city center. Cox’s research has shown that, “Since 2000, the suburbs have gained 106,000 domestic migrants, while the core county (Multnomah) has lost 4,000 domestic migrants. The IRS micro-data further indicates that the core continues to lose net domestic migration to the suburban counties.”27 Without trying to understand the popular, yet untrue, mantra claiming the suburbs are waning, the suburbs are still an important place to plant and develop healthy churches that understand and target people influenced by postmodernity. Yet so much of the church planting and pastor-training emphasis of recent years has been to reach the
25 Wendell Cox, “City and Suburban Trends: Sometimes It Helps to Look at the Data New Geography,” New Geography Blog, May 25, 2009, http://www.newgeography.com/content/00815-city- suburban-trends-sometimes-it-helps-look-data (accessed February 8, 2010).
26 Jonathan Weber, “Demographic Trends Now Favor Downtown: Growth Across the Country Moves Away from Suburban and Exurban Fringe,” MSNBC, May 20, 2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30810275/from/ET/ (accessed February 8, 2010).
27 Cox, “City and Suburban Trends,” (accessed February 8, 2010).
11 inner cities.28 While the church must reach the cities, an area where fewer evangelical churches exist per capita, believers must not forget the suburbs. This is where more people live, most new growth is taking place, and where an increasing number of postmoderns are moving.29
Two “Languages” Like their urban contemporaries, these suburban postmoderns are longing intrinsically for something more. An additional set of cultural expectations and subsequent void compound the problem for suburbanites, however:
A conundrum in the postmodern experience is that postmoderns are aware, at least subconsciously, that the modern world has collapsed, taking down with it the religious assumptions out of which they once lived, but at the same time they sense that clear replacements are not yet accessible to them. Because many norms of the modern world have been displaced, postmoderns are generally a spiritually seeking and searching group. Postmoderns and the search for worldly success do not necessarily go hand in hand, but suburban postmoderns can speak in the success language of the day and at the same time be aware of their spiritual incompleteness.30
Suburbanites, like other social groups, understand a “language” they learned from the culture in which they live. Suburban postmoderns are fluent in two figurative “languages.” One is the suburban capitalistic/consumerism language that claims “wealth equals happiness.” The other is the postmodern “language” that says (among other things), “distrust truth claims of propositional religion.” At the confluence of these two
28 This is a constant refrain from seminary church planting classes, to popular evangelicals like John Piper, Erwin McManus, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, and Mark Dever.
29 Arthur H. DeKruyter and Quentin J. Schultze, The Suburban Church: Practical Advice for Authentic Ministry (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 4. DeKruyter writes: “Over half of all Americans now live in suburbs, with the remainder roughly split between urban and rural locations. Suburbs represent the fastest population growth as well as vast financial and professional resources for Christian causes.”
30 Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture (Herndon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2005).
12 languages is a deep need. There, in the postmodern suburbanite’s soul, exists a black hole of emptiness and purposelessness and a realization that something is not right. The “conundrum” of which Rick Barger speaks presents a great opportunity for the churches that can make a connection to suburban postmoderns who are caught in the convergence of two conditions: the inherent emptiness of pursuing (and perhaps finding) worldly gain and the drifting aimlessness of life devoid of the moorings of foundational faith. While most postmoderns do not examine their lives through philosophical lenses, they are open to exploring opportunities that appeal to their sense of “incompleteness.” Many suburban postmoderns are aware of their lack of completeness, and when presented with an opportunity to experience community, authenticity, helping others, and a vital connection to a personal God of love and grace, their lives transform profoundly. They experience what Jesus referred to as “abundant life” (John 10:10). Evangelicals believe that God more than fills this void when someone he has called embraces him. A challenge for the church lies in presenting this opportunity in the “languages” the suburban postmodern understands. Driscoll writes,
We all agree that in the past generation or two there has been a significant cultural shift in the prevailing worldview from modernism, which led to rationalism, skepticism, and atheism, to postmodernism, which has led to experientialism, pluralism, spiritism, and the New Atheism. The ministry methods that succeeded in evangelizing people during the modern age just don’t work anymore because the average lost person is culturally different than he or she was a few generations ago.31 The fact that postmodernity is a dominant worldview and “language” of the culture and not a generational fad means the church must find new ways to “speak” the gospel of Christ to people who are not hearing in the same “language” that the church has
31 Driscoll, Religion Saves, 211.
13 been speaking for centuries. It is much more than changing music styles and wearing hip clothing. As Brian McLaren writes,
…[T]he point is not having a gospel that postmodern people like, nor is it starting postmodern churches if that means churches that think the gospel has been finally and fully contained by them in its latest, most trendy fashion. Ugh. Rather, the point is having churches that bring the gospel of the kingdom of God to postmodern people with a style of incarnation that resonates with (and in fact continues) the original Incarnation. That's not easy, and it isn't accomplished by pasting candles or music or new seating arrangements on the old modern gospel articulations.32
Communicating the gospel to suburbanites caught in the clutches of materialism in their language is challenge enough. Communicating the gospel in the language of postmodernity is even more so. It is not an easy problem to solve when the very nature of postmodernity itself is so hard to define.
Defining Expository Preaching The word, “preaching” is rich with historical/biblical meaning. In the New Testament, “preaching” is translated from two words: 62 times from κηρύσσω and 54 times from ευαγγελιζω. Bible Scholar and Harvard Divinity School Professor Joseph Thayer defined κηρύσσω thusly:
To proclaim after the manner of a herald; always with a suggestion of formality, gravity, and an authority, which must be listened to and obeyed...to proclaim openly: specifically used of the public proclamation of the gospel and matters pertaining to it, made by John the Baptist, by Jesus, by the apostles and other Christian leaders.33
32 Brian D. McLaren, “A Letter to Friends of Emergent,” http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/000126.html (accessed July 26, 2007). Whether or not McLaren speaks of the same gospel traditionally believed and preached by evangelicals is not the issue here.
33 Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1889), 346.
14 By comparison, ευαγγελιζω, which has the most simple meaning of “bring or announce good news,”34 more accurately “in the New Testament is used [especially] of the glad tidings of the coming kingdom of God, and of the salvation to be obtained in it through Christ, and of what relates to this salvation.”35 Paul used both of these terms unequivocally when instructing the young preacher Timothy:
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach (κηρύσσω) the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist (ευαγγελιστής from ευαγγελιζω), fulfill your ministry. (2 Tim 4:1–5) Teaching (also mentioned in the above passage) is certainly an important aspect of preaching, but it is hardly the same thing in itself. As the great warrior against modernity’s encroachment in the church, Albert J. Lyman, pastor of the South Congregational Church, Brooklyn, New York writes, “Preaching is more than teaching, and the essence of the difference is precisely this: Teaching is a report of the truth; preaching is an Incarnation of the truth (sic.).”36 John Piper, with characteristic passion and eloquence, said:
Preaching is more than teaching; it is the rising of the preacher’s heart to exult over the exposition of truth. It is both exposition of biblical texts and exultation
34 Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, trans. William F. Arnt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 317.
35 Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon, 256.
36 Albert J. Lyman, “The Truth of the Incarnation in Certain Practical Relations” (annual address before the alumni, June 1, 1897), in The Hartford Seminary Record, ed. Waldo Selden Pratt (Hartford, CT: Hartford Seminary Press, 1897), 802.
15 over the reality in those texts. This is implied in the vocabulary of preaching: heralding and proclaiming and announcing Good news!37
Though teaching is involved, preaching does not take questions, and it does not simply desire the dissemination of information. By preaching, this author specifically means the public proclamation in a church’s primary weekly gathering. It occurs at a regular predetermined time (usually Sunday mornings as an aspect of corporate worship) set apart most often for a biblically qualified leader of a community of believers to proclaim truth for the sake of transformation.38 The Holy Spirit does the transformation as an individual hears from God, and he moves them toward surrender and obedience. Therefore, for preachers who are convinced that God has revealed himself specifically and inerrantly through the 66 books of the canon, expository preaching exegetes (i.e., reads “out of”) God’s revelation what God desires people to understand. More succinctly, preaching starts with and faithfully exposes God’s thoughts to people to change them. Daniel Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, after quipping that “there are as many definitions of expository preaching as there are books on the subject,”39 offers his own thoughtful description:
Expository preaching is text-driven preaching that honors the truth of Scripture as it was given by the Holy Spirit. Discovering the God-inspired meaning through historical-grammatical-theological investigation and interpretation, the preacher, by means of engaging and compelling proclamation, explains, illustrates and applies the meaning of the biblical text in submission to
37 John Piper, “How My Pastoral Ministry Shapes My Pulpit Ministry,” 2008 Resurgence Conference (February 26, 2008), http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ ByDate/2008/2636_How_My_Pastoral_Ministry_Shapes_My_Pulpit_Ministry (accessed November 22, 2009).
38 Preaching can come in different ways, and different people can preach.
39 Daniel L. Akin, “A Crisis in the 21st Century Preaching: A Mandate for Biblical Exposition, 2007” (expository preaching workshop address on expository preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX, March 5, 2007), 6. To be fair, Akin immediately follows, “This statement has only a modicum of truth.”
16 and in the power of the Holy Spirit, preaching Christ for a verdict of changed lives.40
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones states, “In a sermon the theme or the doctrine is something that arises out of the text and its context, it is something which is illustrated by the text and context.”41 Another well-known expositional preacher, Haddon Robinson writes,
What do we mean by expository preaching? In the broadest sense, it is preaching that draws its substance from the Scriptures. Actually, true exposition is more of an attitude than a method. … It is to ask, “When I approach the Scriptures for a message to preach do I allow the Bible to shape my sermon, or do I let what I have already decided to say determine what I take from the Bible? Before we stand to speak do we sit and listen to what a passage actually says?
What do expository sermons look like? If sermons are truly biblical, we would not expect them to resemble one another like cookies on a baking sheet.42 The late John R. Stott may say it best:
It is my contention that all true Christian preaching is expository preaching. Of course, if by an “expository” sermon is meant a verse-by-verse explanation of a lengthy passage of Scripture, then indeed it is only one possible way of preaching, but this would be a misuse of the word. Properly speaking, “exposition” has a much broader meaning. It refers to the content of the sermon (biblical truth) rather than its style (a running commentary). To expound Scripture is to bring out of the text what is there and expose it to view. The expositor pries open what appears to be closed, makes plain what is obscure, unravels what is knotted and unfolds what is tightly packed. The opposite of exposition is “imposition,” which is to impose on the text what is not there. But the “text” in question could be a verse, or a sentence, or even a single word. It could equally be a paragraph, or a chapter, or a whole book. The size of the text is immaterial, so long as it is biblical. What matters is what we do with it. Whether it is long or short, our responsibility as expositors is to open it up in such a way that it speaks
40 Ibid., 6. Emphasis in the original.
41 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1971), 72.
42 Haddon Robinson, “The Relevance of Expository Preaching,” in Preaching to a Shifting Culture: 12 Perspectives on Communicating That Connects, ed. Scott M. Gibson (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004), 82–83.
17 its message clearly, plainly, accurately, relevantly, without addition, subtraction or falsification. In expository preaching the biblical text is neither a conventional introduction to a sermon on a largely different theme, nor a convenient peg on which to hang a ragbag of miscellaneous thoughts, but a master which dictates and controls what is said.43 In summary, the purpose of this project is to take the broad definition of expository preaching and observe two churches and their pastors who have committed to proclaim the Bible’s content to their congregations. Just as many definitions exist, many types (styles) of expository sermons exist as well. The specific methodology is not the concern of this work, except to observe how it has been formed by the expositor’s desire to communicate God’s timeless truth to postmoderns.
Hypotheses for this Study
In the applied research project, the author will present case studies of two churches that are utilizing expository preaching to effectively reach postmoderns. This project explored two hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Cultural Contextualization The first hypothesis is: The selected churches and pastors successfully employ expository preaching for postmodern suburbanites by providing cultural contextualization. The term “successfully” speaks of utilizing expository preaching throughout the full process of disciple-making from the initial investigation of Christ to
43 John R. W. Stott, Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 125–126.
18 becoming a mature, reproductive follower. 44 The author argues that the selected churches and preachers must understand and meet postmodern suburbanites where they are—responding to their culture on their terms. This includes utilizing their environment and using their language to best convey God’s Word. The “language” of postmodern culture is multi-faceted. The church and pastor that wishes to communicate to suburban postmoderns must evaluate every cultural “message” they send. Does this include technology, music, visual elements, dress, and environmental factors? Must the church also promote diversity, grace, clarity of mission, and other values that can be felt as well as seen intentionally? Must the pastor (the primary communicator of the Word) identify with the culture of the postmodern suburbanite hearer? Must the pastor be relevant and fresh in his communication? In a culture that overemphasizes image, must he make an effort to identify with current styles and be physically fit? The answer to all these questions should be, “Yes.”
44 Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Church: Leading a Body of Believers on the Journey of Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1990 (updated edition 2010)), 38–39. Regarding disciple-making, Hull observes that Jesus had a four-phase development plan built around four of his own key statements, each of which inaugurated a new phase of training.
“Come and See.” In this formative stage, Jesus extended an invitation for people to be introduced to him and his work.
“Come and Follow Me.” This is the developmental stage, in which Jesus trained and established mature believers. He showed them how and did it with them.
“Come and Be with Me.” By joining correction to the developmental stage, Jesus challenged those who had leadership skills to be with him. Out of this came the Twelve—those who received a special position and authority.
“Remain in Me.” In the final phase, Christ expected the disciples to reproduce. He deployed them into the world to obey his command and make disciples.
This simple disciple-making model of Jesus can be applied to people of every worldview and culture, including postmoderns.
19 Hypothesis 2: Conveying Authenticity The selected churches and pastors employ expository preaching successfully by conveying authenticity on the part of the communicator and the message.45 The author suggests that the single most important quality that must be perceived by the postmodern hearer is genuineness. The church and pastor must practice and believe what they say sincerely with humility and love. The doctrines, values, mission, and strategies a church claims to believe are important. But to the postmodern, are the beliefs as important as authenticity? How does a church convey genuineness? How does a preacher show earnestness? What role does he have in leading a church with a reputation of inauthenticity to change? Can authenticity be contrived or generated? Questions like these will be asked and explored with the two case churches.
Potential Benefits of this Study
Few subjects are more critical if the American church wishes to accomplish the Great Commission. For preaching pastors whose job is to rightly divide the Word of Truth to a culture that increasingly shuns, and at the same time, needs God’s revelation of himself to those he made and loves, few things could be more significant. Learning ways that it is being done elsewhere is key to improving their effectiveness.
The Practical Paradox Young pastors desperately wanting to engage unbelievers in this rapidly changing world, are laying aside the preaching they learned in seminary before the ink is
45 See above for what is meant by the term, “successfully.”
20 dry on their degrees.46 One successful church planting pastor says, “I just don’t see how the two [expository preaching and effectively engaging and evangelizing unchurched postmoderns] can coexist. I guess it’s possible, but I just don’t know that it can be done effectively.”47 This honest comment likely reflects what many pastors believe in their hearts as evidenced by their practice. An additional factor is that certain well-known pastors have made statements publically that discourage pastors from even attempting to reach people through expository proclamation. In his first popular work, The Purpose-Driven Church, Rick Warren states,
Verse-by-verse, or book, exposition builds up the body of Christ. It works great when you’re speaking to believers who accept the authority of God’s Word and are motivated to learn the Scriptures. But what about unbelievers who are not yet motivated to study Scripture? I do not believe verse-by-verse teaching through the books of the Bible is the most effective way to evangelize the unchurched. Instead, you must start on common ground...48
Influential Atlanta pastor and Dallas Theological Seminary graduate Andy Stanley agrees. In a large conference in 2004, he spoke directly to pastors and told them that those who practiced expository preaching needed to change. He says, “Going verse- by-verse is easy.” He continues, “Do you know what your responsibility is as a pastor? It
46 This statement assumes they actually learned expository preaching in Seminary. Wayne G. Strickland in “Seminary Education: A Philosophical Paradigm Shift in Process,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 2, no. 32 (June 1989): 227–235) decries the continuing de-emphasis of the study of exegesis—particularly the mastering of biblical languages, which is being replaced by practical ministry courses. He makes the case that this has, and continues to have a detrimental effect on American Christianity.
47 Discussion with a pastor of a church that reaches suburban postmodern unchurched people who asked to remain unnamed on July 26, 2007 by Chad Sparks.
48 Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message And Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 294.
21 is to minister to felt-needs not to preach verse-by-verse through Scripture.”49 Warren and Stanley see that the most important aspect of reaching unchurched people is capturing their interest and being relevant. “Content determines relevance,” Stanley says, “Content should be shaped by need, both hidden need and felt need.” Speaking directly to pastors, he states, “If you want to reach people...felt needs make people realize why [they] need to hear what you’re about to say.” And then he says, “Verse-by-verse is lazy preaching.” Andy Stanley is decrying the forms of verse-by-verse exposition that have reduced preaching to at least one of the following: (1) a running commentary of the text at hand, (2) focusing on textual/linguistic/theological minutia, or (3) the bland dissemination of information, any of which are neither transformational, nor inspirational. Modern-minded people may excuse all of these unfortunate digressions, but for postmoderns, preachers might as well speak in a foreign language. However, even giving Andy Stanley the benefit of the doubt, younger pastors, who see the church losing ground and want to reach unbelievers, take blanket statements like these from influential leaders seriously. This results in a trend away from expository preaching among those most able to reach succeeding generations that are becoming more postmodern.50 Therefore, a perception exists among pastors that faithfully preaching the Word and engaging the postmodern hearer are mutually exclusive ideas that cannot coexist. The author frequently talks to young pastors and church planters who have been
49 Paul Lamey, “How ‘Deliberate’ Is Your Church?: Part Two,” The Master’s Seminary Alumni Blog (October 31, 2005), http://tmsalumni.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-deliberate-is-your-church- part-two.html (accessed July 26, 2007). A link to the actual audio is provided.
50 In a casual survey of twenty-four pastors of evangelical church plants less than fifteen years old, the author found that only four utilized verse-by-verse teaching as “the regular diet” of their church’s main-meeting proclamation. Almost all (22 of the 24) went to Bible colleges and/or seminaries that affirmed the importance of expository preaching.
22 led to believe that they must choose one or the other. The result of pastors making this false choice is at least two-fold: (1) Strong Bible-teaching churches are rendered less influential with subsequent generations; (2) Those postmodern unchurched people who are redeemed in culture-engaging churches will have stunted growth and have less love for, knowledge of, and adherence to the Word. This biblical anemia will result in drifting and error. When this effect is compounded and widespread, an entire generation can be affected adversely with potential long-term and negative consequences, as history has shown.51 Thus far a puritan/protestant heritage preserved an evangelical Christianity in the United States (reinvigorated by occasional awakenings and, more recently, mass- meeting evangelists). Additionally the church learned lessons from the example of Europe where Protestantism dwindled to the point of practical irrelevance. These and other factors have blessed the United States with an abundance of evangelical churches. Without a new movement of expository preaching that equips the redeemed and engages the postmodern unchurched, the United States faces accelerated diminishment (or worse) of evangelical Christianity. Allowing this to happen is not a viable option. However, if there is a resurgence of expository preaching as a (read: the) primary way to reach the postmodern unchurched, Christians have an opportunity for evangelism that harkens back to pre-Constantinian days, before church and state joined in unholy matrimony, when the wild growth of the church in the first two centuries
51 A case can be made that some of the most significant challenges to Christianity happened, in part, as consequences of the church deemphasizing sound biblical proclamation. Arianism in the East, after contact with Mohammad, contributed to the creation of Islam. Medieval corruption of the church was due to several factors—not the least of which was the virtual absence of transformational biblical preaching (homilies were increasingly done in Latin rather than the people’s native tongue, and allegorical interpretation was the norm) and decreased biblical literacy and availability. The rise of liberalism in Europe may have led to a weakened church that could not stand against Fascism, Nazism, and Socialism, thus resulting in the deaths of millions and the spiritual coldness of a whole continent.
23 significantly slowed, interjecting institutionalization, coercion, and myriad other corruptions. By illustration, Christ’s parable of the sower needs to be reapplied (Luke 8). The seed is the Word and the field is the world. But the field is changing dramatically before today’s church. Modernity is dying. This is not all bad, as some opine.52 Christians now have an opportunity to present the same seed to a different kind of soil. This requires a change in preparation, presentation, and fertilization. The church that springs forth may well be stronger than ever.
Preview of Chapters This dissertation will follow a traditional format of five chapters. The first chapter has provided an introduction offering rationale, definition of key terms, hypotheses, and potential benefits. Chapter 2 presents findings from the current literature that is available regarding the two hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 states: The selected churches/pastors employ expository preaching successfully by providing cultural contextualization. Hypothesis 2 states: The selected churches/pastors employ expository preaching successfully by conveying authenticity on the part of the communicator and the message. Cultural contextualization and conveying authenticity are important components for communicating effectively in general, and for reaching postmoderns with expository preaching in particular. Chapter 3 addresses the procedures and research methods used in this research project, namely those pertaining to the case studies. The author will introduce and defend the use of the case study method, state the research question, and explain the research design process, selection of churches, selection of participants, data collection, data analysis, and data reporting. Chapter 4 presents the case
52 Colson and Morse, “The Postmodern Crackup: From Soccer Moms To College Campuses, Signs of the End,” 72.
24 studies themselves. Chapter 5 provides a conclusion based on the case studies, as well as some implications and applications for the reader.
CHAPTER 2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND LITERATURE REVIEW
Of course the problem of how Christians relate to culture is as old as Christianity itself. The New Testament makes it clear that there were sharp differences of opinion in the first century over how to relate to the culture. Yet, the Christ of the Bible is the Christ of a culture. The ultimate act of communication in history, the incarnation, means that Christ became a part of culture and can’t be understood apart from culture. In the same way, you can’t live in God without living in the world. That’s why this conversation is like debating the relative roles of hydrogen and oxygen in the air we breathe.1 Leonard Sweet
Introduction The literature that covers expository preaching is plentiful and spans centuries. It seems there is almost as much written about postmodernity, and it only spans a couple of decades. The concern of this work is the interaction between expository preaching and postmoderns in the framework of the two hypotheses presented above. In this chapter, the author will review scriptural principles, discuss historical development (following the historical stream of American evangelicalism2), and finally, present recent opinion and movement in literature that has been written particularly regarding
1 Leonard I. Sweet, ed., The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 13–14.
2 It is nearly impossible to adequately summarize the rich historical literature regarding either of the hypotheses even given the limitations of the Western (Roman)-Reformation-English-puritan- American-evangelical stream of historical development, let alone attempting to include the historical development and contributions of Christians from other parts of the world.
25 26 Christianity’s response to postmodernism. This will include literature about the Emerging movement within Christianity.3 This chapter will also address preaching to postmoderns.
Hypothesis Area 1: Cultural Contextualization. People live in a particular cultural context. Men who also viewed the world from a particular culture penned the Bible “carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Much of the job of an expositor is to “put on sandals” and attempt to understand the cultural context in which the writers lived in order that he may communicate the intent of the text to people. This is the place the preacher lives, as the title of John R. Stott’s book on preaching states it, “between two worlds.”4 He stands between the world of the ancient text and that of current culture. Even though today’s culture is increasingly postmodern, this has been the preacher’s place, and a body of literature exists that expounds upon the need to span contexts.
Biblical Precedent
The Bible speaks of the need for Christians to relate to the culture and to convey the message of the gospel to the culture. This principle is found both implicitly and explicitly throughout the Scriptures. The fact that God revealed himself at all to humanity is evidence of his desire to relate to his created beings. He did, after all, create people with the capacity to reason and to know him. He revealed himself to humankind generally through creation:
3 While not synonymous with Christian postmodernity, leaders of the Emerging/Emergent church movement(s) commonly speak of the relationship between themselves and postmodernity.
4 Stott’s book, previously referenced, is entitled, Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994).
27 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. (Ps 19:1–4)
Paul insists that this communication through creation—this general revelation of God—is enough to condemn all humankind, for all have suppressed what is revealed clearly to all about God and have rebelled:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom 1:18–20)
But God has communicated even more specifically. As the second half of Psalm 19 continues the theme of God’s revelation of himself, David states that God has revealed himself without error in his written Word:
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; ... the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. (Psalm 19:7–11)
28 Though he is Spirit (John 4:24) and is Wholly Other,5 he has revealed himself verbally, using actual spoken and written languages of human beings. His specific revelation through human prophets and writers who were “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21) to record what was “God breathed” (2 Tim 3:16 NIV) in the language of human beings is itself evidence of his determination to convey his truth—the narrative of his loving creation of humanity, the rebellion, and the working out of his plan to redeem those who would believe. But there is more. The great climax of this narrative is the predetermined coming of Christ (Gal 4:4)—God in human form—who, as John wrote, “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The incarnation,6 which was the amazing act of Sovereign God clothing himself in human flesh, is perhaps the best proof of God’s determination to relate and reveal himself to the world—the people whom he made and who separated themselves from him by sin:
Relationship with human beings was foundational for Jesus’ ministry. He took the time and effort to leave heaven and become human. Christ submitted to all that it means to be human, including birth, growing up in a family (moreover, a poor, first-century, Palestinian Jewish family), and acquiring a trade. He experienced the entire range of human experience, yet without sin (Heb 4:15).7 Jesus said that he “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). As the writer of Hebrews begins, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our
5 Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 452.
6 According to Grudem: “Although the word (incarnation) does not explicitly occur in the Scriptures, the church has used the term to refer to the fact that Jesus was God in human flesh. The incarnation was the act of God the Son whereby he took to himself a human nature.” [Footnote to the quote: “The Latin word incarnare means ‘to make flesh,’ and is derived from the prefix in- (which has a causative sense, ‘to cause something to be something’) and the stem caro, carnis-, ‘flesh.’”] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 543.
7 Irving Hexham, Stephen Rost, and John Morehead, ed., Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004), 28.
29 fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb 1:1–2). Therefore, Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation of God, for he is God in human form. As Paul points out in Philippians 2, Christ “emptied himself” to dwell among humans in human form, even in the form of a servant (Phil 2:7).8 This coming of Christ is, according to Matthew, the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa 7:14). Or, as Matthew explains it, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us)” (Matt 1:23). God spanned the distance himself. Humankind could not get to him or emulate his holiness. So he came to humankind as a human being. He did not come in agreement with or tolerance of sin but for the sake of offering forgiveness to those made in his image—people whom he loved and planned to redeem from before creation. God was pleased to come and be with mankind to share human experience and reveal himself to humanity. In sharing humanity’s experience, Christ naturally interacted with the culture in which he was immersed. When he began his public ministry, he reached out to all types of people, including the least among them. He physically touched and healed those who were considered “unclean”9 and gave women unprecedented access.10 He attended
8 NASB, NET, HCSB, ASV, ERB, WEB, Young’s, Douay Rheims. It is not within the scope of this work to engage in the “Kenosis” controversy or to discuss the exact nature or extent of Christ’s emptying of himself in order to become fully human, only that he did.
9 Matt 8:2–3, 11:4–5, 18:15, 9:29, 20:34, Mark 1:40–41, 7:33, Luke 5:11–13, 7:14, 22.
10 Matt 27:55, Mark 15:41, Luke 8:1–3, 10:38–42, John 4:1–42, 20:11–18.
30 events and had relationships with people who had been cast out socially—even initiating the relationships at times.11 And perhaps most importantly for the present discussion, he taught in a way that connected with and moved people. Large groups followed him from place to place and his words greatly affected them. Even “secular academics argue Jesus was a powerful speaker.”12 The common people understood, including the children to which he spoke on their level. He used examples from everyday life in his teaching. Seeds and soil (Luke 8), sons and brothers (Luke 15:11-32, Matt 28:21–32), a woman and a lost coin (Luke 15:8–10), kneading leaven in bread (Matt 13:33), weddings (Matt 9:15, 22:1–12, 25:5–10; Mark 2:19; Luke 5:34, 12:36, 14:8), and robbers on the roads (Luke 10:25–37) are just a few of the everyday concepts and experiences he utilized as metaphors to relay truth to people in his particular culture. He was so connected to their context that some had trouble believing he could be the Messiah (Matt 13:53–57; John 7:41, 52)! The learned among the religious establishment were both impressed and confounded. His clever and powerful words thwarted their attempts at entrapment. Even those who were sent to arrest him proclaimed, “No one ever spoke like this man!” (John 7:46). He connected with people in their own culture; speaking in ways they intrinsically understood. He held their interest and applied his message to them in a way that demanded change. Sometimes his words were so harsh people walked away or became his enemies (John 6:60–66). Oftentimes his words were filled surprisingly with grace (E.g. Luke 7:36–50, 17:11–19; John 8:1–11). Frequently he
11 Levi’s gathering of friends (including other tax-collectors and “sinners,” Mark 2:14–17, Luke 5:27–30), Zacchaeus (Luke 19:2–9), the sinful woman who anointed his feet with oil (Luke 7:36–50), the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was demon-possessed (Matt 15:21–28, Mark 7:24–30), and the adulterous Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1–42) come to mind.
12 Julia Ryan, “Review The Story of Jesus,” The Church of England Newspaper, http://www.religiousintelligence.org/churchnewspaper/eos/review-the-story-of-jesus/ April 20th, 2011 (accessed August 10, 2011).
31 referenced the Hebrew Scriptures of which he had perfect knowledge. He taught his disciples by example that they were to know and communicate the Word. According to Hanks, “In answer to their questions and problems Jesus quoted the Old Testament 160 times in the presence of His disciples.”13 But people understood the Scriptures because Jesus brought them to life. Frequently the gospels mention, “The crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matt 7:28–29; see also Mark 1:22, 27; Luke 4:32). He was not merely disseminating information from the Bible along with running commentary like the scribes. He applied—even fulfilled—the words of Scripture before them in language they could understand. He spoke with confidence, conviction, and power (conveying authority). If Jesus’ example of connecting in the context of the culture is not enough, his exhortation to his followers undeniably demonstrates his desire for connecting to culture.
In the Great Commission (Matt 28:19–20), Jesus commanded his followers to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” By his use of the word “εθνη” (nations), Christ is neither referring to political states nor geographical regions. He is referring to people groups or cultures:
Jesus called them to make disciples of panta ta ethne, “all the nations.” This phrase means not the modern convention of nations, but rather individual sociolinguistic ethnic groups (ethne). Though the Jewish people were the primary focus of His earthly work, His ministry touched differing people groups as He evangelized the village of the Samaritans (Jn 4), healed the Roman centurion’s son (Mt 8), and ministered to the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mk 7:26). He commissioned His followers to go to all tribes, peoples, and languages, and make known to them His reconciling love and forgiveness.”14
13 Billie Hanks, Discipleship: Great Insights From the Most Experienced Disciple Makers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 136.
14 Steven L. Cox and Kendell H.Easley, HCSB Harmony of the Gospels (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 347.
32 Jesus again made his desire to reach all cultures clear in the moments before his ascension: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This specific mention of Samaria must have jarred the senses of the Jewish Apostles. Jews hated Samaritans as half-breeds who had bastardized the true worship of God. For this reason, Jesus had made it a point to highlight Samaritans throughout his ministry (Luke 10:33, Luke 17:16, John 4). “End of the earth” in this context must only mean “everyone on the planet, whether you like their culture or not.” To make the point further, in Acts 2, God sent the Holy Spirit to fall upon the church, just as Christ told them would happen. But unexpectedly, they were able suddenly and compelled to speak in other languages that they had never learned. Because Pentecost, one of the three great festivals of Judaism, was taking place in Jerusalem, the city was filled with travelers, “men from every nation [εθνη] under heaven” (Acts 2:5). These foreigners,
...were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” (Acts 2:6–12) At this point, Peter took the stage and preached the first Christian sermon in history. He started with Scripture, explaining that they were witnessing the beginning of the fulfillment of Joel’s prophesy: “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17; emphasis added). “All flesh” is every human being, regardless of the nation, race, or culture from which they came.
33 This “all flesh” understanding of the church and its mission was still somewhat lost on the Apostles after Jesus’ ascension and the early period of the church after the coming of the Holy Spirit. So in Acts 10, God planned a lesson intended to unmistakably drive this point home to Peter and the new church. Cornelius, a Roman Centurion in Caesarea over the Italian Cohort, is a seeker who is described as “a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God” (Acts 10:2). God specifically communicates to him. At three o’clock in the afternoon, “he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, ‘Cornelius’” (Acts 10:3). The angel gave specific instructions for Cornelius to send for Peter who was in Joppa. While his men were carrying out the mission, the next day at noon Peter, unaware, was praying while waiting for lunch. He fell into a trance and:
...saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. (Acts 10:11-16) Peter was confused. God had spoken to the Israelites in the wilderness that they were to be separate. Would God want him to change his diet, which for Jews God gave as a symbol of being separate from the rest of the world?15 At that moment, the men came to the house where Peter was staying. God said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them” (Acts 10:19–20). After hearing why they came, Peter went with them to meet Cornelius. Peter understood. He proclaims,
15 Leviticus 24b–26: “I am the LORD your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”
34 You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation [εθνη], but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. ...Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation [εθνη] anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him (Acts 10:28, 34–35). The application is clear. Regarding the subject at hand, as a result of the new covenant of God made possible by Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, God has now mandated that people from all cultures be invited to his family. The Scriptures command the people of God to meet unconverted people where they are—in their cultural context. Perhaps the most famous is from the example and teaching of Apostle Paul:
Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel (1 Cor 9:19–23).
The gospel was the prime directive of Paul’s life and ministry. Communicating it effectively to “win” all human beings, regardless of culture, was his goal. “Christ and him crucified” was his primary point (1 Cor 2:2). As illustrated by his example throughout the Book of Acts, Paul willingly modified tactics and tailored his message without compromise of content to engage the hearer.
Historical Development Since the completion of the New Testament, much development has occurred regarding the church’s relationship with the culture and her teachings about how to best affect it. However, until recent times specific writing on this subject is scarce. Therefore, the next section must examine the issue of contextualizing the church or the Word to the
35 culture secondarily and from different angles, recognizing the various cultural trends that the church and preachers faced and considering their response.
The Classical Period At the completion of the Bible, the church was a persecuted sect of mostly Jews that had started adding people of other races to their ranks. In spite of on-again-off- again persecution, this group grew quickly, forming strong, local, faith communities. In addition to their local shepherding leadership, the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers were, broadly speaking, apologists for Christianity’s existence in the Roman Empire and Christianity’s logical superiority over paganism. Men like Polycarp, Minucius Felix, Cyprian, Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen intentionally interacted with their culture to make the case for Christianity.16 They accepted Pagan Roman rule and their place within it. These men were quite familiar with Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and especially Cicero—great divines in Greco-Roman thought, education, writing, and rhetoric—even adapting some of their oratorical styles. Sermons from this period reflect the popular Greco-Roman elocution. Rankin makes the case that Stoicism, and to a lesser degree, Middle Platonism influenced some of the Fathers’ preaching styles, even claiming, “Athenagoras is a Platonist within the Christian camp.”17 This interrelation between the culture and the Ante-Nicene Fathers was substantial but also purposeful. Origen shamelessly instructs a new convert to “extract from the philosophy of the Greeks what may serve as a course of study of a preparation for Christianity...in order that all the sons of the philosophers are wont to say
16 David Ivan Rankin, From Clement to Origen (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2006); In this work, Rankin addresses the engagement of a number of pre-Nicene Church Fathers with their surrounding local cultures.
17 Ibid., 124.
36 about...grammar, rhetoric...as fellow-helpers to philosophy, we may say about philosophy itself, in relation to Christianity.”18 More than being merely products of their respective cultures, they were determined to engage the pagan culture in which God had placed them. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers exhibited a considerable change in tone. Because of the significant event of Constantine’s conversion and subsequent ascension as Emperor of Rome in 312, the church could leave the shadows sought during instability and persecution and boldly come forth. Additionally, armed with the newfound confidence that God’s desire for them included forming a theocratic Christendom that would usher in Christ’s kingdom on earth, the church began a relationship with the state that would eventually diminish her spiritual impact and continued growth. The first step in establishing this unified Christendom was to reach a consensus in beliefs. Church leaders felt that this fulfilled the desire of Christ in his high- priestly prayer of John 16. One casualty of the exponential growth experienced under the persecution of the first two centuries was the different understandings of basic doctrines that developed in different areas Christians occupied. Beginning with Nicaea in 325 and until the council at Nicaea in 787, Christian leaders determined what was to be deemed orthodox on essential matters, particularly regarding the person and work of Christ. These matters dominated the writings of Christian leaders of this era, sometimes distracting the church and preachers of the day from the work of evangelism. Regarding cultural contextualization of the Word and the church in a few sectors, some evidence of the study of practical rhetoric applied to preaching, particularly of Greek teachers of sophistry like Isocrates, who had a strong influence on Church
18 Origen, “Letter to Gregory,” para. 1 in 11.88–9, quoted in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1885; rpt.1994), 393.
37 Fathers like Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus.19 Isocrates was a great orator known for his smooth and persuasive style that spoke to the common man. Now able to preach openly and formally—sometimes even in new state-erected church buildings—a comparatively few Post-Nicene Fathers uncovered and utilized these techniques to compel people to hear and obey the Word. These were the exception rather than the rule. More broadly speaking, however, the style of proclamation began to change during the post-Nicene period and took on an accepted Christian-specific form that distanced itself from the waning pagan culture. Jerome, for example, rejected all pagan rhetorical principles from Corax and Empedocles of Agrigentum to Sulpicius Victor, and the classical concepts of rhetoric once again became generally inoperative during this era.20 This distancing of rhetorical styles is one indicator of the huge shift in Christianity’s relation to the world that took place after Constantine became emperor of Rome. From the Edict of Milan (313 AD) until the Protestant Reformation (early 1500s), a growing view of the church’s relation to culture can be summed up in one word: conquest. Rather than lovingly presenting the gospel in order that God might conquer sin through the message of the cross, the church sought external conquest of people and nations politically and militarily. Drunk with the power brought by her marriage with the state, the church wielded the sword and demanded that other worldviews and religions submit or perish, despite the voices within the church that warned against a worldly understanding of Christ’s rule and reign.
19 Nigel Guy Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2006), 389.
20 John H. Timmis, III, “Christian Rhetoric and the Western Church Fathers,” in Communication Studies: The official journal of the Central States Communication Association 27, no. 4 (1976): 280–284.
38 Augustine wrote his City of God shortly after the Visigoths sacked “Christian” Rome in 410.21 Some shocked Romans took the opportunity to blame Rome’s misfortunes on Christianity’s usurpation of polytheistic paganism. Augustine refuted the claims by explaining Christianity's superiority over competing religions and philosophies and clarified its relationship to the Roman government, with which it was increasingly connected. Augustine’s goal was to comfort Christians and create a vision for the future. He implored Christians to remember that God’s heavenly city would be triumphant ultimately, regardless of the ebbs and flows of worldly political kingdoms. Even though Augustine had his eyes set on the heavenly city of God, he unwittingly paid homage to the earthly city of God, which for him was Rome. He had shown how Christian Emperors had found more success than their pagan counterparts. He had demonstrated how all people had benefited from Christian temporal rule of the earthly city as well and had gained peace and prosperity. While these earthly things are good, he argued, heavenly things are infinitely better. If the heavenly things are neglected, misery follows:
...The things which this [earthly] city desires cannot justly be said to be evil, for it is itself, in its own kind, better than all other human good. For it desires earthly peace for the sake of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order to attain to this peace; since, if it has conquered, and there remains no one to resist it, it enjoys a peace which it had not while there were opposing parties who contested for the enjoyment of those things which were too small to satisfy both. This peace is purchased by toilsome wars; it is obtained by what they style a glorious victory. Now, when victory remains with the party which had the juster cause, who hesitates to congratulate the victor, and style it a desirable peace? These things, then, are good things, and without doubt the gifts of God. But if they neglect the better things of the heavenly city, which are secured by eternal victory and peace never-ending, and so inordinately covet these present good things that they believe them to be the only desirable things, or love them better
21 Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 2., ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887).
39 than those things which are believed to be better—if this be so, then it is necessary that misery follow and ever increase.22
History bears witness that the latter danger became reality as men’s lust for worldly wealth and power almost always supersedes their desire for heavenly things. Augustine’s warning went unheeded as future political and church leaders embellished his former point, providing rationale for what became the Holy Roman Empire. Augustine believed that,
Our Lord was the last and perpetual Christus Domini and the City of God on earth was distinct from man-made states and ruled by its own ecclesiastical hierarchy, while obedience was due to the secular monarch only in secular things for the maintenance of peace; but the theocratic idea of the kingship was yet predominant...23 This struggle to understand the rightful “place” of secular government and its relationship to the church marked the Middle Ages. Men like Charlemagne exploited Augustine’s words to their own advantage.24 Augustine was a trailblazer in many other ways, including the field of homiletics. He preached and taught persuasively but in a whole new way that redefined the classic rhetorical practices that preceded him:
A clean break is made by St. Augustine. The fourth book of his De Doctrina Christiana has historical significance in the early years of the fifth century out of all proportion to its size; for it begins rhetoric anew. It not only ignores sophistic; it goes back over centuries of the lore of personal triumph to the ancient idea of moving men to truth; and it gives to the vital counsels of Cicero a new emphasis for the urgent tasks of preaching the word of God.”25
22 Ibid., Book XV, ch. 4, 286.
23 Charles William Previté-Orton, Outlines of Medieval History (London: Cambridge University Press, 1916), 131.
24 According to Einhard, Charlemagne’s favorite book was Augustine’s City of God (Einhard, Life of Charlemagne [New York: American Book Company, 1880], 62).
25 Charles Sears Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1959), 51.
40 The Medieval Period Augustine is an appropriate transition between the classical period and the medieval and renaissance emphasis of literature, rhetoric, and poetry.26 The medieval period (sometimes called “the Dark Ages”) often is considered a time of general ignorance concerning education, particularly in conservative Christian circles regarding the communication of the Word and the preaching of the gospel. The institutional state- church drifted dreadfully toward corruption, formal standardization (particularly the Latin-only liturgy and language of the clergy), and mysticism (which promoted superstition). Ultimately, greater tragedy resulted: widespread biblical illiteracy and doctrinal diversion, particularly among the laity. Making the message of Christ understandable to cultures that did not yet embrace Christianity during the Medieval Period happened more notably on the mission field than within the territory of what was the Roman Empire. Great men like Patrick in Ireland, Boniface in Germany, and Ramon Lull to the Muslims of North Africa were, according to tradition and scant eyewitness sources, persuasive preachers of the Word and the gospel in the cultural language and context of the people to whom they preached. Boniface is a prime example of one who engaged an unfriendly (in his case, perhaps barbaric Germanic) culture successfully. He was quite confrontational, and famously cut down the sacred oak at Geismare, dedicated to Thor, the god of thunder.27 Thor was one of the main deities of pagan north Germany, and the people believed his spirit resided in the great tree. According to historian Leon McBeth, “Boniface made no secret of his intention [to cut down the tree]. The angry mob milled about fully expecting their god to
26 Thomas W. Benson and Michael H. Prosser, Readings in Classical Rhetoric (Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1988), 133.
27 Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, vol. I: Beginnings to 1500 (Peabody, MA: Prince Press, 2000), 348.
41 strike dead the intruding stranger.”28 After cutting down the tree with his own axe, Boniface stood on its stump and preached Christ. The impact was profound:
At this the hostility of the crowd turned to uneasiness, dimly grasping the inability of their god against a higher deity. Boniface used this as an open door to convert the entire territory to Christ. Timber from the oak was used to build a small chapel on that spot—a vivid reminder to the Germans that Christ must triumph. This incident is a typical example of the dramatic missionary career of Boniface...probably the greatest missionary of the early middle ages.29 Like many of the great missionary stories, Boniface met the culture on its terms, strategically and efficaciously calling people to heed the gospel. However, it would be a mistake to think these missionaries were the only ones delivering the Word to the culture persuasively. Though examples are rare by comparison, some people made attempts to bridge the message often made distant by the institutional-state-church culture with the people in their own cultural context. Alcuin of York and Venerable Bede in England (along with many other medieval contemporaries) were educated in the classics and relied on rhetoric and oratory from Roman and Greek traditions, but they were biblical in content and effective in communication. For some of them, like Bede, this presented a bit of a conflict:
Bede charted rhetorical usage and the Greek use of tropes and figures, but his Christian mindset led him to dismiss all influences that were not based upon scripture. One could surmise that Bede seemed to at once admire classical precepts of the past that included rhetoric, but was careful to distinguish and separate between Christian and pagan elements in order to be taken seriously within an age so driven by a Christian focus and morality. Bede himself seems to struggle to find the balance.30
28 Leon McBeth, Men Who Made Missions (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1968), 25.
29 Ibid., 25.
30 Jennifer M. Randall, “Early Medieval Rhetoric: Epideictic Underpinnings in Old English Homilies” English Dissertations, Georgia State University, 2010, Paper 61, 40–41, http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=english_diss (accessed August 11, 2011).
42 From Bede’s own writing in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, preachers and missionary evangelists were active in England at that time. According to McClure and Collins, Bede believed the discipline of rhetoric to be in opposition to Christian teaching.31 Bede is an important figure to examine because of his prominence and his prolific pen in the seventh century. According to Jennifer Randall, Bede straddles the line between classically trained scholar and preacher to the common man in his day:
Bede draws largely from the grammatical teachings of Donatus rather than a specific rhetorical treatise. In particular, Bede’s homilies demonstrate application of rhetorical knowledge to preaching through his narrative details and focus upon the audience. However, only one of Bede’s works, Concerning Tropes and Figures, specifically discusses rhetoric and mentions Ciceronian rhetoric. Bede’s Concerning Tropes and Figures was designed to assist those who were studying the Bible with identifying rhetorical devices, and the illustrations Bede relies upon are unendingly biblical. Medieval homilies written by men such as Bede demonstrate that considerations for organization and audience connection were equally as important as the Christian focus upon content and morality. In the ceremonial setting of Christian preaching, and in the concern for present action and thought, Christian communication and rhetoric is at its core epideictic. Furthermore, medieval rhetoric developed epideictic so it became a tool of communication accessible to everyone and not just the elite or well educated.32
From this description, Bede’s primary concern was not rhetoric for the sake of eloquence, but for the purpose of effectively communicating the Word to common people in the culture of medieval England. Alcuin, called, “The most learned man anywhere to be found” in Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, shared Bede’s idea that the classics were useful.33 He adapted the
31 Judith McClure and Roger Collins, Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People Oxford World’s Classics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 317.
32 Randall, Early Medieval Rhetoric, 41.
33 Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, 62.
43 De inventione of Cicero to teach the clergy how to communicate lucidly. But studying the Greco-Roman classics alone were not sufficient:
Indeed, with the changing cultural concerns of Christianity, war, and loss of manuscripts, the ancient texts themselves could not have carried classical rhetoric into the medieval world, and the type of ancient rhetoric most relied upon within medieval refashioning and adaptation of the rhetorical tradition was the elocution of declamations and progymnasmata that emphasized style, embellishments, and amplification. Of the rhetorical fragments passed on from the Greco-Roman world, the rhetoric of declamation used in Roman schools would have lingered well beyond the fall of Rome, the rise of Christian power, and the start of a new medieval culture. As it was practiced in schools, progymnasmata and declamation represented a distilled and formal use of rhetoric designed to display the intellect and please the crowd through the art of speaking and communicating well. ... It was this impulse to teach, instruct, and share knowledge that gave rise to preaching and the homily.34 These medieval scholastics intentionally pulled together the study of human communication with the Word of God for the sake of transforming people in their cultures. Randall writes, “With the scholarly and education pursuits of men like Alcuin, intellectuals finally began to understand what Augustine had argued for years earlier: that the pagan discoveries of the past could be adapted to the Christian needs of the present.”35 Notwithstanding these few examples, little effort was made to bridge cultural contexts for the sake of communicating the Word and the gospel. Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture is the oft-quoted and critiqued work that offers a convenient classification for groups and movements within Christianity regarding their relationship with culture.36 Generally, the church of the medieval period would fall primarily in the category, “Christ above culture.” Niebuhr associates this “synthetic” view of history with high medieval Roman Catholic thought like that of Thomas Aquinas and Christendom at the height of
34 Randall, “Early Medieval Rhetoric,” 44.
35 Ibid.
36 H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951).
44 its temporal power. The medieval church considered culture valuable but incomplete. Christianity, therefore, fulfills what is lacking in secular culture by adding revelation to reason and grace to nature, which is essentially adding church to secular society. If this categorization is true, the attempts at cultural contextualization of message and messenger (either the church or the preacher of the Word) are tied directly to factors much higher than that of a local concern. The institutional Roman Catholic Church, operating as a part of medieval culture, saw her place as completing and sanctifying what was otherwise secular. This idea effectively made the matter of local church and pastor responding to their culture a non-issue. After all, the church is intrinsically a part of the culture. Therefore, the message to people in that culture is this: “Go to the cathedral if you want to be in God’s presence and let someone bestow God’s forgiveness (through auricular confession) and grace (through the sacraments) upon you. Bathe in the art and music of the church. If you want to talk to God or read his Word, give yourself to the priesthood and learn Latin, the sacred tongue of the church.” Other than a few exceptions, there was little movement during this time period, which was fitting for the pre-enlightenment (and pre-modern) mindset of Europe. The people were told, “Believe what you are taught. Listen without question to the church, your authority for truth about spiritual matters.” Those who chose to believe or do otherwise were risking excommunication or worse, death. That is, until Luther.
The Reformation Though there are a few points of light in the medieval period, the practice of relating the Word of God to the culture in proclamation was for the most part lost in Roman Catholic Europe. Particularly regarding the ability of the people to access the light of God’s written revelation, it was a dark age. The Synod of Toulouse decreed that
45 possession by laity of Bibles was forbidden in 1229.37 Superstition and corruption grew. The Roman Pope ruled with unchecked spiritual authority, raising money and enriching Rome. The church distanced herself and the gospel from the culture, and might blinded her until a German monk in Wittenberg dared to protest publicly corruptions of the institutional church and bring the Word back to the people in the pews. This “back-to- the-Bible” movement became known as the Protestant Reformation, and the now famous monk was Martin Luther. He brought the mysterious, angry, transcendent God of medieval Christendom from the stained glass and high Latin liturgy down to the common German man and woman. God was love and grace. And he had been forgotten, or perhaps worse, grossly misrepresented. Luther translated the New Testament into German for disbursal to the common people. He abandoned celibacy. In fact, Luther took a wife. This allowed him and other members of the clergy to understand the common experiences of being married. He revised the Latin liturgy and translated it into his own “vulgar” tongue: German. He allowed the laity to receive both bread and wine in Communion. More significantly, “the whole emphasis in worship changed from the celebration of the sacrificial Mass to the preaching and teaching of God’s word”38 in German. Much to the dismay of some who oppose all forms of secular or updated music, Luther took bar-style tunes that were sung
37 Phillip Schaff, and David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, vol. 5 of History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907). “The Synod of Toulouse, 1229, presided over by the papal legate, celebrated the close of the Albigensian crusades and perfected the code of the Inquisition. It has an unenviable distinction among the great synods on account of its decree forbidding laymen to have the Bible in their possession” (812).
38 Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing 1995), 243.
46 in taverns and replaced the lyrics with spiritual words.39 One can only imagine what it must have been like to hear about God in one’s native language for the first time, to read God’s Word with one’s own eyes, and to sing theologically rich words of worship with the jolly tunes one had sung before in happy times—now with other Christians—to celebrate and adore Christ! It must have been a glorious thing indeed! Luther was the proverbial “pebble that started an avalanche.” Europe was ready for change. The invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1450 and Erasmus’ publication of the Greek New Testament 1516 allowed for a more accurate Bible to be translated into people’s native languages and be mass-produced:
Shortly after the publication of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament in 1516, with its preface urging the translation of the Scripture into the common tongues of Europe, new versions appeared in German, French and English. These fed the rising national sentiments and Protestant convictions.40
Berengarius, Peter Waldo, Eckhart, Wycliffe, Huss, Savonarola, and many other men had been both dissatisfied with the state of the church and concerned with bringing the Word to people in their context and language especially. The culture of the church had so separated the message and obfuscated the gospel that a growing hunger loomed. But an institutionalized state-church that was beginning unknowingly to feel the tremors of a coming earthquake had squashed those men and marginalized their movements. Luther was the man God chose to make it happen.
39 Regarding Luther and other reformers’ use of bar songs: “A particularly important class of chorales were the contrafacta or ‘parodies’ of secular songs, in which the given melody was retained but the text was either replaced by completely new words or else were altered so as to give it a properly spiritual meaning. The adaptation of secular songs and secular polyphonic compositions for church purposes was common in the sixteenth century.” Many of these secular songs were from the taverns. (Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 6 ed. [New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001], 255.)
40 Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, 268.
47 After the Reformation gained footing, other talented leaders followed under the rallying cry of sola scriptura, proclaiming the truths of Scripture in the vernacular of the people, who received the message eagerly. Zwingli in Zurich,
...launched the reformation not by posting theses on the church door but by preaching biblical sermons from the pulpit. Under the influence of the famous scholar Erasmus, Zwingli had come to revere the language and message of the New Testament. So his messages created quite a stir in Zurich. One of his listeners, a young man named Thomas Platter, said when he heard the long neglected Bible explained, he felt as if Zwingli were lifting him by the hair of the head.41 Zwingli was followed by the Swiss Brethren who broke with Zwingli, because in their opinion, he did not go far enough.42 They preached the Word passionately to the common people in Switzerland and Southern Germany. Henry VIII took advantage of the zeitgeist and proclaimed the Church of England’s separation from Rome, cracking the door that would later be flung open to the light of the Word in England. Tyndale completed his English translation of the New Testament in 1525. According to David Daniell, “Tyndale’s shining, overarching cause was bringing the Word to the ploughboy and the king and all in between, even at the cost of his life.”43 This passion was evident in his preaching as well, which he sometimes performed in the open air: “Tyndale preached with force and passion. His ideas about salvation and the church often shocked and angered other Catholic clergy.”44
41 Ibid., 249.
42 Ibid., 250.
43 David Daniell, The Bible in English: Its History and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 341.
44 Fran Rees, William Tyndale: Bible Translator and Martyr (Minneapolis, MN: Compass Point Books, 2006), 35.
48 John Calvin moved to Geneva to begin reforms there and preached in the French vernacular in 1536. As with most other things, he was deliberate about his style of preaching:
[Calvin said,] “We always try to make Scripture familière.” He plainly meant more than that he wanted the people to become familiar with the Bible in the sense of “knowing their Bibles.” Familière might be better rendered by the word “personal,” used in the colloquial modern sense—to make the message of Scripture a personal matter... “so that we know it is God who is speaking to us.” Nevertheless, he is certainly thinking of familière in terms of language; for a little later he censures ambitious preachers who “babble in refined language.”45 However, with the exception of the Anabaptists, the reformers still were tied to a relationship with the state. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this fact made the church less evangelistic. The church was institutionalized as an official part of the state, and every good German, Frenchman, and Englishman should be a Christian citizen. Why give much thought to being relevant? The church was still a part, even a definer, of the dominant culture. The predictable eventualities included spiritual coldness, doctrinal drifting, and corruption as had occurred previously with state-connected Roman Catholicism. While, generally speaking (outside of missionary work), the Medieval period witnessed little effort on the part of the institutional Roman Catholic church to communicate the Word or gospel to common people, the Protestant Reformation changed everything. Now pockets in (mostly northern) Europe had more freedom within the church and state arrangement to read the Bible and hear it preached in the language of the people. Transformation of people followed. The Reformation was a great step by the church (which did not realize or care that there existed a great dividing gulf beforehand) back toward the culture.
45 Thomas Henry Louis Parker, Calvin's Preaching (Edinburgh, Scotland: T & T Clark, 1992), 139.
49 To categorize the mindset resulting from the Reformation, Niebuhr enters “Christ and Culture in Paradox” into his framework. Luther rebelled against the Roman Catholic “synthesis” that the state’s influence had corrupted. Tragically, the church had become like the world, focusing on earthly riches and power rather than the gospel. Instead, Luther believed the state should not be in the business of religious coercion. Freedom of conscience must be respected. Niebuhr refers to this position as a “dualistic” approach, which advances two parallel moralities and systems. These two “worlds” should not interfere with one another but should coexist as the two aspects of people’s God-given lives. While an inherent tension existed between the views of the still-state-church reformers, they had cracked the door of human conscience and freedom and introduced the light of truth by making the Word accessible to the general population.
Enlightenment The Enlightenment followed the Reformation (indeed, was made possible because of the Reformation). Descartes, often called the “Father of the Enlightenment” and “the first Enlightenment thinker,” was a product of the Reformation.46 Hegel “maintained that the philosophical conception of free thought introduced by Descartes at the beginning of modern philosophy [the Enlightenment] was made possible by the Protestant Reformation.”47
46 Richard A. Watson, “Review of Descartes and the Enlightenment,” The Journal of the History of Philosophy 30, no. 1 (January 1992): 140.
47 Tom Rockmore, Heidegger and French Philosophy: Humanism, Antihumanism, and Being (London: Routledge, 1995), 8.
50 The Enlightenment brought a focus on empirical data as the ultimate judge of truth. It ushered in modernity but not overnight. This change took centuries to affect the culture in such a way as to become dominant:
The shift for western nations from pre-modernity into modernity was gradual and involved interconnecting economic, social and cultural catalysts and processes. Weber (1992) and Berger (1967) both identify the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century as the event that sowed the seeds for the growth of modernity; giving rise to individualism, rationalism, and secularism. Marxist (1990) analysis identifies the Industrial Revolution and the shift toward an industrial based Capitalist economy in the eighteenth century. Both catalysts certainly established patterns of thinking and altered the structure of society in ways that can be identified as ‘modern.’ The idea of ‘modernity’ as an explicit project or agenda to shape and change western society was a product of the Enlightenment of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. 48 This gradual change happened at first without the church’s notice. In fact, most Protestant churches embraced the new availability of the Bible and focused on education. There was an explosion of schools and literacy, primarily among Protestants who wanted people to read the Bible for themselves. In England, the Puritans and Separatists were enthusiastic supporters of education, a trend that continued in the American Colonies. Perhaps contrary to popular belief (due to the fact that they have been much-maligned in recent decades), the Puritans were renowned expository preachers who above all others of their day met the culture on their terms. Here is an example:
At the turn of the sixteenth century, Laurence Chaderton, first Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, “was chosen by the Non-conformists to be one of their four Representatives in Hampton Court conference, and was afterwards employed one of the Translators of the Bible. He had a plain but effectual way of Preaching. It happened that he, visiting his friends, preached in this his Native Countrey, where the Word of God (as in the dayes of Samuell) was very pretious; and concluded his Sermon, which was of two hours continuance at least, with
48 Julie Scott Jones, Being the Chosen: Exploring a Christian Fundamentalist Worldview (Farnham Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2010), 33.
51 words to this effect, “That he would no longer trespass upon their Patience.” Whereupon all the Auditory cryed out (wonder not if hungry people craved more meat), “For God’s sake, sir, go on, go on.” Heareat, Mr. Chaderton was surprised into a longer Discourse, beyond his expectation in satisfaction of their importunity, and (though on a sudden) performed it to their contentment and his commendation.49
This kind of hunger for God’s Word plainly preached was common, especially in areas dominated by Roman Catholic or Anglican churches that did not proclaim the Word to the people.50 Separatist John Bunyan, writer of Pilgrim’s Progress, was a seventeenth century English preacher known for his ability to speak to the common man. Here is a description of his style:
Bunyan's preaching was no incoherent rant. Words of truth and soberness formed the staple of each sermon; and his burning words and startling images were only the electric scintillations along the chain of his scriptural eloquence. Though the common people heard him most gladly, he had occasional hearers of a higher class. Once on a week-day he was expected to preach in a parish church near Cambridge, and a concourse of people had already collected in the churchyard. A gay student was riding past, when he noticed the crowd, and asked what had brought them together. He was told that the people had come out to hear one Bunyan, a tinker, preach. He instantly dismounted, and gave a boy twopence to hold his horse, for he declared he was determined to hear the tinker PRATE. So he went into the church, and heard the tinker; but so deep was the impression which that sermon made on the scholar, that he took every subsequent opportunity to attend Bunyan's ministry, and himself became a renowned preacher of the gospel in Cambridgeshire. Still he felt that his errand was to the multitude, and his great anxiety was to penetrate the darkest places of the land, and preach to the most abandoned people.51
49 Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England, Vol. 1 (London: John Nichols and Son, 1811), 550. (Emphasis his).
50 Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as they Really Were (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986), 91.
51 James Hamilton, Life of Bunyan, Works of the English Puritan Divines (Sligo, Ireland: Hardpress Limited, 2006), 16.
52 The discovery and subsequent colonization of the New World provided even more freedom of religion as kings and bishops were far-removed from those who dared to go to America. The extreme social isolation and rough-and-tumble environment of the explorers and settlers, along with the Europeans’ contact with the native peoples in America, presented these Christians with opportunities to rediscover what had been lost virtually in Christendom Europe: the chance to do missions. The Pilgrims and Puritans expressed their intent to take advantage of this need for the glory of God and spread of his gospel. Indeed, the Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter of 1629 made this desire clear:
The settlers may win and incite the Natives of the Country to the Knowledge and Obedience of the only true God and Savior of Mankind, and in the Christian Faith, which is our Royal Intention and the Adventurers free Profession, is the principle End of the Plantation.52
This evangelistic or missionary vision was a relatively new development, after the general neglect of missionary endeavors on the part of the reformers:
The Reformers and their immediate disciples have no word either of sorrow or excuse that circumstances hindered their discharge of missionary duty...this strange silence can be accounted for satisfactorily only by the fact that the recognition of the missionary obligation was itself absent. We miss in the Reformers not only missionary action, but even the idea of missions, in the sense in which we understand them today.53
But the European settlers of the Americas found that not only did they have a great challenge on their hands in reaching “foreign” native cultures, but also in reaching Europeans who, now freed from the expectations and constraints of the parishes on the other side of the Atlantic, either had no desire to attend church or had no church near them on the frontier to attend. In Puritan and Anglican towns in the east, the religious affections that so motivated the first generation of settlers had in many cases grown cold
52 Gustav Warneck and George Robson, ed. Outline of a History of Protestant Missions from the Reformation to the Present Time (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1901), 47.
53 Ibid., 9.
53 in their children and grandchildren. Puritans grappled with empty churches’ waning influence in their communities and instituted the infamous “Half-Way Covenant” allowing partial memberships. They did this to encourage the unconverted to participate in church, with the hope that they would, through the preaching of the Word, eventually be saved. Aside from all the negative consequences the Half-Way Covenant brought, a positive result was that Puritan preachers were compelled to communicate the Word and the gospel effectively to an increasing number of unconverted people who filled the pews. Hughes Oliphant Old recognized a “double emphasis” of American Puritan expository preaching: the prophetic (to the saved) and the evangelistic (to the unsaved).54 This double emphasis in preaching where Puritan pastors had to consider the plight of unsaved hearers in the preparation and delivery of sermons perhaps helped prepare the ground for the Great Awakening.
Awakenings and Revivalists The Great Awakening brought to light a well-documented flood of great preachers (both pastors and itinerates). As pastors and churches are the focus of this work, Jonathan Edwards must be mentioned:
Edwards expounded a theological tradition that had deep popular roots; and its revival among the laity had important cultural results. A new and irrepressible expectancy entered the life of the churches. A national sense of intensified religious and moral resolution was born. Millennial hopes were kindled. The old spirit of the jeremiads was extinguished. Evangelicalism in a new key was abroad in the land, and its workings had a steady internal effect which was nowhere more apparent than in the Congregational churches.55
54 Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 169.
55 Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1972), 288.
54 Many other pastors preached expository and transformational sermons in the spirit of Edwards. In section one of his “Surprising Narrative,” Edwards mentions no less than sixteen other New England pastors whose churches experienced revival.56 God used pietistic pastors and itinerates as well to bring the gospel and teach the Word to people who needed to hear on the American continent. Though thoroughly doctrinal and biblical, they were concerned especially with reaching the culture through interesting sermons and new techniques following Whitefield’s successful open-air preaching:
The sermon rose to new prominence and controversy in the Pietist and revival movements of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Above all, preaching and printed sermons came to represent the movements’ distinctive expressions of piety and theology. Sermons remained one of the leading literary genres of the movement’s theologians. Both John Wesley and August Hermann Franke relied heavily on sermons rather than theological treatises to disseminate their theology. Pietists and revivalists were particularly concerned to produce effective sermons. They focused attention on the religious disposition of the preachers and introduced innovative forms of pulpit oratory and new occasions for preaching. They further developed new methods of disseminating sermons and employed print media shrewdly to convey stories recounting the effect of their preaching. They criticized much traditional preaching as both ineffective and insufficient for inculcating lay piety. All of these mark important developments in the history of preaching, but scholars should not underestimate the level of continuity with earlier eras of Protestant preaching, especially with regard to Pietism.57 The sermon published in print first began to gain popularity during this time of awakening in the Colonies and in Great Britain. Newspapers and book publishers competed to enlist the most popular pastors’ sermons for printing, and the pastors gladly
56 Jonathan Edwards, A Faithful Narrative of A Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, Massachusetts, A.D. 1735 (New York: Dunning and Spalding, 1832).
57 Joris van Eijnatten, Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change in the Long Eighteenth Century (Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2009), 173.
55 complied. These publishers printed John Wesley widely. In his sermons, his passion for impacting the lost reaches even today’s reader:
Ye are the light of the world: A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel; but on a candlestick. And it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. In order fully to explain and enforce these important words, I shall endeavor to shew, first, that Christianity is essentially a social religion, and that to turn it into a solitary one, is to destroy it: Secondly, that to conceal this religion is impossible, as well as utterly contrary to the design of its author. I shall, thirdly, answer some objections; and conclude the whole with a practical application.58 From the start of Wesley’s sermon, he is both expositional and transformational. This becomes clear in the body of his sermon. Showing his Arminian tendencies, Wesley preaches the necessity of Christians engaging the culture:
So impossible it is to keep our religion from being seen, unless we cast it away; so vain is the thought, of hiding the light, unless by putting it out. Sure it is, that a secret, unobserved religion cannot be the religion of Jesus Christ. Whatever religion can be concealed, it is not Christianity. If a Christian could be hid, he could not be compared to a city set upon a hill; to the light of the world, the sun shining from heaven, and seen by all the world below. Never therefore let it enter into the heart of him whom God hath renewed in the spirit of his mind, to hide that light, to keep his religion to himself; especially considering it is not only impossible, to conceal true Christianity, but likewise absolutely contrary to the design of the great author of it. ...It is the design of God, that every Christian should be in an open point of view: that he may give light to all around, that he may visibly express the religion of Jesus Christ.59 If it is not apparent in the excerpt of his printed sermon above, Wesley modeled cultural engagement in his style, which broke with convention and met people where they were: Wesley's style of preaching transgressed eighteenth-century taboos against extemporary prayer and lay-leadership and promoted a
58 John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions (London: Thomas Tegg Publisher, 1829), 264.
59 Ibid., 66.
56 `plain-style' of oral preaching. As he commented in a sermon of 1746, this mode of plain-speaking translated into text was an attempt to write “as I generally speak, ad populum, to the bulk of mankind.” I design plain truth for plain people . . . I labour to avoid all words which are not easy to be understood, all which are not used in common life . . . I am persuaded that, on the one hand, this may be a means of enabling me more clearly to express the sentiments of my heart . . . without entangling myself with those of other men . . . I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart . . . I am a spirit come from God and returning to God. [Wesley, Preface to `Sermons on Several Occasions' (1746), Works, vol. i, 104-6.] In terms of its immediacy and accessibility, Wesley's emphasis on plain oracy and self-reflection provided an important model for literary expressions of identity employed by Methodists, Romantics and slaves alike.60 Wesley means to apply the same to pastors and churches since he modeled culture engagement. The followers of Wesley (the circuit-riding Methodists), Shubal Stearns (and other Baptists), and William and Gilbert Tennant (Presbyterians who, through their “Log College,” trained many pastors) in particular were engaged passionately in fulfilling the Great Commission of Christ in the Colonies by the fervent preaching of God’s Word in the vernacular of the people and teaching others to do the same. Shubal Stearns is of particular interest because after being converted through the preaching of Whitefield, he became a Baptist after reading the Bible for himself. Though he had little formal education, he moved to Virginia and North Carolina to preach and plant churches. Stearns left no writings, but witnesses report:
Shubal Stearns had a spellbinding preaching style and “penetrating” eyes. Other Separate Baptist ministers imitated him “in tones of voice and actions of body.” Stearns preached extemporaneously (“Spirit-led”) and utilized a “holy whine,” a shouting preaching style that evidently modulated between singing, chanting, and normal speech. The Practice, rooted in George Whitefield’s dramatic style, has
60 Helen Thomas, Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 31.
57 led some scholars to contend that Stearns was the “father” of Appalachian mountain religion.61 His leadership and preaching was effective. In seventeen years, he and his followers planted forty-two churches “from which sprang 125 ministers.”62 After the Great Awakening and the American Revolution—a unique result of both religious and modernist influences—the young nation began to experience material gain and more freedom.63 Institutions of higher education began to give sway to the Rationalism of Europe, affecting the pastors and preaching that came forth from them. Religious fires slowed until the Second Great Awakening, which kindled a blaze a bit different than its counterpart in the previous century. Jonathan Edwards’ grandson and “Yale president Timothy Dwight...sent out students he converted...to serve as preachers in rural areas of the West, hoping to bring newly awakened religious fervor to the masses.”64 But other than these New England preachers, the preaching of the Second Great Awakening, generally speaking, tended to be more Arminian, less scholarly, more “decision oriented,” and much more demonstrative, particularly in the South and West. This both fed, and was fed by, the antics of many of the hearers, particularly in the camp meetings along the frontier of Kentucky and Tennessee. A popularized preaching style was not concerned as much with the hearers understanding the message as with getting the attention of the ruffian (uneducated frontiersman) and holding it until he could be persuaded. Preachers frequently dumbed-down and simplified content and drummed up and exploited emotions. A significant development in the evolution of American preaching occurred with:
61 C. Douglas Weaver, In Search of the New Testament Church (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008), 62.
62 Ibid., 62.
63 Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 134.
64 Sarah J. Purcell, The Early National Period (New York: Facts on File Inc., 2004), 137.
58 The move toward a kind of pragmatism which envisioned the possibility of creating a revival of religion, a thing possible only among a people who had gotten the habit of thinking that they could aggressively manipulate those human affairs (government, society, banks) which before then had seemed to be divinely ordered and were still said to be according to a natural law.65 This modernist development was the revivalist movement, begun in earnest with Charles G. Finney, a former lawyer’s apprentice who, after being converted dramatically, soon laid aside his Presbyterianism to become the most prominent religious leader of the nineteenth century. He was controversial and changed the course of American religion. Even his preaching style was new and confrontational. According to a Christian History article:
Finney urged his listeners to accept Christ openly and publicly. His style differed too; his messages were more like a lawyer's argument than a pastor's sermon. At Evans Mills, he was troubled that the congregations continuously said they were “pleased” with his sermons. He set about to make his message less pleasing and more productive. At the end of his sermon, which stressed the need for conversion, he took a bold step: “You who have made up your minds to become Christians, and will give your pledge to make your peace with God immediately, should rise up.” The entire congregation, having never heard such a challenge, remained in their seats. “You have taken your stand,” he said. “You have rejected Christ and his gospel.” The congregation was dismissed, and many left angry. The next evening, Finney preached on wickedness, his voice like “a fire … a hammer … [and] a sword.” But he offered no chance to respond. The next night, the entire town turned out, including a man so angry with Finney that he brought a gun and intending to kill the evangelist. But that night, Finney again offered congregants a chance to publicly declare their faith. The church erupted—dozens stood up to give their pledge, while others fell down, groaned, and bellowed.66
65 Theodore F. Zuern, Joseph A.Tetlow, Peter Schineller, On Being Church in a Modern Society (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1983), 35.
66 “Charles Finney: Father of American Revivalism,” Christian History (August 8, 2008), http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/evangelistsandapologists/ finney.html?start=1 (accessed August 10, 2011).
59 This kind of truculent presentation was typical of Finney, but it worked to move people to “make public decisions” and promoted Finney’s reputation as a revivalist. Finney unapologetically published his strategies and aggressively put forth his “new measures” as a better way. Critics saw Finney’s measures as pragmatic and coercive. According to Finney, “A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means.”67 Even in deciding what to preach, Finney only considered whether a passage or a sermon would drive people to make a commitment to Christ. According to Michael Horton, “Finney’s one question for any given teaching was, ‘Is it fit to convert sinners with?’”68 Finney went well beyond cultural contextualization. He created his own context, i.e., circumstances, whereby manipulation could take place. Horton writes, “His ‘New Measures,’ like today’s Church Growth Movement, made human choices and emotions the center of the church’s ministry, ridiculed theology, and replaced the preaching of Christ with the preaching of conversion.”69 Besides having an imposing stature, grave features, and piercing eyes, Finney knew how to exploit emotion, utilize reason, and maneuver a crowd for the sake of immediate visible results:
His most famous sermon was “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts,” which was Arminian to an extent unthinkable to an old-style Calvinist and could not have been preached 50 years earlier. Finney developed a system of “new measures” which moved revivalism far along the way from “a marvelous work of God” to a planned work of humans. He called services at odd hours, kept congregations at it for days at a time, formed prayer-circles, inquiry sessions,
67 Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.), 4–5.
68 Michael Horton, “The Legacy of Charles Finney.” Modern Reformation 4, no. 1 (January/February 1995): 5–9.
69 Ibid.
60 group-meetings, gave personal instruction; he invited women to pray out loud in the services (a truly radical departure in 1815), set up the “anxious bench” at the front of the congregation where people could come to signify their desire for conversion—and all of this in an atmosphere highly charged with emotion.70 Henry Ward Beecher was a well-known contemporary, and perhaps the only other preacher in America whose popularity rivaled that of Finney’s. His father, Lyman, was a well-known critic of Finney’s “measures” and doctrinal diversions. Henry Ward Beecher’s biographer, another contemporary of Finney, gives a first-hand comparison between the two preacher’s styles:
Finney corralled his audience; he drove them before him, penned them in, coerced them by his logic,—though it was a logic aflame,—convinced their reason, convicted their conscience, compelled them to accept his conclusions despite their resistance. His sermons are essentially syllogistic. Syllogisms are as rare in the sermons of Mr. Beecher as in the sermons of Phillips Brooks. He was not logical, but analogical. He did not coerce men; he either enticed them, or he swept them before him by the impetuosity of his nature. He sought to convince men of sin chiefly by putting before them an ideal, and leaving them to compare themselves with it. He spoke to conscience through ideality.71 Though Beecher was controversial for entirely different reasons, the comparison between him and Finney shows the great variation in styles that existed between the most esteemed preachers of the day, and both were wildly popular due to their ability to engage the culture. The nineteenth century saw much growth in the church in the United States due to revivals and revivalists. Meanwhile, on the continent of Europe, acceptance of the tenants of modernism was growing at break-neck speed. Weary of religious wars between Protestants and Catholics, Europeans were accepting the naturalistic philosophies of
70 Zuern, Tetlow, Schineller, On Being Church in a Modern Society, 35.
71 Lyman Abbott, Henry Ward Beecher: A Sketch of His Career (Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903), 401.
61 Rousseau and Voltaire and the skepticism of Hume. The consequences of Enlightenment thought were coming to fruition. Julie Scott Jones writes,
The Enlightenment privileged rationality, empiricism, science, logic, the idea of objective ‘truth,’ secularism, individuality, and objectivity. It therefore challenged superstition, tradition, custom, autocracy, and authoritarianism. The modern era emerged fully in the nineteenth century from these religious, economic, and philosophical ‘revolutions.’ Modernity poses a direct challenge to religion; religion is based on faith-based knowledge, stresses subjective experience, and draws heavily on tradition and custom. Religion, in modernity increasingly appears as a pre-modern ‘relic’ and many Enlightenment philosophers, as well as many of the early social scientists, saw the eradication of religion as a necessity in a modern society in order to ‘free’ individuals and social groups from pre-modern ties that would hold progress back (Rabinow, 1984, Callinicos, 2007). The rise of science and empiricism posed a critique to religion through the use of evidence to challenge long-standing, religious beliefs. The best example of this is Darwin’s theory of evolution, which posed the first serious challenge to the religious account of Creation and had empirical evidence to prove it.72
Liberalism Though these European developments influenced some in the United States, most were unaware of them until the end of the nineteenth century. Henry Ward Beecher was one who “championed the theory of evolution, helping persuade liberal Christians that one could believe both in Darwinism and the Bible.”73 By the turn of the twentieth century, the battle lines were drawn. Some within American Christianity followed the lead of their European brethren and placed the Bible on the procrustean bed of modernity, fitting their beliefs to what science had claimed was believable and cutting off the rest. This growing segment of Protestant Christianity became known as the liberals:
72 Jones, Being the Chosen, 33.
73 Michael Kazin, “The Gospel of Love,” The New York Times, July 16, 2006, review of Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America (New York: Doubleday, 2006).
62 In essence, religious liberalism emerged as a movement to rescue Christianity from its premodern encrustations—an attempt to separate the archaic from the relevant. The assumption that inspired the enterprise was the perception that Christianity was in peril, partially due to transitory elements being put forth as timeless truths. According to Kenneth Cauthen, traditional interpretations of Christianity “no longer could serve as an appropriate vehicle for the intellectual expression of the faith, and liberalism arose in order to adjust the ancient faith to the modern world.” ... Liberalism was an attempt to preserve the faith by redefining and adjusting it.74 The seismic shift from Christendom’s pre-modernity to the Enlightenment’s modernity had occurred. Liberalism was an attempt by some within Christianity to keep its message culturally relevant. Preaching was affected and liberal sermons of the period reflected this adjustment: “In both Europe and the USA, theologians and church leaders sought to meet the challenges of scientific scrutiny by adopting a more critical stance towards scripture; and secondly by refocusing the church’s mission on to social issues.”75 Like Bultmann, who made the term famous, many “demythologized” their Bibles, claiming that men wrote the Bible who the Holy Spirit had not guided supernaturally to record God’s very truth; or if it was inspired supernaturally, the authors corrupted it greatly in transmission. Bultmann was the last of a long spiritual line of German thought (Schleiermacher, Kant, Hegel, Ritschl, Troeltch, and Gunkel) moving in this direction. By the time liberalism emerged in America, it was well underway in Europe. Men like Harry Emerson Fosdick, a popular liberal pastor, understandably shifted the subject of their sermons from biblical themes to that of defending liberalism.
He preached,
It is interesting to note where the Fundamentalists are driving in their stakes to mark out the deadline of doctrine around the church, across which no one is to pass except on terms of agreement. They insist that we must all believe in the
74 John D. Hannah, An Uncommon Union: Dallas Theological Seminary and American Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 28.
75 Scott Jones, Being the Chosen, 33.
63 historicity of certain special miracles, preeminently the virgin birth of our Lord; that we must believe in a special theory of inspiration—that the original documents of the Scripture, which of course we no longer possess, were inerrantly dictated to men...; that we must believe in a special theory of the Atonement—that the blood of our Lord, shed in a substitutionary death, placates an alienated Deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner; and that we must believe in the second coming of our Lord upon the clouds of heaven to set up a millennium here, as the only way in which God can bring history to a worthy denouement. Such are some of the stakes which are being driven to mark a deadline of doctrine around the church. If a man is a genuine liberal, his primary protest is not against holding these opinions, although he may well protest against their being considered the fundamentals of Christianity. This is a free country and anybody has a right to hold these opinions or any others if he is sincerely convinced of them. The question is—Has anybody a right to deny the Christian name to those who differ with him on such points and to shut against them the doors of the Christian fellowship? The Fundamentalists say that this must be done. In this country and on the foreign field they are trying to do it. They have actually endeavored to put on the statute books of a whole state binding laws against teaching modern biology. If they had their way, within the church, they would set up in Protestantism a doctrinal tribunal more rigid than the pope’s.76 Having at least allowed that the Bible may not be inerrant, that Christ was not born of a virgin, or that he may not have died a substitutionary death, the preaching of liberals—when not occupied by defending their positions and eroding the faiths of those who held to the fundamentals—turned their attention to the social gospel, which focused on the human compassion of the demythologized, historical Jesus. This shifted the focus of the movement from theology and evangelism to ethics. Hannah quotes Fosdick who:
...mockingly challenged the fundamentalists, ‘Have done with your theological Christ and give us back Jesus the ethical teacher.’ (Harry Emerson Fosdick. The Modern Use of the Bible. New York: Macmillan, 1925, p. 245.)” ...When the Liberals dissolved religion into ethics, theology became the application of ethics to social context. As social conditions change, such as the rise of industrialization and urbanization, the doctrines of Christianity must be explained in a new way to elucidate and maintain its unchanging moral vitality.77
76 Harry Emmerson Fosdick, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” (sermon, June 10, 1922), in Riverside Preachers, ed. Paul H. Sherry (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1978), 27–38.
77 Hannah, An Uncommon Union, 35–36.
64 The perennial best seller, In His Steps (1897) by Congregationalist pastor and committed Christian Socialist, Charles Sheldon, popularized the “What would Jesus do?” cry of the social gospel. Along with his next novel, The Reformer (1902), Sheldon influenced Baptist pastor Walter Rauschenbusch, who became one of the leading theologians of the social gospel in the United States. A glimpse at some of his book titles shows the focus of his professional life, and much of the content came from his preaching.78 In style, social gospel preachers were much more academic as a whole and tended to pastor larger mainline churches of northeastern cities (which sometimes brought upon them the scorn of rural people, particularly in the south and west).79 If making the case for liberalism (including casting doubt on the inerrancy of the Bible) and the social gospel were distractions for liberal preachers, defending the faith became the same for those within Protestantism who reacted against liberalism. The war against it was waged in virtually every denomination, resulting in the splitting of many. Evangelicalism emerged from this reaction, but a more extreme reaction occurred as well, now known as fundamentalism. Hannah cites Marsden, who “found the distinguishing feature of fundamentalism to be its adversarial response to religious and cultural change.”80 Unfortunately, within fundamentalism, preaching that was focused formally on the content of the Word frequently became focused on the veracity of the Word itself. Critical ranting toward liberal elitists and emotional appeals to “make decisions” by itinerate evangelists during revival meetings often replaced the healthy prophetic and
78 A Gospel for the Social Awakening, A Theology for the Social Gospel, Christianity and the Social Crisis, Christianizing the Social Order, Prayers of the Social Awakening, and Social Principles of Jesus, are titles of some of Rauschenbusch’s books.
79 Joe Creech, Righteous Indignation: Religion and the Populist Revolution (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 30.
80 Hannah, An Uncommon Union, 44.
65 evangelistic “double emphasis” of proficient Puritan pastor/preachers of yore. Joe Creech writes, “Preaching extemporaneously, in fact, came to symbolize the ‘common’ preacher in relief to ‘dude’ preachers who ‘sermonized’ with florid offerings steeped in erudition.”81 Turning again to Niebuhr’s categories in Christ and Culture, where would liberalism and fundamentalism fall? Niebuhr places fundamentalism in the “Christ against Culture” category. And almost as neatly fitting, the liberals are placed in the “Christ of Culture” designation since they had sacrificed many “distinctives” of Christianity in the effort to accommodate themselves to the larger, modern culture. Evangelicals, in Niebuhr’s categorization, are referred to as “Christ Transforming Culture.” This label conveys a group more open to and seeking a dynamic interaction with culture but governed by the norms of Christian faith rather than society. The rise of liberalism also distracted evangelicals, like fundamentalists, and this affected the focus of preaching. For each of these groups (liberals, evangelicals, and fundamentalists), an unfortunate consequence of the battle was a distraction from the task of communicating the gospel to the unredeemed. Instead, each faction tended to target the Christian community: persuading undecided believers but more often attacking believers who they thought had distorted the faith. Though each faction claimed to stay focused on the work of evangelism, the evangelicals showed more long-term conversion growth by comparison.82 This is no doubt due to the evangelicals’ adherence to the Word and continued desire to engage the culture.
81 Creech, Righteous Indignation, 30.
82 Dean M. Kelley, Why Conservative Churches are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion with a New Preface for the Rose Edition (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1977). Also, James C. Livingston, Modern Christian Thought: The Twentieth Century (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), 390.
66 So many well-known evangelical preachers responded to culture on its own terms and used its language to convey God’s Word. Harry Ironside is a fitting example for this study. For many years, he was the pastor of Moody Church in Chicago. He was a consummate student of the Bible. Warren Wiersbe writes, “His ministry was one of Bible exposition, simply opening the Word of God and allowing the Spirit to speak for himself. ... To him, Bible exposition was a means to glorify Christ and to call sinners to trust him.”83 Ironside overcame a lack of formal education (he attended through the eighth grade) to become a brilliant preacher, theologian, and prolific writer. His sermons, according to an eyewitness:
...were always directed to the common man and free of theological jargon. They were not long and were filled with the Word of God. Like Moody, Ironside was a master of illustrating truths with personal experiences. ...He would select a book of the Bible and preach through it on successive Sundays; most of these series have found their way into print. ...While Ironside’s messages did not usually follow an obvious outline, they were always organized. He knew where he was going, and he got there. To the casual listener it seemed like the preacher was merely going from verse to verse, making a few comments and explanations and perhaps adding a story. But the careful listener always found a thread of doctrine woven throughout the message. Ironside...used the Bible to illustrate and interpret itself. The thing that impressed me most about his preaching is what I call its “personal practicality.” He had a message for you, and he wanted you to get it. Usually you did. ...Some have criticized Ironside for preaching through Bible books instead of preaching “more contemporary messages” in such a strategic pulpit. But time, I think, has vindicated his ministry. His expositions are as fresh and meaningful today as when they were preached. ...Ironside was not a dazzling preacher; he did not aim to be sensational. He stepped into the pulpit with exclamation points, not question marks. A generation of preachers that has tried every gimmick available to get people’s attention would do well to become acquainted with Harry Ironside....84
83 Warren W. Wiersbe, 50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Spiritual Giants of the Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2009), 329.
84 Ibid., 330–331.
67 Ironside typifies the responsible evangelical pastor of the twentieth century in many ways. He did not try to explain all the seeming possible contradictions between science and the Bible. He simply believed what was written in Scripture. Sometimes with humble humor, he addressed and dismissed higher criticism. He preached the Word and the gospel preparedly, persuasively, and with conviction. He, in the context of a modernity that had come of age, was logical and cogent yet communicated the Christ of the Bible by preaching the Bible without compromise.85
Recent Opinion and Movement By the late 1980s, the growth of the church was falling behind the growth of the population. The general culture in the United States had changed tremendously. It had experienced a “baby boom” after the Second World War, which had come with an unprecedented period of economic growth as well. This was a unique time period in human history, largely due to the advancement of technology. While much of this was seen as good, some developments (like the proliferation of nuclear weapons) increased people’s pessimism towards scientific “progress.” During this time period, postmodernism—a new philosophical worldview that is basically a reaction against all things modern, made great headway in art, architecture, literary criticism, sociology, linguistics, anthropology, and music.86 Throughout the 1960s, postmodern thought became entrenched firmly in many universities, as the baby boomer generation “came of age.” This alone did not cause the social upheaval of the 1960s, but postmodernism was
85 The author listened to several of Ironside’s sermons which are recorded and available online. One source is http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?SpeakerOnly=true&currSection= sermonsspeaker&keyword=Harry^A.^Ironside (accessed August 10, 2011).
86 Much has been written about postmodernism since [the 60s], there is still very little consensus—apart from the general feeling that modernism is now receding into the past—about how it should be defined and analyzed. (Harold Bloom, William Gaddis [Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004], 134).
68 certainly an influence. Postmodernism had become cultural. Postmodernity had arrived. With it came a re-evaluation of the entire Western system of values (religion, love, marriage, popular culture, capitalism, and government).
Purpose-Driven, Seeker-Sensitive, and Felt-Needs While postmodern culture was on the rise in the United States in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, with few exceptions, the culture of churches (physical environments, the style of preaching, and music) was much the same as it was in the 1920s. A big development in recognizing and addressing the divide between churches and the culture happened when Rick Warren wrote The Purpose-Driven Church in 1995. In it, he outlines a way to re-think how and why the church does what it does. Regarding preaching:
I’ve heard pastors proudly say, ‘We’re not here to entertain.’ Obviously they’re doing a good job at it. A Gallup poll a few years ago stated that, according to the unchurched, the church is the most boring place to be. ...To the unchurched, dull preaching is unforgivable. Truth poorly delivered is ignored. On the other hand, the unchurched will listen to absolute foolishness if it is interesting.87
Warren began the now 20,000-attendee Saddleback Church in 1980 and went against convention. He went door-to-door seeking unchurched people and asking the questions like, “Why do you think most people don’t go to church?” When analyzing the responses, he found that people thought sermons were boring and irrelevant, churches were not friendly, wanted people’s money, and had poor childcare: “We discovered...that what most churches offered was not what most people wanted.”88 Warren coined, or at
87 Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message And Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 231.
88 Jeffery L. Sheler, Prophet of Purpose: The Life of Rick Warren (New York: Doubleday Religion, 2009), 105–106.
69 least popularized, a new term: felt-needs preaching. 89 Warren is careful to encourage preachers to stay rooted in Scripture. Bill Hybels, another practitioner of felt-needs preaching, likewise cautions about “going overboard.”90 The primary thrust of Warren is this: make God’s message relevant to the hearer by thinking of the identity and situation of the hearer first:
One reason sermon study is so difficult for many pastors is because they ask the wrong question. Instead of asking, “What shall I preach on this Sunday?” they should be asking, “To whom will I be preaching?” Simply thinking through the needs of the audience will help determine God’s will for the message. ...People’s immediate needs are a key to where God would have you begin speaking on that particular occasion.91
Warren examines much more than preaching style. He claims the physical environment and the musical style are important keys to reaching the culture too.92 Warren and Hybels were pioneers. They utilized businesslike leadership skills, attention to excellence, and marketing. This new way of “doing” church has reached tens of thousands, maybe more. Particularly reached were Baby-boomers, the first generation that postmodernity significantly impacted. Following these older boomers (Warren and Hybels), the next leaders were younger boomers like Andy Stanley, Ed Young Jr., and Joel Osteen, who were
89 Some believe the felt-need approach finds its roots with Robert Schuller. E.g., Peter C. Glover, The Virtual Church-And How to Avoid It: The Crisis of De-formation and the Need for Re- Formation in the 21st Century Church (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2004), 79.
90 Bill Hybels and Lynne Hybels, Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 185. Hybels writes, “Watch out for going overboard with “felt-need”...messages. ...It’s tempting to go for long periods of time on what I call junk food preaching diets. In other words, giving people biblical wisdom to improve their relationships, smooth their emotions, deal with their daily problems, and put some zip back in their marriage. I’m a proponent of dealing with felt needs from time to time...But we are responsible for teaching the whole counsel of God in a balanced, biblical, and mature fashion so that the teaching diet accurately reflects Scripture as a whole. The reality is that you’ll never grow up fully devoted followers of Christ on a diet of spiritual Twinkies.”
91 Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church, 227.
92 Ibid., 28–281.
70 interestingly all sons of popular pastors. These men have been called the “great communicator gurus.”93 Though there are big differences (particularly with Osteen, a charismatic), there are many similarities. Each pastor claims a high regard for the Bible, yet utilizes a form of “felt-needs” topical preaching and rarely do exposition. Each is an attractive, polished, positive communicator; and each makes great use of technology and environment. Because of their ability to employ these things, they are considered masters at cultural contextualization. But not all agree that theirs is a model worthy of following. One young church planter in Keller, Texas, just a few miles from Ed Young Jr.’s Fellowship Church, referred to Stanley, Young, and Osteen as “image management machines.” He went on to say,
I have two big questions regarding these men. First: are they really reaching postmodern unchristian people? I don’t think they are, on the same scale as many others. Secondly: what will happen to their churches and followers when they go away? They are anomalies—big-time pastors’ sons that started their churches with over a thousand well-churched and strong giving Christians.94 Stanley, in particular, has made contributions to the study of preaching. His book Communicating for a Change has been influential in helping preachers think about how to best impact their hearers. To accomplish this, Stanley believes preachers must simplify their messages to convey “a single idea they want to communicate; a specific thing he or she hopes to accomplish. And once that point, that idea, that destination is clear, then the goal is to bend everything in the message towards that one thing.”95 However, this is nothing new, as Haddon Robinson, among others, has made the case for
93 Daniel Akin, David L. Allen, and Ned Mathews, ed. Text-Driven Preaching: God's Word at the Heart of Every Sermon (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman, 2010), 2.
94 Rick White, interview with author, Keller, TX, 2008, emphasis his, 4.
95 Andy Stanley and Lane Jones, Communication for a Change (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2006), 101.
71 “The Big Idea” (one main theme) preaching for decades.96 What is new about Stanley’s approach is his “map” for communicating the main point. Here he advocates a five-word outline: “ME, WE, GOD, YOU, WE.”97
Emerging Conversations Since the turn of the millennium, a whole new generation of preachers, authors, and churches has emerged (pun intended). While there is little agreement regarding the beginning of the Emerging/Emergent movement (or “conversation”) in the
United States, it nonetheless became popularized with a flash flood of books heralding a similar theme: the church responding to postmodernity. Prolific leaders like Brian McLaren, Leonard Sweet, Dan Kimball, Tony Jones, Rob Bell, and Mark Driscoll have all weighed in about what’s wrong with the current church, especially regarding the cultural shift, and how to make things better.98 Moreover, there is confusion with some frequently intermingled terms. Scot McNight in Christianity Today clarifies,
To prevent confusion, a distinction needs to be made between “emerging” and “Emergent.” Emerging is the wider, informal, global, ecclesial (church-centered) focus of the movement, while Emergent is an official organization in the U.S. and
96 Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, second edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001). Keith Wilhite and Scott M. Gibson, eds., The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching: Connecting the Bible to People (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998).
97 Stanley and Jones, Communication for a Change, 121.
98 Driscoll, who once identified with the “Emerging movement” has criticized the “Emergent” wing and has distanced himself. In Confessions of a Reformission Rev: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), he wrote:
I had to distance myself, however, from one of many streams in the emerging church because of theological differences. Since the late 1990’s, this stream has become known as Emergent. The Emergent church is part of the Emerging Church Movement but does not embrace the dominant ideology of the movement. Rather, the Emergent church is the latest version of liberalism. The only difference is that the old liberalism accommodated modernity and the new liberalism accommodates postmodernity. (21)
72 the U.K. Emergent Village, the organization, is directed by Tony Jones, a Ph.D. student at Princeton Theological Seminary and a world traveler on behalf of all things both Emergent and emerging. Other names connected with Emergent Village include Doug Pagitt, Chris Seay, Tim Keel, Karen Ward, Ivy Beckwith, Brian McLaren, and Mark Oestreicher. Emergent U.K. is directed by Jason Clark. While Emergent is the intellectual and philosophical network of the emerging movement, it is a mistake to narrow all of emerging to the Emergent Village.99 Therefore, in this work, “Emerging” will refer to the general movement within Christianity, which desires to engage postmodernity, 100 and “Emergent” to the specific organization (Emergent Village) and those within the Emerging movement who seem to have more theologically liberal leanings. Those who self-identify with the Emerging movement are not the only ones who have made contributions to the discussion of the church or preaching relating to postmodernity; therefore, they will be included in the designation “Emerging” in this work, whether they have taken that designation for themselves or not. Carson says that at the movement’s heart,
...lies the conviction that changes in the culture signal that a new church is “emerging.” Christian leaders must therefore adapt to this emerging church. Those who fail to do so are blind to the cultural accretions that hide the gospel behind forms of thought and modes of expression that no longer communicate with the new generation, the emerging generation.101
Regarding cultural contextualization, those in the Emerging movement and others who have studied postmodernity have been quite helpful in forcing evangelicals to evaluate their methods and motivations in a much deeper way than did Warren, Hybels,
99 Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church: Key Elements of the Most Controversial and Misunderstood Movement in the Church Today,” Christianity Today, 2007, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html?start=1 (accessed August 10, 2011).
100 Notice the use of capitalization. There is little agreement in the current literature about whether capitals should or should not be used for “Emerging” when referring to this movement/conversation. For the sake of clarity, I will always capitalize when referring to the movement and other writers who speak often of the church in postmodernity, and lowercase when using the word normally, as in “some emerging trends,” for example.
101 Donald A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 12.
73 Stanley, and Young Jr.,102 who primarily questioned the effectiveness of traditional habits for the sake of numerical growth. Whereas the aforementioned mega-churches and pastors focus on pragmatism and tend to soften harsh language and stay away from difficult issues, Emerging churches and leaders are more philosophical and tend to utilize pungent language (if not sometimes pushing the limits of both irreverence and creative expression) and embrace difficult issues. While boomer-consumer churches tend to offer how-to topics and give simplistic, formulaic answers, Emerging churches tend to struggle with deep issues and ask questions. The former utilize complex “big show” technology and simplify (some might say, “deemphasize”) the sermon while the latter minimizes the focus on production and technology and emphasizes (in some instances) the spoken word. The target attendee of the former asks, “What do I get out of church?” (as a consumer). The target attendee of the latter asks, “How can I experience God?” (as a participant).103 All of these distinctions indicate the embracing and engagement (or perhaps “reflection”) of a postmodern cultural context. Don Miller observes:
I believe that we are witnessing a new reformation that is transforming the way Christianity will be experienced in the new millennium. This reformation, unlike the one led by Martin Luther, is challenging not doctrine, but the medium through which the message of Christianity is articulated...these “new paradigm” churches have discarded many of the attributes of established religion. Appropriating contemporary cultural forms, these churches are creating a new genre of worship music, restructuring the organizational character of institutional religion, and democratizing access to the sacred by radicalizing the Protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers.104
102 Joel Osteen will not be included in this group of evangelicals due to his tendency toward health, wealth, and prosperity doctrine. He has also made questionable statements regarding the exclusivity and necessity of Christ alone for salvation.
103 Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 138.
104 Donald E. Miller, “Postdenominational Christianity in the Twenty-First Century,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 558 (July 1998): 209.
74 In Preaching to a Shifting Culture, Jeff Arthurs offers a sobering reminder regarding preaching to all people, regardless of worldview:
[People of modernity and postmodernity] are more similar than dissimilar. ... Let’s remind ourselves that the essential qualities that define humanity have not changed...; we are created in the image of God, yet we have fallen; we are created to fellowship with God, yet we make idols to try to fill the God-shaped vacuum in our lives; all of us need to repent and accept by faith the grace offered in Jesus Christ. Our real needs have not changed, nor has the Gospel.105
Every region and every congregation within a given region has a distinct culture, with varying degrees of postmodern influence. The important thing, as it has been for the ages, is for the preacher to know the culture of his region and congregation. Tony Merrida writes, “We should be aware of the people we are talking to because culture affects worldview. People worship God and receive truth through contextual lenses. The preacher who does not consider this is not a missional pastor. Learn to communicate the message in the language of your context.”106 Erickson in the concluding chapter of his book, Postmodernizing the Faith, reviews the opinions of several Emerging thinkers and cleverly asks, “Can deconstructed horses even be led to water?”107 With this question he creates a visual for the four primary strategies for engaging postmoderns. All the strategies believe “Yes,” Christians can lead deconstructed horses (postmodern unbelievers) to water (the truth of the gospel), and add a “but...” at which point he summarizes their position.
105 Jeff Arthurs, “The Postmodern Mind and Preaching,” In Preaching to a Shifting Culture: 12 Perspectives on Communicating That Connects, ed. Scott M. Gibson (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004), 177–78.
106 Tony Merida,. Faithful Preaching: Declaring Scripture with Responsibility, Passion, and Authenticity (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2009), 190.
107 Millard J. Erickson, Postmodernizing the Faith: Evangelical Responses to the Challenge of Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 151.
75 Some, he observes, answer the question: “Yes, but it must be deconstructed water.” This strategy is that of the Emergent Village (and those like them) who has conceded to postmodernism like the liberals before them conceded to modernism. The message needs to be altered. In preaching, this means being tolerant and deemphasizing truth, particularly claims of exclusivity and inerrancy. Others reply, “Yes, but we must use deconstructed rope.” It is necessary to alter the method and means. For example, instead of the propositional approach, they use narrative in preaching. A third response is, “Yes, but the horse is not really deconstructed.” This approach denies the actual extent of postmodernism’s effect on the culture. Those who think they are postmodern are not and will wake up from their folly. Therefore, no adjustment of the message or method is needed. Some in this camp affirm the power of the Word preached, as well as that of the Holy Spirit who draws men to Christ. And the final position explains, “Yes, but we must first de-deconstruct the horse.” This approach asserts that the message cannot change, and the church must work to prove the untenable nature of the postmodern assumptions and worldview. Erickson cites Schaeffer as having held this view.108 Arthurs, in his own version of Erickson’s metaphor, combines the first (tentatively), second, and fourth strategies into his approach regarding preaching.109
Summary The importance of understanding the hearers’ culture and communicating with them in their context is an issue that has remained unchanged since the beginning of the
108 Ibid., 124.
109 Scott M. Gibson, Preaching to a Shifting Culture: 12 Perspectives on Communicating That Connects (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004), 189–190.
76 church age. Believers must meet people where they are in every aspect, visible and invisible. Visible aspects include facilities, worship environment, children’s ministry, worship music, consumer/experiential factors, and especially the person who proclaims God’s Word—his personal appearance, speaking style, vocabulary, and preparedness all matter. Invisible aspects are a little harder to define. For the church, this includes its ethos and processes. When an outsider attends, do they sense that they belong? Do they understand how to be involved? For the pastor it might be his likeability, his credibility, or whether hearers identify with his lifestyle.110 In an encompassing way, Erwin McManus sees the pastor as the “spiritual environmentalist.” He is the key leader that must lead the church as the change-agent, always responsive to the movements of the culture:
The church must acclimate to a changing world, or she will destine herself to irrelevance or even extinction. What this means for the pastor as spiritual environmentalist is that he must understand the changing environment in which the church has been called to serve. One of those dramatic changes in our environment is the shift from words to images. To do church in a way that is entirely text driven is the kiss of death.111
By images, McManus means all sorts of visuals: video, art, light effects, and more. Today’s culture is stereotypically known for its A.D.D.-diagnosed young population addicted to all kinds of image-driven entertainment. Yet one would have had to live on a desert island for the last half century not to understand the effect these forms of visual communication have had on virtually everyone in the United States. And the church must respond to that cultural reality. As Scott Gibson writes: “Preachers have
110 Some of these aspects more readily fall under the second hypothesis area: conveying authenticity, which will be covered below.
111 Erwin Raphael McManus, An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2001), 17.
77 choices to make: engage the culture, ignore the culture, capitulate to the culture, or even challenge it.”112
Hypothesis Area 2: Conveying Authenticity The church and pastor must sincerely practice and believe what they say with humility and love. This is a biblical mandate and is a necessity for reaching people of all worldviews from all ages.
Biblical Precedent
Since the infancy of Israel, God has revealed his desire for sincerity and his disdain for hypocrisy. In the Shema, God beckons Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut 6:4–5). Upon entering the Promised Land, Joshua exhorted, “Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD” (Josh 24:14). He asks for total commitment from the heart and soul and frequently revealed that he knows people’s hearts—there is nothing hidden from him (Gen 6:5; 1 Sam 16:7; 1 Chr 29:17; Ps 7:9, 139:1–4;, Prov 17:3; Jer 11:20, 17:10, 20:12; Mark 4:22; Luke 8:17;
Gal 6:7, Heb 4:13). For those who are authentic towards him, there is reward. David, “a man after God’s own heart,” writes:
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit (Ps 32:2).
112 Gibson, Preaching to a Shifting Culture, 12.
78 But the Old Testament contains the story about Israel’s continual failings and hypocrisy, bringing God much sadness. He genuinely wants their hearts. The prophets repeat this refrain:
And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me…” (Isa 29:13; See also Hos 6:6 and Amos 5:21-24) The New Testament shows that God Incarnate models humility and sincerity. Making this point, Peter quotes Isaiah 53:9, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Pet 2:22). And from Paul,
...though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:6–8) Even after his resurrection, Christ wanted his disciples to see that he was no vision or apparition. He was real (John 20:27). He had kept his word. Quoting the Shema, Jesus taught that more than obeying any other commandment, God wants the love of one’s heart, soul, mind and strength (Matt 22:37,
Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27).113 God intends for people to love him fully, sincerely, and without hypocrisy. He is “seeking such people to worship him. ...those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24; emphasis given). Christ uttered some of the harshest words towards hypocrites (Matt 6:2, 5, 16, 15:7, 22:18, 23:13-30; Mark 7:6; Luke 12:56, 13:15): indeed that they were, among other things, children of snakes who would suffer eternal punishment (Matt 24:51).
113 The Shema (i.e. Deuteronomy 6:3-9) is according to Rabbi Meir Levin, the “central, most encompassing, and most basic statement of Judaism” and an “integral part of Jewish religious life.” Meir Levin, With All Your Heart: The Shema in Jewish Worship, Practice and Life, (Southfield, MI: Targum Press, 2002), 11-12.
79 The Epistles reiterate that all followers are to love Christ genuinely (Eph 6:4) and love others sincerely: “Let love be genuine” (Rom 12:9) and, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (1 Pet 1:22).
More biblical admonition regards authenticity directed to pastors and leaders than to any others. Paul is compelled to testify to his own genuineness. In 2 Corinthians 1:12 and 2:17, he writes,
For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. And again in 1 Thessalonians 2:3-5, he echoes,
For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness.
Even when admonishing young pastor Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:5, Paul is compelled to remind him of his sincerity: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Paul does not only encourage pastors by his own example. He admonishes them directly of the importance of authenticity. To Titus, he writes,
Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. (Titus 2:7–8)
And to Timothy he is encouraging, reminding the young pastor of his authentic faith that was his legacy. He writes, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a
80 faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well” (2 Tim 1:5). The biblical witness is clear: God is real. He is truth. He is genuine and pure in his character toward and dealings with humankind. There is no falsehood in him. He desires for all his people to be authentic followers, especially the leaders of his flock. For God’s leaders to be effective, they must have visible integrity and authenticity.
Historical Development
Aristotelian Credibility Sincerity is a must for all leaders, particularly those who proclaim a message they claim is true and is to be obeyed. This universal principle is timeless. Even secular sources speak to the necessity of perceived integrity if persuasion is to take place. Aristotle produced a series of lecture notes that was later published as a book entitled, Rhetoric:
There he tells us in its second chapter, “Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others” (135614-6). A few sentences later, Aristotle reformulates his definition of this proof in an interesting way, telling us that effective speakers must “understand human character and goodness in their various forms” (1356a22-23). Thus it is not enough for a speaker to be good, a speaker must understand virtue; the virtue of the culture is one of the fonts (dwelling places) of ethos.114
Aristotle gives three primary factors for a person having ethos (credibility) in the perception of the hearer: Sagacity (φρόνησις), goodwill (εύνοια), and character
(ἀρετή, often translated, “virtue”).115
114 Michael J. Hyde, The Ethos of Rhetoric (Columbia, SC: the University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 5.
115 Aristotle, Rhetoric.
81 Sagacity (wisdom) concerns how speakers demonstrate that they know what they are talking about or how they demonstrate expertise. Aristotle’s sophisticated understanding of sagacity establishes an epistemology, a means by which we come to know things.116
Having and displaying sagacity, therefore, in all its different forms (which Aristotle delineates: intelligence, scientific, theoretical wisdom, artistic principles, practical wisdom, experience, etc.) is important for the subject realm to which a person speaks. The hearer must believe that the speaker knows what he is talking about. The second factor of ethos, according to Aristotle, is goodwill. This is “demonstrating that one has the audience’s best interest at heart.”117 Smith quotes
Aristotle when comparing it to friendship, “wishing for someone things you believe to be good, for his sake and not for your own, and being ready to do these things to the extent possible”118 Politicians make use of this component when they convince an audience that they have the voters’ best interests at heart. The final and perhaps most important constituent of Aristotle’s ethos is character. Aristotle writes,
We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided. This kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he begins to speak. It is not true, as some writers assume in their treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses.119
116 Craig R. Smith, The Quest for Charisma: Christianity and Persuasion (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000), 90.
117 Ibid., 91.
118 Ibid.
119 Aristotle, Rhetoric, 7 (emphasis added).
82 Commenting on this and other words of Aristotle regarding character, Smith writes,
On this subject, the Rhetoric reveals the complex nature of Aristotle’s thinking as it weaves the notion of moral excellence into the matrix of credibility. Justice, courage, self-control, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, common sense, and wisdom are explored as ways to produce and preserve what society values. The deeds that result are noble, their opposites ignoble. Accordingly, a person who performs such deeds is noble or ignoble.120
Aristotle placed high value on a speaker not being excessive or deficient regarding certain traits. In his view, a speaker’s wise balance—both in word and deed—is a reflection of his character and is essential for persuasion.
Authenticity in the Church In the first few centuries of the church, Christianity grew exponentially. People who had been changed proclaimed the good news. The Christians’ care for others (even those not their own) was a testimony to the culture of their personal authenticity as well as the authenticity of their message. Those who opposed Christianity recognized the effect of their sincerity. Julian the Apostate writes,
Atheism [his derogatory term for Christians who would not believe in the Roman gods] has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.121
120 Smith, The Quest for Charisma, 92.
121 Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, 36.
83 This genuine expression of Christian love is powerful to a lost world. Tertullian notes that the heathens say to themselves, “See how these Christians love one another.”122 Few scholars write about the importance of sincerity by Christian leaders, probably because (especially before the council of Nicaea) Christianity would not attract many inauthentic leaders, since being a Christian could cost a person his life. Martyrs were venerated highly, and those who had undergone persecution were held in high regard and often given positions of prominence. A mark of sincerity was given those who gave away high position or wealth for the sake of the faith as well, as in the cases of Pamphilius of Caesarea, Cyprian, and Nicolas (and later Thomas Aquinas, and Gregory the Great). People considered these men worthy; indeed the Roman Church sainted some of them because of their sacrifice. Edwin Charles Dargan examines a homily by Clement of Rome and observes both its content and style.123 He writes,
The tone and spirit are admirable—faith, hope, and love, with humility and sincerity, are apparent throughout. Particularly worthy of note is a passage near the end, where the preacher modestly declares that though conscious of imperfection he tries to do what he urges upon others, and begs his hearers to think on these things after they leave the house of worship and go about their affairs. He earnestly exhorts them in view of the future life, and tenderly consoles them in the midst of present trials.124
The Post-Nicene Fathers, on the other hand, were in a different set of circumstances. With Christianity now the official religion of the state, many of these men
122 William Reeves, The Apologies of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Minutius Felix (London: T.W. and T.S., 1716), 65.
123 Clement’s authorship of the homily known as Second Clement is disputed, but the sermon typifies one from the Ante-Nicene time period.
124 Edwin Charles Dargan, A History of Preaching, vol. 1 (New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1905), 45.
84 were concerned rightly with laziness or wrong motivations on the part of pastors and leaders, some of whom materially benefitted from their role:
For there are many who pretend to the faith, but are not subject to the faith, and rather set up a faith for themselves than receive that which is given, being puffed up with the thoughts of human vanity, knowing the things they wish to know and unwilling to know the things that are true; since it is a mark of true wisdom sometimes to know what we do not like. However, this will-wisdom is followed by foolish preaching, for what is foolishly learnt must needs be foolishly preached. Yet how great an evil to those who hear is foolish preaching, when they are enisled into foolish opinions by conceit of wisdom! And for this cause the Apostle described them thus: There are many unruly, vain talkers and deceivers. Hence we must utter our voice against...seductive boastful arrogance—yes, we must speak against such things through the soundness of our doctrine, the truth of our faith, the sincerity of our preaching, so that we may have the purity of truth and the truth of sound doctrine.125 The Medieval Period was racked with hypocrisy. As noted above, the church had grown fat with great wealth and was corrupted by power that resulted in part from union with the state. Sincerity seemed unnecessary. The church was the unquestioned authority. The rise of monasticism and mysticism revealed the people’s frustration with this fact. Christians, longing for a genuine expression of faith, had virtually nowhere else to turn due to the corruption of the church only to find that corruption was rife in monastic communities as well.126 Interestingly, though the Roman Church and her clergy were corrupt, the premodern, medieval, worshipping laity was considered, almost romantically, to be examples of “simple sincerity,” especially by many Protestants of modernity who were
125 Hilary of Pointiers. De Trinitate, Book VII. Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series, Vol. 9; Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1969), 137.
126 Edward Maslin Hulme, The Renaissance, the Protestant Revolution and the Catholic Reformation in Continental Europe (New York: The Century Co., 1914), 152.
85 weary of the onslaught of liberalism and seeming complexity of Protestant theology.127 Indeed, Protestants have fascinated over a more medieval and mystic expression of Christianity, even some in the Emerging movement.128 As noted above, the corruption in the Roman Church drove the reformers in part. In this sense, the Reformation was a movement of sincerity. However, little was written specifically about the importance of authenticity of the preacher and the church. Other than the Anabaptists, and until the Separatists in England, church was still a government-related, parish concern, meaning: people did not choose a church based on factors other than the parish in which they lived. The particular denomination was decided virtually always for people, based on the denomination of the current ruler of their respective country. Influential English puritan, Richard Bernard, writes extensively about how to be an effective pastor of the people. He encouraged diligent study, hard work, and gave practical advice about ministry. But all of these practices are less effective if the preacher lacks credibility. Bernard appeals to Scripture and reason in exhorting pastors to lead authentic, humble lives that exude a heart-felt commitment to Christ. He says, “Common people respect more a preacher’s life than his learning.”129 The puritans took this kind of instruction to heart, which came from many other sources as well. Notably, Richard Baxter, devotes an entire chapter of his widely read classic, The Reformed Pastor, to the topic of humility.130 In it, he encourages pastors
127 T. J. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 150.
128 Tom Sine, The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2008), 53–54. See also: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism, ed. The Rutbal House (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2005).
129 Richard Bernard, The Faithfull Shepheard (London: Printed by Arnold Hatfield, 1607), 93.
130 Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1860).
86 to first and foremost, take an honest look at their own lives and confess their sins. He speaks vehemently against pride and makes the case that a lack of humility renders the preacher, not just ineffective, but useful to the enemy:
But pride stands by and contradicteth all, and produceth its toys and trifles. It polluteth rather than polisheth; and, under pretense of laudable ornaments, dishonoreth our sermons with childish gauds: as if a prince were to be decked in the habit of a stage-player, or a painted fool. It persuadeth us to paint the window, that it may dim the light: and to speak to our people that which they cannot understand; to let them know that we are able to speak unprofitably. If we have a plain and cutting passage, it taketh off the edge, and dulls the life of our preaching, under pretense of filing off the roughness, unevenness, and superfluity. When God chargeth us to deal with men as for their lives, and to beseech them with all the earnestness that we are able, this cursed sin controlleth all, and condemneth the most holy commands of God, and saith to us, ‘What! will you make people think you are mad? Will you make them say you rage or rave? Cannot you speak soberly and moderately?’ And thus doth pride make many a man’s sermons; and what pride makes, the devil makes; and what sermons the devil will make and to what end, we may easily conjecture. Though the matter be of God, yet if the dress, and manner, and end be from Satan, we have no great reason to expect success.131 Unlike Aristotle, the puritans reflected the higher standards of Christians from all ages. They ultimately wanted to impress someone other than the audiences they sought to persuade. Like the Apostle Paul before them, they wanted to please God. Only then would they have “reason to expect success.” According to Baxter, genuine humility is the key. Pride pollutes and paints the window, dimming Christ’s light.
Generations of unsung heroes in ministry caused pastors and preachers to be considered respectable among the masses. However, in the same way the institutional church in the Medieval Period became arrogant with power, the church in the United States became arrogant with popularity. Here is an example of one who has been called “the most famous man in America.”132
131 Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, 214.
132 Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (New York: Three Leaves Press, 2006).
87 [Henry Ward] Beecher took advantage of an opportunity no longer available to men — or women — of the cloth. His career took place during what one scholar has called the Protestant Century, when an eloquent preacher could be a sexy celebrity, the leader of one or more reform movements and a popular philosopher — all at the same time. The famous scandal decisively dimmed Beecher's star power, but it would soon be impossible for any cleric to claim a similar spot in the culture, admired by most Americans, fascinating to them all.133 From a cultural standpoint, Americans almost universally held pastors and the Bible in high regard throughout the eighteenth century. Yet, the nineteenth century, with its measures, excesses, and exploitations, began to change that perception. The “Burned- Over District” phenomenon in New York was a harbinger of what happens when emotions are electrified artificially for the sake of “decisions for Christ.” Frontier religion had some good characteristics, but uneducated and/or unscrupulous preachers laid the groundwork for a general skepticism among many Americans that only increased as modernity became the prevailing worldview. Postmodernity’s negativity toward authority and truth would take this skepticism to an even higher level, as public scandals in the Christian community—particularly involving high-profile preachers and evangelists beginning in the 1980s—became a regular feature in the news. Billy Graham was perhaps the most well known preacher throughout the last half of the twentieth century. His concern about maintaining an “above reproach” reputation has been refreshing for Christians weary of their collective character being assassinated in the secular media. He says, “Integrity means that if our private life was suddenly exposed, we'd have no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed. Integrity means our outward life is consistent with our inner convictions.”134 Graham’s evangelistic organization set high standards for behavior and accountability—including financial procedures and processes, by which Graham has abided.
133 Kazin, “The Gospel of Love.”
134 Franklin Graham, Billy Graham in Quotes (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2011), 197.
88 Graham’s exceptional character notwithstanding, due in part to these aforementioned scandals in the 1980s and the growing skepticism of a developing postmodern culture, a real barrier was erected between the message of the gospel and the typical unconverted hearer by the turn of the millennium. That barrier centered on the messenger of the good news, the church, and more specifically, the preacher oftentimes.
Recent Opinion and Movement There is a body of literature that relates to the importance of authenticity on the part of the church and preacher.
The Recognition of a Problem Authenticity as a concept found new life after the decline of Christianity’s cultural dominance in the United States and the rise of postmodern radical tolerance and political correctness. All of a sudden, it seemed churches and pastors were not automatically granted credibility as in times past. Now, credibility had to be earned. This is a reason why authenticity began to be discussed in Christian circles. Bill Hybels (who has written no less than three books with a form of the word, “authentic” in the titles,135) insists that in a culture where the ad campaign “Image Is Everything” was a hit, the opposite was true. In a chapter entitled, “The Attractiveness of Authenticity” he writes, “The motto of many sincere truth seekers is, ‘Substance is everything.’ And these people can tell the difference a mile away. They have an uncanny ability to sniff out what is real and what isn’t and what they smell determines whether they’re going to be attracted or
135 Bill Hybels, Authenticity: Being Honest with God and Others (and Kevin Harney) (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), Bill Hybels, Honest to God? Becoming an Authentic Christian (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), and Bill Hybels, The Real Deal: Discover the Rewards of Authentic Relationships (and Kevin Harney) (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005).
89 repelled.”136 Hybels uses the example of Lee Strobel, who, while a reporter for the Chicago Tribune in the early 1980s, writes,
When I walked into church as a skeptical unbeliever, my “hypocrisy antenna” was scanning the place for signs that people were just playing church. In fact, I was aggressively on the lookout for phoniness, opportunism, or deception, because I felt that if I could find an excuse for rejecting the church on grounds of hypocrisy, I could feel free to reject Christianity as well. But what I found amazed me: These people really believed this stuff. I didn’t agree with them, but I couldn’t dismiss their sincerity and conviction.137 Hybels argues, “Inauthenticity among the ranks of those claiming to be Christians can become an almost insurmountable barrier to belief.” This point cannot be overemphasized. He continues, “If we want to be the kind of high-impact, salty Christians that Jesus said we need to be...we must start by making certain that the way we’re living backs up the words we’re speaking.”138 He is right. If the increasingly postmodern and skeptical culture is going to give Christianity a hearing, Christians have to genuinely live like Christ on a broad scale, commensurate with what they claim to believe. Despite Hybels’ recognition, and other mega-church pastors who rose to fame in the 1980s and 1990s that authenticity is important to unchurched “seekers,” the discussion about authenticity was confined sometimes to the context of the church’s physical environment, dress code (or lack thereof), titles, etc.139 However, in the
Emerging movement, some leaders feel the big production show, consumerism, and
136 Bill Hybels, Becoming a Contagious Christian (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 53 (emphasis his).
137 Lee Strobel, Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993), 200.
138 Hybels, Contagious Christian, 54.
139 Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church, 273.
90 image-management model of a growing number of large churches were conveying anything but genuineness to the unchurched.
The “Likeability Factor” John Burke’s important book, No Perfect People Allowed, drives home the importance of likeability in the minds of postmodern hearers. He tells of when he was in a ministry whose leaders invited many skeptical friends to a debate between a well- known atheist and a Christian apologist. Though the skeptical hearers agreed that the Christian speaker clearly won the debate, “most were so turned off by his demeaning attitude toward his opponent, it convinced them even more that they didn’t want to become Christians.”140 Burke reminds readers of Paul, who though knowledgeable and skilled as a debater, made the priority of love higher than being right. Burke writes, “Knowledge must take a backseat to love as we present truth in a postmodern context. Remembering [sic] most people are not primarily asking, ‘What’s true?’ but rather, ‘Do I want to be like you?’ Don’t get me wrong, knowledge is very important, but not to those who can’t hear it.”141 The postmodern hearer must like the preacher personally.
Does the Preacher Like Me? A key aspect to the likeability factor is whether or not the postmodern hearer perceives the preacher likes him or her. In his book, Preaching to a Postmodern World, Graham Johnson makes this important observation:
Unfortunately, many sermons may be delivered with careful theological correctness in word, but then a non-Christian expression in tone. In fact, too often preaching has reflected a harsh and critical spirit. People may assume from the speaker’s demeanor that the preacher does not like them much and conversely,
140 John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come as You Are Culture in the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 170.
141 Ibid.
91 that God does not care for them much either. “Much of what passes as ‘prophetic’ preaching is actually just anger cloaked in a sermon,” laments Haddon Robinson. “It’s simply another way of telling the world to get lost.”...Remember, the “how” of what is said can make a difference as to whether the “what” is received.142 Sadly, this “cloaked anger,” along with other offenses of people claiming to be Christians, has created distrust in the minds of postmodern people. Doug Schaupp writes,
In another day and age, God, religion and church enjoyed the general respect of the culture. Not today. Religion is suspect, church is weird, and Christians are hypocrites. Distrust has become the norm. People are tired of the “sales tactics” often employed by Christians and are offended by our bait-and-switch attempts at introducing them to Jesus.143
Schaupp continues by making the point that this perception has affected the way Christian professionals are viewed greatly. This presents a barrier the preacher and church must address intentionally in order to evangelize the postmodern unbeliever effectively. Johnston writes, “In a postmodern context, where authority is suspect and people mistrust those in power, what may make the difference as to whether one listens or tunes out is the perceived attitude of the preacher. ‘Does the speaker care about me?’ or ‘Can I trust what I am about to hear?’”144
Get Real While many books offer ways the preacher can endear himself to an audience, the overarching principle, especially when discussing the postmodern unchurched hearer, is authenticity: simply being real. Rainer writes,
142 Graham Johnston, Preaching to a Postmodern World: A Guide to Reaching Twenty-First- Century Listeners (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Books, 2001), 66.
143 Don Everts and Doug Schaupp, I Once Was Lost: What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 31.
144 Johnston, Preaching to a Postmodern World, 69.
92 The formerly unchurched spoke forcefully and clearly about one of the primary characteristics that they desire in a pastor: authenticity. Many of these new Christians shared with us that inauthentic pastors were among the stumbling blocks that kept them away from the church.145
Wallace Charles Smith agrees,
I don’t think anyone has defined preaching better than...as divine truth communicated through a personality. ...Are we, for instance, confident enough in who we are that we can stand before an audience competently, with all our warts and faults in full view, not attempting to hide ourselves behind some mask that we have carefully crafted over the years, so much so that we ourselves are not even sure where the mask ends and essential self begins? Is our preaching voice our own or some acquired sound from a beloved mentor?146
The plastic veneer of feigned perfection, polish, or anything that seems artificial turns off postmoderns in particular mainly because it sets the expectation in their minds that Christianity is pretense. This flies in the face of Christ’s message: A true God offers grace for imperfect people whom he loves. More than merely speaking it, pastors illustrate this message by living it:
Grace frees every person to be real, “warts and all.” Yet, authenticity in churches will begin in the pulpit and filter down throughout the congregation. Those in leadership will set the tone either for depth or shallowness. ...In our approach to authenticity, the preacher no longer stands above the congregation in a condescending fashion. ...The biblical message needs to be presented in relation to the lives of the people and importantly, the life of the speaker. ...This approach assumes a willingness to allow people to get close—and that in getting close, they’ll sense something of a heart that beats for God, and community will form as people are willing to be vulnerable with one another about their victories and struggles. But this pattern of authenticity begins at the top.147
145 Thom S. Rainer, Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 144.
146 Wallace Charles Smith, “Incarnational Preaching,” in Our sufficiency is of God: Essays on Preaching in Honor of Gardner C. Taylor, ed. Timothy George, James Earl Massey and Robert Smith Jr. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010), 173.
147 Johnston, Preaching to a Postmodern World, 129–130.
93 Referring to the value postmodern hearers place on authenticity and vulnerability, Geoffrey Stevenson writes, “Authenticity, as I understand it, is mostly achieved by experience, reflection upon experience, and sometimes scholarship (as in, ‘she knows what she’s talking about’), and it earns the preacher the right to be heard. Vulnerability implies humility as well as openness to change and even to being proved wrong.”148 Stevenson continues by making the point that vulnerability can be evidence of brokenness, with which hearers identify. Robertson McQuilken agrees. He believes the statement, “Authenticity is a paramount virtue” is an element of postmodernity that preachers must adopt. Expanding on it, he writes,
We can’t get any closer to dead-center biblical truth than that. Of course, the postmodern “authentic” and ours may differ, so we need to help define authenticity in biblical terms. But if we come across as authoritarian, that’s perceived as arrogant and the ultimate in nonauthenticity. Our presentation of truth must be humble—the presentation of ourselves in a vulnerable way. Sometimes, with the postmodern, how we stand for the truth may in the end prove as influential as the truth itself.149
Get Personal
More important than how truth is conveyed verbally, postmoderns want it conveyed personally. In an interview with Relevant magazine, McManus made an important observation about the difference between how modern and postmodern people view and value the role of the preacher:
In the modern world a great preacher was a person who could teach you the information of the Bible. Now people want to know, has that book taken you
148 Geoffrey Stevenson and Stephen Wright, Preaching with Humanity: A Practical Guide for Today's Church (London: Church House Publishing, 2008), 42.
149 Robertson McQuilkin, “Connecting with Postmoderns: What to adopt. What to adapt. What to oppose,” Preaching Today, July 1, 2003, http://www.preachingtoday.com/skills/themes/ culture/200304.29.html (accessed December 8, 2011).
94 anywhere where you’ve met and experienced God? It’s different. It’s really sharing your life through the Scriptures that becomes a part of what people hunger for—and people do hunger for it.150 Therefore, a preacher opening up his life to reveal the way God is moving him personally through his Word, is a component of leading others authentically. In doing this, the preacher is inviting others to the spiritual journey on which he is traveling. With his life, he is inviting people to, as Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1).
Experiential Christianity
Conveying authenticity cannot be contained solely in the realm of the homiletics, character, and practice of the preacher. Another aspect has to do with giving people opportunities for experience. Postmoderns, more than moderns, want to be more than mere spectators. They want to do something. And as they experience truth working in and through them, they find it more plausible, authentic, and true. Leonard Sweet writes,
Moderns want to figure out what life’s about. Postmoderns want to experience what life is, especially experience life for themselves. Postmoderns are not willing to live at even an arms’-length distance from experience. They want life to explode all around them. Postmoderns don’t want their information straight. They want it laced with experience.151 Only the human imagination limits the ways to accomplish these experiential
(read: “authentic”) kinds of truth encounters. Corporate worship, for example, can be a truth-experiencing opportunity. Sweet elaborates,
150 Al Sergel, “In That Smokey Room,” Relevant Magazine, http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/features/934-in-that-smoky-room (accessed on August 8, 2011).
151 Leonard I. Sweet, Postmodern Pilgrims: First Century Passion for the 21st Century World (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 33.
95 The frontiers of worship lie in helping postmoderns move, breathe deeply, express emotion, and touch the divine. Postmodern leaders create in the church and especially in worship an “experience economy.” I learned in seminary how to craft sermons. I am learning now how to craft experiences. These experiences are more than a pew rub, more a body-and-soul rub. To “get real” means to “get physical” and “get spiritual” at the same time. Postmodern preachers are visual poets, experts in kinetic and kinesthetic worship where bodily knowings are acknowledged and affirmed. Many attention-deficit-disorder kids are really multiple kinesthetic: post- modern, electronic kids who learn not through lockstep, lecture-drill-test marches of the Industrial Age but through multisensory webs of stimulation and inspiration.152
Being Rather Than Doing At the core of this desire for experience is a search for truth and meaning that is postmodern. This may be why the Emerging conversation never seems to be motivated by growth and numbers on the one hand or by emotionalism and self-centric materialism on the other (as some believe previous manifestations of evangelicalism were). Rather, its main focus is on “being” the church and “experiencing” Christ. For example, while some of the aforementioned pastors and their mega-churches promote mission statements and giving to missions, the Emerging conversation promotes being missional and incarnational. While there is some distinction between these two foci, they are not mutually exclusive. A mission statement can keep the church on task and might imply a determination for missions, but those things are abstract ideas of intention. Moreover, even though a mission statement is biblically sourced, it is borne out of a desire for effectiveness and efficiency. In short, it is a business plan. It is about doing. Being missional, however, is much more experiential, involving the whole body, soul, and spirit. It is to be as Christ was: incarnational. Being missional leaves the numbers and plan up to God. It is considered more organic than mechanistic. This mindset affects both
152 Leonard I. Sweet, Soul Tsunami: Sink Or Swim in New Millennium Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 211.
96 the church and the preacher, as they are seen as merely a tool of God who is accomplishing his mission in the world. Henk de Roest, in his chapter entitled, “Ecclesiologies at the Margin,” describes “emerging churches [that have] a postmodern mentality.” He writes,
The emerging church is heavily influenced by the concept of missio Dei. Mission is regarded as the activity of God in the world, in which the church is an ‘instrument,’ participating in God’s initiative. The church becomes world-related because God himself is world-related. ...Mission becomes the participation of Christians in the activity of the Trinity. The metaphorical language that grows out of this Trinitarian theology is relational: solidarity, invitation, sharing, bear witness, love and community. It involves both the movement of God towards humanity and the movement of humanity towards God.153
Two Kinds of Incarnational There has been a wide reconsidering of Christ’s model of doing ministry, including creating environments and communicating in an incarnational way. Authors have used the term “incarnational” frequently in the last two decades as a way of saying that, as Christ has come experientially in human flesh, believers likewise can go to others. Application of this term in recent literature ranges from becoming more missional (leaving the confines of the church walls to live as a part of the local community or “getting dirty” by personally getting involved with the needy to bring the gospel) to relating culturally with postmoderns (relevantly translating the gospel to those who need to hear it in their own “language”). Referring to the latter sense, McManus believes being incarnational is a mandate:
Jesus stepped into this world and into the context of the people to whom he came. Jesus was not acultural. He was a Jew. His skin color, the shape of his face, his eyes, his nose, and his aroma and odor all matched the people of his time. He is our most compelling evidence that we can be relevant without accommodating
153 Gerard Mannion, and Lewis Seymour Mudge, ed. The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church (New York: Routledge, 2008), 262.
97 culture. In fact, the incarnation of Jesus Christ is God's undeniable evidence that relevance to culture is not optional.154
Closely related to this idea is the way believers communicate the good news in preaching. Craig Loscalzo writes,
The incarnation [is] the ultimate example of God’s identification with the real humanity of real people. As Jesus walked, lived, slept, ate, laughed, died, and rose again, so went God. God exists not as a distant landlord insulated from the anxieties of human life but as the One who has lived and now lives to offer real life. Authentic life—purposeful, joy-filled, Christ-centered—is a wonderful possibility in postmodern times because God incarnate understands postmodernism too.155 In the former sense, being incarnational necessitates living out (i.e. “experiencing”) biblical truth, both individually and as the community of Christ, the church. A big part of that is to be the physical hands and feet of Christ to unbelievers, particularly the poor, disadvantaged, abused, and hurting, including those of different cultures:
An incarnational missional life is contextual and crosses cultural barriers. Just as Jesus left heaven to enter into culture on the earth, Jesus’ people are to do the same and not merely remain in community with people of their own gender, race, income level, nationality, and the like. Despite being contextual, a missional life does not condone or partake in the sinful worldly aspects of a culture, just as Jesus never sinned. Nonetheless, Jesus dressed, spoke, and ate according to Jewish culture, participated in their holidays, and observed their customs, so Jesus’ people are also to live as missionaries in whatever culture God has sent them. Thus, in a very real sense, every Christian is a missionary whether they minister across the street or across the globe.156
154 McManus, An Unstoppable Force, 179.
155 Craig A. Loscalzo, Apologetic Preaching: Proclaiming Christ to a Postmodern World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 108.
156 Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010) 241.
98 The pastor must see that both leading an incarnational church and being a part of incarnational living are essential if he desires to convey authenticity. This must be who he is. Stetzer writes,
Postmoderns are looking for persons who are genuine and transparent. They do not ask, “Is it true?” They ask, “Is it real?” Such observations can come only when relationships are real and present. Postmoderns distrust authority and authority structures. They want to see Christ through persons who have earned their respect and trust.157 This kind of incarnational and missional living is attractive. To the postmodern, actions are indeed better than words...and make the words better. By being about others and making a positive difference in the world, the church appears to be practicing what she preaches. This is authenticity. By extension, the postmodern hearer ascribes credibility to the pastor who leads in this missional emphasis.
Summary As hard-to-define as postmoderns tend to be, there is a consensus among experts regarding at least one trait. They are inherently distrustful of authority, particularly of religious leaders and institutions that claim to represent a sovereign God who demands to be obeyed. These same leaders and institutions have a reputation (both deserved and undeserved) for being hypocritical and having a hidden agenda. Still, Christ has given Christians a commission to “make disciples of all cultures,” including this one. The most important way to approach this task is by being authentic. The ultimate model of authenticity is God in whom there is no deceit, who revealed himself as human and came to live with humanity to redeem human beings who would believe. The church and preacher earn the right to be heard by being like him in his incarnation (rather than
157 Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 140.
99 doing). Indeed, more than hearing, experiencing Christ daily is how the postmodern unbeliever best experiences the gospel. As Stetzer writes,
Evangelism must adopt “Jesus-type” methods. We must go to postmoderns in order to reach them. We must live in their neighborhoods, eat at their restaurants, drink coffee at their coffee shops, and shop at their stores. Living in Christ must become a daily reality. Being a Christian is not a label or a banner that is flown only on Sundays; it is a way of life.158 Postmoderns need the gospel (whether they know it or not). They will crave and respond to a gospel lived-out sincerely, transparently, passionately, humbly, vulnerably, and consistently in their presence.
Summary and Conclusion This review examined biblical, historical, and contemporary literature regarding the two areas suggested by the hypotheses: 1. The importance of preacher and church to relate the Word in a context familiar to the culture. 2. The necessity of authenticity as a trait of the church and pastor. This study now examines the case study method as an effective format for studying churches.
158 Ibid., 141.
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This is case study, not general qualitative research. With intrinsic case studies, our primary task is to come to understand the case. It will help us to tease out relationships, to probe issues, and to aggregate categorical data, but those ends are subordinate to understanding the case. The case is complex, and the time we have for examining its complexity is short.1 Robert E. Stake
Introduction
This study is designed to explore the effectiveness of selected churches that practice expository preaching in reaching suburban postmoderns. Despite the fact that much has been written on churches that reach postmoderns (and to help those who do not) and much has been written on churches that practice expository preaching (and how to do this effectively), few authors have written on churches that attempt to do both. Therefore, there is little to help churches understand the different variables that affect the churches’ effectiveness in the two areas of reaching postmoderns and expository preaching as they relate to one another. The researcher’s desire is to evaluate the ways the selected churches/pastors implement expository preaching for reaching and maturing postmodern suburban unchurched. The best way to evaluate the goals, practices, and effectiveness of any complex human group or institution (and the church is both) is not by gathering quantitative facts (although some may be helpful to a point), but through
1 Robert E. Stake, The Art of Case Study Research (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 1995), 77.
100 101 qualitative research, namely the case study:
The primary way a researcher can investigate an educational organization, institution, or process is through the experience of the individual people, the “others” who make up the organization or carry out the process. Social abstractions like “education” are best understood through the experiences of the individuals whose work and lives are the stuff upon which the abstractions are built.2
The Case Study The case study method is equipped uniquely to make subjectivity more objective by using an unbiased researcher to interview and experience human organizations (in this case, churches) to get a more comprehensive picture of the organization, its goals and practices. This chapter has been organized into six sections: research design, selection of sites (churches), selection of participants, researcher’s role, data collection, data analysis and summary.
Primary Research Question
To keep the study focused on this purpose, the researcher designed interview questions around the two previously mentioned hypotheses and research question: How have the subject churches/preachers implemented expository preaching for reaching and maturing postmodern suburban unchurched?
Research Design and Process While research has been conducted on the value of expository preaching and on the importance of the churches’ ability to reach the increasing number of people who postmodernity influences, little is written about the combination of these two issues. As Strauss and Corbin point out, this quality of the unknown makes qualitative research a
2 Irving Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research (New York: Teachers College Press, 2006), 10.
102 solid approach to identifying and understanding the issues that determine a church’s effectiveness in doing both.3 Because of the multiple variables that exist in all human organizations, qualitative research is the best approach because it allows the researcher to dig deeper into the questions of interest and is “not constrained by predetermined categories of analysis.”4 Other options are available under the umbrella of qualitative research, so after much thought this researcher designed the study using grounded theory based on interviews with leaders in the selected churches, particularly the primary preaching pastor (in both churches studied, this position is called “Senior Pastor”), and some attendees of the selected churches. Additionally, this researcher chose this approach for many of the same reasons that Anselm Strauss, co-developer of grounded theory, created the theory: (a) the need to get out in the field if someone wants to understand what is going on; (b) the importance of theory, grounded in reality, to the development of the discipline; (c) the nature of experience and undergoing as continually changing; (d) the active role of persons in shaping the world they live in; (e) an emphasis on change and process and the variability and complexity of life; and (f) the interrelationships among conditions, meaning, and action.5 All of these are important when researching how churches reach postmodern suburban people with expository preaching, and they are particularly so to this researcher,
3 Juliet M. Corbin and Anselm L. Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990); Juliet M. Corbin and Anselm L. Strauss, “Critical Issues in the Measurement Of Ethnic and Racial Identity: A Referendum on the State of the Field,” Journal of Counseling Psychology (1990): 54, 224–239.
4 M. Q. Patton, Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications. 1990), 165.
5 Strauss and Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research, 24–25.
103 since he is the preaching pastor of a suburban church that attempts to do the same to reach the increasing number of postmodern people through expository preaching. The first two points of Strauss’ theory summarized above are helpful particularly since many pastors tend to bury themselves in the leading and feeding of their own flocks and seldom get to see what other churches with similar goals are doing to self-evaluate their own strategies. The researcher's approach included relying on two key sources of data gathering: interviews and direct observation. This researcher relied on interviews because he was interested in gaining a subjective understanding of how church leaders intend to utilize expository preaching to reach postmodern people and how they think they are doing in accomplishing that goal.6 After developing the interview protocol along with the rest of the students of Dallas Theological Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry Pastor of Large Churches Cohort and doing interviews and completing a case study as a group, this researcher was able to refine the protocol to ensure the questions that he asked gathered the information that he sought.7
6 I. E. Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences (New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 1991).
7 J.W. Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2006). And Corbin and Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research.
104 Through interviews, this researcher explored themes that arose regarding the historical development of the respective churches (particularly the more recent history), the philosophy of preaching as the pastor and others understand them, the actual practice of preaching, how well they are reaching postmodern people, and what effect, if any, expository preaching has in reaching/discipling postmoderns.8
Selection of Locations and Churches Selecting the appropriate churches for the study was a difficult, yet most critical step in this project. John Gerring writes, “Case study analysis focuses on a small number of cases that are expected to provide insight into a causal relationship across a larger population of cases. This presents the researcher with a formidable problem of case selection. Which cases should be chosen?”9 This is an especially good question given there are no shortage of suburban churches in the southern United States (also know as the “Bible belt”). Any of the medium-to-large cities could work, so that was not the primary issue. This researcher determined to search specifically and purposefully for growing churches that were evangelical doctrinally and had a polity structure and worship style that was similart to that of the church where this researcher serves. In light of the great diversity of polity structure and worship styles among Christian churches of all denominations, the researcher thought this would diminish the potential pool significantly. From there, the researcher made the choices using a convenience selection method. He chose churches in
8 Interviews are conversational and relatively fluid, which may lead both the interviewer and interviewee into uncharted territory. Often, however, the organic nature of the conversation will result in uncovering unexpected issues that are quite relevant to the research question. The interviews were open- ended intentionally for this purpose.
9 John Gerring, Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 86.
105 the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex due to the fact that this researcher was involved in the Dallas Theological Seminary Doctor of Ministry program’s Pastor of Large Churches Cohort. Given the fact that the Metroplex area has churches fitting the above requirements, this researcher chose to ask other seasoned ministry leaders (e.g. pastors, other students, seminary professors) what churches they believed were reaching postmoderns and practicing expository preaching. These leaders gave several names, and the researcher conducted preliminary research on a few. This researcher even attended services and informally interviewed members and staff to see if the given church met the criteria before he chose Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in the north Dallas suburb of Carrollton, Texas. The following year (August 2009) the researcher returned to Dallas to continue with research and attempted to find a second church about which to do a case study. Since it would be in the same geographical area, he decided to find a church that was newer and smaller, if possible a recent plant that had the stated purpose of reaching postmoderns with expository preaching. Again the researcher asked many pastors, students, and professors if they knew of churches that met the description. After compiling a lengthy list, he repeated the process of finding a good fit. At first, he chose a church in Keller, Texas, a suburb just north of Fort Worth and conducted a case study. During the process of compiling the data and listening to numerous recorded sermons from that church, it became apparent that the church did not practice expository preaching as had been defined. The decision was made that the case study was not pertinent to the topic. Still needing another church to study and needing to find one closer to this researcher’s home in Tennessee, he began to ask many respected pastors and people who were familiar with both expository preaching and reaching postmodern people. In addition to several other churches, many people mentioned The Church at Brook Hills in
106 Birmingham, Alabama. As the researcher studied the church and asked preliminary questions to some who knew more about the church, it became apparent that it was a fit for the study. It was not a smaller, recent church plant as he had desired originally for the case study, but this researcher began to recognize that the similarity in size between the two selected churches actually diminishes some of the many variables, which made the pairing more conducive for drawing accurate conclusions.
Selection of Participants
The researcher based the determination of interview candidates upon the three primary groups from which this researcher wanted to glean information: the primary preaching leader, other key church leaders, and attendees of the church. Each one will be discussed.
The Primary Preaching Leader
Of course, the most important person who needs to be interviewed is the one who actually does the preaching. In both churches, this is the person holding the title “senior pastor.” Both of these men were extremely busy, which made it difficult to schedule an appointment for interviews. Furthermore, getting subsequent information and booking interview time would be a near miracle, so this researcher needed to make the most of the first interview. These two men, Pete Briscoe and David Platt, carry the vision for their respective churches, particularly regarding the communication of the Word in the primary weekly meeting of the church. As is typically the case with preaching pastors, these men are highly motivated and positive. They are big-picture oriented and visionary leaders.
107 Other Key Church Leaders Other leaders in the church give a broader body of opinion about the actual practices and results. Both churches have large staffs of highly capable people. A goal was to interview at least one management-level staff member and at least one non- management staff member, particularly those who had a better understanding of the history of the church. In other words, they needed to have been around for a while. One last criterion was that they needed to have a real grasp on the objective growth and giving-related numbers of the church to reveal the real picture.
Attendees of the Church
How the vision and strategies of the church and the church’s leaders impact the members and attendees is the real test. Regarding the effect of expository preaching, it is important to interview people who actually attend the selected churches and hear the preaching, including some who hear the preaching on a regular basis. Honest opinions about the preaching in the hearers’ own words are a good gage of its affect on real people’s lives. A good mixture of long-time members/attendees and people who are new to the church is a necessary factor for comparison. The questions were more of the man- on-the-street variety when people were interviewed and an ability to establish trust quickly was helpful. A few times the interviewer even listened to comments people made by “overhearing” their conversations made in public.
Data Collection The data collected were of three primary types: (1) printed or written resources, (2) interview data, and (3) direct observation through personal experience. Because the intent of the study was to understand how churches reach postmoderns with expository preaching, the data collected was mostly qualitative in nature. Even the written materials (which are sometimes considered under the umbrella of quantitative
108 data) were utilized primarily as a means of understanding the church’s culture for the sake of the interviewer.
Printed Resources The researcher collected information from the church websites and hard documents regarding important issues of polity (i.e. doctrinal statements, constitution, bylaws), history, and organization (i.e. programming). When visiting the selected churches, this researcher collected as many different communication/promotional materials as possible to help garner an understanding of the church’s culture. He conducted one-on-one interviews in July 2007 of people related to Bent Tree Bible Fellowship and in January and February 2010 of people related to The Church at Brook Hills. The researcher took copious notes of the interviews in 2007 and recorded most of the 2010 interviews electronically to ensure accuracy of collection. Also, he took additional written notes during the interview process to capture some nonverbal communication (i.e. body language) that accompanied the answers.
Interviews
In-depth, one-on-one interviews helped in understanding the preaching philosophies of the preachers and the strategies of the church as well as the results and responses. In addition this researcher was able to get some more personal, behind-the- scenes pictures of the histories of the churches and current issues that they are facing. Some of these personal stories were different from their printed and published counterparts. Because a solid interview protocol was critical in assuring that the interviews elicit the desired information, the researcher wrote multiple drafts prior to the pilot study. He designed questions to pinpoint the specific ways the church was reaching postmoderns and how expository preaching affected this, and if so, what aspects were
109 effective. Once he initiated the initial protocol, he shared questions with other students. Because a case study had been conducted with other students previously, the researcher was much more comfortable and adept at asking pertinent follow-up questions extemporaneously, which resulted in an interview protocol that contained a mixture of planned and unplanned questions. While many of the questions were open-ended and designed to induce conversational responses, others were devised deliberately to require yes-or-no answers. The questions were not meant to be limiting. Rather, he intended for them to keep those interviewed on task, providing at least some consistency between the different people’s responses. Generally, the interviews began with an explanation of the research, and then the researcher asked the participants a set of predetermined questions. The researcher maintained the option of varying their order and inserting original questions as he gathered information during the discussion. This flexibility allowed the researcher to explore individual perceptions, gathering much more descriptive data than adherence to a script would provide. As mentioned, the notes and recording of the interviews ensured accuracy of the gathered information, and it also helped this researcher identify questions that elicited the most valuable responses. Notes of the interviewees’ nonverbal communication allowed this researcher to also interpret how confident the interviewees felt about their answers.
Observations Though he collected the primary data through interviews, this researcher recorded observations from visiting each church’s facility to help gain a clearer picture of the larger role the churches’ cultures—particularly their physical environments—played in reaching people. These observations, paired with notes about participant’s verbal and non-verbal expressions, helped shape the interpretations as the researcher analyzed data collected from each interview. Through these notes, this researcher was able to assess
110 how personal observations correlated with what participants said. Additionally (and perhaps more importantly), this researcher attended services of the churches to experience a more complete picture of the church. This was done on several levels. He attended each church multiple times for different kinds of meetings, from staff/leadership meetings to congregational Sunday morning worship services. He took detailed notes of these meetings and observed the participants closely, again noting responses of those who attended, particularly their various characteristics (age, sex, etc.) when possible. This experience was particularly helpful in determining the effectiveness of the church in accomplishing its goals as well as the goals of the case study being conducted.
Data Analysis Due to the qualitative nature of the data collected, the coding process was important to the accomplishment of this study. This researcher had learned much about analyzing data collected during the previous case study done with the Dallas Theological Seminary Doctor of Ministry program’s Pastor of Large Churches Cohort, which met in July/August 2006. He utilized organization of data skills learned in this class in the case studies herein. After he completed notes or recordings of the interviews, the researcher compiled them electronically in mp3 form, along with the concurrent timestamps. This allowed for ease of listening and re-listening during the transcription process. Throughout the interviews, the researcher took notes to capture key phrases and ideas as well as observations about body language. Once he transferred all the information to written documents, he began the analysis stage. To do this, the researcher made references to qualitative research materials about how to analyze data.10 First, he
10 Matthew B. Miles and A. M. Huberman, Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook (Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 1994), 172–205.
111 broke down data into manageable pieces; then, he explored those pieces of data for the ideas contained within (this involved interpreting the data); and finally, the researcher gave conceptual names that stood for and represented the ideas contained in the data. This process demanded the setting aside of various assumptions to let the data and interpretation of it guide the analysis as this researcher thought abstractly. Because this researcher did not use potentially controversial aspects of the answers the participants gave, he did not have to use pseudonyms for the participants interviewed unless the interviewee requested anonymity.
Grounded Theory Grounded theory was designed to help the researcher begin to explain phenomena that are difficult to quantify. According to Strauss and Corbin, users of grounded theory should keep seven criteria in mind. They posit the following as questions researchers should ask: 1. Are concepts generated? 2. Are the concepts systematically related? 3. Are there many conceptual linkages and are the categories well developed? 4. Is there much variability built into the theory? 5. Are the broader conditions that affect the phenomenon under study built into its explanation? 6. Has process been taken into account? 7. Do the theoretical findings seem significant and to what extent?11
These questions guided the analysis of the data. To adequately answer the research question, the researcher generated concepts through the categorization of
11 Ibid., 254–256.
112 participants’ perceptions, and he made comparisons of these perceptions to aid analysis. The researcher grouped the data according to the flow and order of issues that he thought most germane to the subject matter. Finally, he identified significant themes that emerged. This researcher found that much of the data, though interesting, was not important to the case studies and needed to be discarded since they did not have a bearing on the question of the study. Juliet Corbin describes the job of discerning what information is worth keeping and what is deemed unnecessary:
The critical task in qualitative research is not to accumulate all the data you can, but to “can” (i.e., get rid of) most of the data you accumulate. This requires constant winnowing. The trick is to discover essences and then to reveal those essences with sufficient context, yet not become mired trying to include everything that might possibly be described. Audiotapes, videotapes, and now computer capabilities entreat us to do just the opposite; they have gargantuan appetites and stomachs. Because we can accommodate ever-increasing quantities of data—mountains of it—we have to be careful not to get buried by avalanches of our own making.12 Therefore, the researcher included answers to the questions he deemed germane to the question of the study.
Establishing Trustworthiness
As with all qualitative research, some precautions should to be taken to establish trustworthiness within the study.13 To accomplish this, the researcher gathered comparative data from the two churches that, although they are similar in size, age, and have similar strategies and cultures, they are in different cities and states—some 600 miles physically removed from each other.
12 Harry F. Wolcott, Writing Up Qualitative Research (Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 1990), 35.
13 Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design.
113 To ensure that the data collected was as objectively sourced as possible, the researcher spoke with participants from three main categories, two of them having two subcategories (for a total of five): preaching pastor, staff members (management staff/leaders and support staff/leaders), and attendees (both long-time attendees and new attendees). This provided data from multiple viewpoints within each church. To double-check the interpretation of the data, the researcher asked fellow cohort students and another pastor to verify whether he was identifying the emerging themes correctly. This corroboration took place as early as the initial 2006 case study (not included herein), which was a pilot study for the 2007 case study (herein). Several colleagues examined the 2010 case study as well for the same purpose. According to Corbin and Strauss, qualitative research is the best way to explore complex dynamic processes where questions of context, understanding, and meaning are most important.14 Feagin echoes this view:
We believe that the case study occupies a special place in the conduct of social research and that its achievements cannot be matched by the large-scale sample of many cases. The large-scale analysis typically must work with simple indices and measures of its concepts and claims. ...Such information can be fruitfully employed to convey knowledge about such dimensions as alienation on the job, tensions between workers and their family life. But what such information cannot convey is the full scope of the work, of daily work life, of how laborers act and are treated on the job.15
14 Corbin and Strauss, “Critical Issues in the Measurement of Ethnic and Racial Identity,” 224–239.
15 Joe R. Feagin, Anthony M. Orum, Gideon Sjoberg, ed. A Case for the Case Study (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 22.
114 Reporting the Case Study As Robert Yin puts it bluntly, “Reporting a case study means bringing its results and findings to closure.”16 Moreover, the way it is presented depends much on those to whom it is presented. The initial audience for the first case study consisted of the students and professors of Dallas Theological Seminary Doctor of Ministry program’s Pastor of Large Churches Cohort, which met in July/August 2007.17 After completing the written case study, the researcher gave an oral presentation and allowed time for questions and discussion. Since the some of the students had attended some group interviews as well, this presentation sparked lively discussion, and some participants challenged the observations and conclusions. These challenges provided a valuable opportunity to make helpful revisions to the case. However, the intended audience for these case studies (who might discover this work through library research or as an online PDF file) will be suburban church leaders (e.g. pastors) who want to reach postmoderns by effectively preaching the Bible expositionally. The researcher wrote these case studies so that church leaders might derive three benefits: 1. They will know enough about the observed churches to compare them to their own. Hence, each case study includes much descriptive information about the
history, culture, and strategies of churches.
16 Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 3rd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003), 141.
17 A secondary audience consisted of members of the staffs of the respective churches.
115 2. They will recognize characteristics and ways the particular preaching pastors (supported by the churches) execute and adapt expository preaching to maximize effectiveness. 3. They will sense something of the culture of the respective churches. This is important due to the intersection of internal church culture and external postmodern culture.18 Consequently, the case studies provide a rich description of the generational awareness and welcoming “feel” of the respective churches.19
Conclusion The research aspect of this dissertation provided the most practical learning opportunity for this researcher. It forced him to do what he would have never done and condensed the abundant experiences of pastors and churches—conveyed vicariously—so wisdom may be gathered from experiences that others have made, both their successes and failures. The researcher considers it a privilege to have been in contact, albeit briefly, with so many whom, with admirable character and giftedness, God is using. The hope is that the result of this research, which symbolizes many hours of work and much information, will somehow help others in their own context.
18 Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2003), 130–135.
19 As noted above, postmodernity is not a generational description or trend. It is a growing worldview. As such, younger generations tend to be more affected by postmodernity than older generations, so that there is some correlation.
CHAPTER 4 CASE STUDIES AND RESEARCH RESULTS
Preaching the Word is such a priority for me, I would do it whether it reached people or not. It’s what God has asked us to do. It’s a bonus that he uses the preached Word to reach people—but that really shouldn’t surprise us, should it?1
Pete Briscoe
The key to what God has done here is the Word, letting God speak through his Word. That’s absolutely the truth.2
David Platt
Introduction From the hundreds of books, blogs, websites, and periodicals about doing church, it could seem that most churches target postmoderns and preach expositionally. But that impression would be wrong. A lot of churches are in the United States. Some people would describe a minority as evangelical, and fewer still possess a strategy to teach God’s Word expositionally through books of the Bible as the regular diet of their main meeting proclamation. Still, many churches fit the description of attempting to preach expositionally. Another minority from the pool of American churches are those who have recognized the seismic shift in worldviews for what it is and have deliberately changed their cultures to reach postmodern people. Some of these churches, in fact, were
1 Pete Briscoe, interview with Chad Sparks, Will Langstaff, Mark O’Brien, and Chuck Larsen, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, Carrollton, TX, July 26, 2007.
2 David Platt, interview with author, Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, AL, February 3, 2010.
116 117 founded with that purpose in mind. But again, the number of churches deliberately seeking to reach postmoderns, while a minority, is large. However, when the two qualifiers (expository proclamation and engaging postmoderns) are combined, the number reduces significantly. Furthermore, add the qualifier “suburban” to the mix, and the pool significantly diminishes. Consequently, it seems that not many suburban churches do both: target postmoderns and do so with expository proclamation. The two churches included in this study are in this select group. Both have made recent adjustments that have changed their internal cultures and strategies significantly to increase their appeal to postmoderns, and both have a commitment to expository preaching. The leaders of these churches are quick to point out that their churches have their struggles, but they are excited about what God is doing and their expectations for what he will do in the future are great. These churches could be the subjects of other kinds of case studies, as they have a lot to offer other churches by way of example. But both are, perhaps unknowingly, unique trailblazers in a needed realm. Reading about what they do and why, including some evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses, may help emerging pastors who want to teach God’s Word but have become convinced that they cannot. In addition, perhaps reading these case studies may help a committed expositor of the Word to consider ways that he and his church might more effectively engage postmoderns. The point is churches do not have to be either committed to exposition or committed to reaching postmoderns. They can be committed to both. They should be committed to both. This chapter examines Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas and The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama.
118 Bent Tree Bible Fellowship: Committed to Exposition AND Evangelism The Church and Her Community
In the evangelical church mecca of the North Dallas suburbanopolis, a growing 31-year-old church called Bent Tree Bible Fellowship comes together for worship and the Word.3 The dress is casual, and the service is culture-engaging with excellent music led by Scott Dyer. People seem to be everywhere, and the church is nearing the completion of its new $26 million facility expansion that will include a new auditorium. All who attend services recognize several visual reminders of what this church values: life change. One example is the displaying of roses, each symbolizing a person who has been led to a new relationship with Christ by someone in the church. The leader who shares announcements with the gathered body in each service draws attention to the new roses. Hundreds have been bought this year to represent the many lives budding in their new relationships with Jesus. Another visual reminder of life change is “Lifesong,” a regular video story of someone in the congregation who God is using to impact their world. The church presents important basics for large churches in good portion. It offers adult Bible classes with qualified teachers for those wanting to go deeper. Excellent children’s ministries help kids learn foundational truths about God and accomplish the also-important task of assuring parents that their precious ones are safe and happy while mom and dad worship. Bent Tree Bible Fellowship is experiencing a buzz of positive change, not only in building the new addition, but, in the transition to the new facility, the staff is participating in a $75,000 branding process, which is much more than merely updating
3 “Suburbanopolis” is a term coined by Alberto Magnaghi in his book, The Urban Village: a Charter for Democracy and Local Self-Sustainable Development (London: Zed Books, 2005).
119 colors, logos, slogans, and such. The branding process has forced the “revisionioning,” restatement, and communication of Bent Tree’s core principles.4 Away from Sunday morning activities, Bent Tree is taking steps to become more missional not because helping people find meaning through hands-on ministry opportunities is an effective point in reaching postmoderns (which it is), but because it is simply the right thing to do biblically. The church’s leadership recently made a shift from a more hierarchical leadership structure to a more organic structure involving the “recategorization” of ministries and staff members. They are becoming more intentionally outward focused and support seven global partnership ministries and more than fifty missionaries in over twenty-three countries worldwide.5 They are intentional about involving members in mission trips and did something unique regarding the raising of millions for their building campaign, stating publicly that they “are dedicated to giving 10% of the funds raised for expansion to the world church.”6 One only wonders why this commitment to missions is not publicized more on Sundays.7 A small percentage of attendees each Sunday are unchurched, and many seem to be from the post-Christian or postmodern mindset. Even though this is Bible-belt
4 Michelle Attar, Pete Briscoe, Sheila Buckler, Scott Dyer, Tim Harkins, Joann Hummel, Dennis Richards, and Eric Willis, interview with Chuck Larsen, Will Langstaff, Heath Marion, Suzanne Martinez, Rod MacIlvaine, Mark O’Brien, Todd Phillips, Royce Smith, and Chad Sparks, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, Carrollton, TX, July 25, 2007. Subsequent quotes from staff members are from this interview unless otherwise stated.
5 From the church’s website: Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, http://www.btbf.org/templates/cusbenttree-07-mem-details/details.asp?id=33300&PID=441892 (accessed July 26, 2007).
6 From the church’s website: Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, http://www.btbf.org/templates/cusbenttree-07-mem-details/details.asp?id=33300&PID=448561 (accessed July 26, 2007).
7 The author has only attended two worship services, so it is not fair to conclude that the church’s commitment to missions is not advertised more at other times. The church’s mission work was never mentioned in either attended service.
120 territory, Carrollton/Plano is a growing, affluent, and increasingly cosmopolitan area. According to Realtor Suzanne Pereira:
Plano is a sparkling combination of real estate, banking, industry, retail, acclaimed education facilities, and diverse sporting and recreational facilities [that] projects an image of quality, excellence, and prosperity. The corporate world has noticed the area's attributes and major businesses have flocked to the area in recent years. J.C. Penney, Frito Lay, E.D.S., Southland Life, Capital Wire and Cable, ARCO, Texas Instruments, US Brass, Rockwell International, DSC Communications Corporation, and many others have made their home in this area. Dr. Pepper/7-Up, Inc. and Fina, Inc. are some of the new additions that have joined Plano in becoming the dynamic, prosperous city that it is today.8
Pastor Pete Briscoe
After music and media-aided worship time, attendees are introduced to Pete Briscoe, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship’s tall and hip-looking (but certainly not Ken-doll) senior pastor, who immediately endears himself to the congregant by his humble, warm, and sincere demeanor.9 This alone is a rather unique thing for the experienced church- hopper who has, no doubt, been treated to a parade of pseudo-sincere and sometimes narcissistic preachers. Not so with Pete. He is real. He shares wisdom—always crediting others for a pithy jewel—and lets the hearer inside his life, rarely telling a story where he ends up as the hero. His appearance and style are disarming for the skittish postmodern unchurched person. His voice has a soft strength, not lacking positive conviction and clear articulation. With exceptional communication gifts, Pete has one overarching goal: proclaiming the whole counsel of God’s Word for the sake of life change.
8 Blanche Evans, “Plano, Texas: Houses Sell Despite Area Slowdown,” Realty-Times Magazine, http://www.newhomesource.com/HomeGuideArticle/Article-dallasmarketplano (accessed September 25, 2007).
9 Those interested can read much more about Pete Briscoe by reading his bio on the Telling The Truth Ministry website http://www.tellingthetruth.org/about/Bios/Pete.aspx. (accessed September 25, 2007).
121 Pete Briscoe comes from good stock. Well-informed Christians will know of his parents, Stuart and Jill Briscoe:
Stuart, a pastor of 50 years, and his wife, Jill, a popular women’s author and speaker, accomplish these goals [send the gospel and equip God’s people] through many channels. From their home base at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, they deliver the good news through: the Telling the Truth radio and tape ministry, the In Reality television program, the Just Between Us magazine for ministry wives and women in leadership, the Bridges Bible study series for women, and Briscoe Ministries, Inc. Briscoe Ministries is the company through which Stuart and Jill write their faith-building books—now totaling more than 80 between them! Their latest projects are the Daily Study Bible for Men and the Daily Study Bible for Women, two NLT versions of Scripture with commentary that addresses the specific concerns of men and women.10 Pete benefited greatly from his parents’ example, including the fact that his father was the wildly successful pastor of Elmbrook Church, which grew from 300 to more than 7,000 members under his leadership. Stuart and Jill Briscoe now serve as ministers-at-large at Elmbrook Church.11 Pete only speaks high praise for his parents, whom he quotes often. For example, after coming to Bent Tree Bible Fellowship as their new pastor fresh out of seminary, an overwhelmed Pete asked his dad, “How do you grow a church?” His father replied, “It’s simple, really. You must do two things well: First, preach the Word. Then take care of the kids. You will bring them in by preaching the Word. You will keep them by caring for their kids.” “I have found that that was pretty good advice,” Pete said with a big grin.12
10 From the Christian Book Distributors “Authors Profile” on their website: http://www.christianbook.com/html/authors/3021.html (accessed July 26, 2007).
11 Bio from Telling The Truth Ministry, “About Us,” http://www.tellingthetruth.org/about_us/about_us.asp (accessed July 26, 2007).
12 Pete Briscoe, interview with author, Will Langstaff, Mark O’Brien, and Chuck Larsen, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, Carrollton, TX, July 26, 2007. All subsequent quotes from Pete Briscoe are from this interview unless otherwise noted.
122 Perhaps the most obvious way Pete is following his parents’ example is his passion for proclaiming God’s Word: “It is not what I have to say that is going to change their lives,” Pete said, “It is what God has said.”13
Defining the Need: Expository Preaching Pete expressed the desperate decline in Bible knowledge and related decline in spirituality among recent generations in contrast to previous generations: “This really concerns me when I think about the direction the [universal] church is moving.”14
Pete calls his preaching strategy “topical expository.” But when probed, one finds that his real passion is to take books of the Bible and walk through them verse-by- verse highlighting main ideas and expressing all for the sake of transformation: “We recently spent two years in Romans and one-and-a-half in John’s Gospel in a series we entitled ‘Up Close and Personal.’” This researcher asked six members of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship if they would describe the “regular diet” of Pete’s of preaching as “verse-by- verse” in nature. All answered affirmatively. Bent Tree Bible Fellowship recently engaged in a $75,000 (estimated) branding process whereby they reconsidered their mission and purposes and agreed upon a “tagline” (“Experience Life”) by which they communicate who they are and what they are about. As a part of this process, ten “distinctives” were named to describe “The Bent Tree Way.” “Biblical preaching” is third on the list:
Biblical preaching. We believe that God’s Spirit works supernaturally through the Word to encourage us, grow us, knit our hearts together, challenge us and change us. The corporate gatherings of Bent Tree will always be centered on Christ and the clear and careful exposition of God’s Word in the power of the
13 Bent Tree Bible Fellowship staff members, interview with author, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, Carrollton, TX, July 26, 2007.
14 Ibid.
123 Spirit, for the glory of God. In other words we will center on the Living Word (Christ) and His written Word (Scripture).15
When one listens to Pete’s content, his expository preaching is indeed marked with a Christ-centeredness.16
What Works? Pete does not see any contradiction between reaching the unbeliever and expository preaching: “Both believers and seekers want to know what the Bible says. I don’t think they want to hear Joel Osteen share opinions. Preaching the Bible appeals to seekers and believers.” But not all expository preaching works. Pete spelled out several ways to effectively engage unbelievers. First, in communicating the Word to unchurched people, Pete believes that the preacher must present exposition in a way that engages people. Pete said, “A lot [of whether you are successful] is in how you cast it.” Comments like the ones that Andy Stanley made (e.g. “going verse-by-verse is easy”) assumes the expositor makes little attempt to creatively convince hearers why they need to hear what God has revealed. As Pete said, “Preach the word—do it creatively.” Second, Pete mentioned Spirit-led intentionality in choosing what books of the Bible the church needs to explore together. He said, “Take time to plan what series you do. Be strategic to where the body is.” Incidentally, at the time of the interview with
15 Internal document entitled, Bent Tree Strategic Branding Document, under the heading, “The Bent Tree Way.” Copies of this document were handed out to Chuck Larsen, Will Langstaff, Heath Marion, Suzanne Martinez, Rod MacIlvaine, Mark O’Brien, Todd Phillips, Royce Smith, and Chad Sparks in the previously cited meeting that took place on July 25, 2007.
16 The author listened to many sermons that are available on Bent Tree Bible Fellowship’s website. It must be admitted, however, that the author was not able to personally hear to Pete preach live. The author was in Dallas a total of 6 weekends and while there, Pete never preached. However, to compensate, the author has watched several videos of Pete preaching and several interviews were conducted with those who had listened to Pete preach many times.
124 Pete, he was taking a few weeks off to pray and do long-range planning to determine his preaching schedule for the coming months. Third, tackle the difficult passages and handle them with honesty. One exciting aspect of expository preaching is that it causes the preacher to ask what he will do with the more obscure, controversial, or hard-to-understand parts of the Bible. “Most seekers assume you will skip the hard stuff. Commentaries even do that!” Pete laughed out loud in disbelief. “That’s why I’ve got a commentary! They’re supposed to tell me what that means!” Pete believes that unbelievers appreciate this gutsy consistency, even if he cannot be absolutely dogmatic about the interpretation of obscure passages. “I do everything I can to draw conclusions,” Pete said, “but if I can’t I’m just honest with my people on the hard stuff. I say, ‘I’m just a week ahead of you guys.’” What is more, he has a firm belief in God’s intentionality in communicating his Word. There may be important truths delivered by the expositional preacher that a topical preacher would never cover when left to his own inclinations. Fourth, be authentic. When asked, “What doesn’t work?” Pete thought for a moment and replied in a grave tone, “Pseudo-Authenticity.” He gave an example of another preacher in a large church that he had recently heard: “The guy several times kept saying, ‘I’m right here with you, this stuff is stepping on my toes too.’ It just came across as insincere.” Fifth, it must engage the heart: “As Dr. David Larsen said when I was in his class at Trinity [Evangelical Divinity School], ‘It is a sin (emphasis his—Pete yelled the word “sin” and hit his fist on the table causing all of the interviewers to jump), Pete continued unabated, “–that’s how he said it in his big booming oratory voice—‘It is a sin to bore people with the Word of God!’”
125 Questionable Trends Pete mentioned that he was concerned with some of the more popular preachers, not because he necessarily questioned their motives or their doctrinal soundness but because he worried about the product of their preaching. When asked specifically about men like Andy Stanley and Ed Young, Jr., who rarely practice expositional preaching and discourage others from teaching verse-by-verse, he said, “I like them very much. Ed is a close friend.” He continued, “Both Ed and Andy were raised in theologically sound homes. I’m worried that they are just getting to the surface with their people. Probably people are staying shallow. Not only that but I worry about the accuracy of what [the people] are getting. The exposition of an entire passage is necessary and is the only real way to get to the intent.” He reiterated that what Stanley and Young were preaching was fine; however, he was worried about problems that might subtly arise in the future: “Osteen. That’s the result. I’ve seen him grab verses taken out of context. It’s really sad, but if you are going expositionally through books it forces you to be accurate.” He talked passionately about a trend he has noticed: “People in churches are biblically illiterate. That’s really troubling. They are also ‘hymnically’ illiterate. My kids don’t know hymns. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.” Pete also expressed concern about the recent trend among large churches to move to multiple campuses. Regarding preaching he said,
[When a] live preacher [is present] the Holy Spirit is doing something through the preacher, speaking through the preacher. In order for dialogue to take place, the preacher needs to be in the room with the people. It is a supernatural event. What happens when Ed and Andy are on 15,000 screens, what happens then? What about the missed opportunities for leadership development? I think a less- gifted preacher in the same room is more impactful than a gifted one on the screen. And what if someone falls morally?
Pete has a passion for proclaiming the Bible in an accurate and transformational way. His conviction that God’s Word rightly-divided enables people to find God and growth is what drives him. His passion is contagious.
126 Defining the Need: Reaching Unbelievers Pete makes comments to suggest that he is not about growth for the sake of numbers alone. But Bent Tree Bible Fellowship has grown under his preaching and leadership. A significant moment for the church came when a new church with a popular pastor began nearby. Three-hundred people suddenly left Bent Tree Bible Fellowship. Pete commented on this migration of members: “Of course, I was worried at first, but then [an older friend] said, ‘That’s not a bad thing, that’s the best thing that could have happened to you. You’ll never have anyone call about the music being too loud anymore.’” Pete continued, “Those seats left empty by the older people that followed [the famous pastor] were soon filled by a whole new kind of person. They let us know that they were coming because they felt at home. People here wore the same kind of shoes that they do.” By “same kind of shoes,” Pete means people who are not long-term Christians. It is an interesting observation. A lot can be gleaned by noticing the kind of shoes a person wears—whether they are trendy or traditional, wealthy or not, and young or old. Shoes are an indicator. The point is, they lost some traditional, older, well- churched people and gained younger, nontraditional, postmoderns. When asked if he thought Bent Tree Bible Fellowship was reaching postmodern unchurched/unbelievers, Pete was characteristically honest. “Not as well as we should,” he replied. Though Pete’s assessment shows a humble desire to do better, anecdotal evidence seems to show that some postmoderns are coming and staying. This researcher witnessed a few people in both services that had visible symbols stereotypical of postmoderns (e.g. tattoos, body piercing, “faux-hawk” hairstyles, tattered clothing, and flip-flops). This is perhaps because of the church’s DNA for evangelism, which is illustrated in a number of ways. For example, a group of people in the church has a
127 compassion for homosexual people and has initiated a ministry to show God’s grace to them. Pete expressed that he is thrilled with ministries like this that intentionally target the unchurched. However, the researcher was disappointed not to see more people bearing quintessential marks of postmodern cultural influence at the Sunday services. The vast majority of the congregation’s make up seemed to be from the baby-boomer generation. Indeed the feel of worship from start to finish was “boomer-esque.”17 A baby-boomer woman led the musical aspect of worship (only one of seven on the worship team seemed below 40 years of age). Some who visibly looked like postmoderns did not seem to be engaged in the musical aspect of the worship services, and one young single male who was “pierced and tatted” left quickly after the service was over.18 Even Pete’s preaching is, though excellent in so many ways, marked with signs that suggest he may not consider some postmodern sensitivities when doing preparation. When asked, “Do you think about communicating to the postmodern person and their way of thinking when you prepare, or while you are preaching?” Pete answered candidly. “Um...maybe. Sometimes. Probably more when I’m dealing specifically with a subject that goes to the heart of radical tolerance or absolute truth or something like that. I do try to show the differences that exist in believing in the absolute truth of the Word and a living life without that conviction.”
17 The worship style and songs were at least eight years out-of-date. It was led with an overly- emotive style and could come across to skeptical postmoderns as being contrived or generated. The researcher was sitting next to a young couple (in their 20s) who, when interviewed afterward, jokingly quipped that they felt they were being led by their mom. The reader should know that it was the last Sunday of July and may have been an off-week of worship.
18 The researcher was actively seeking to speak about the services with younger adults who were less-traditional looking (even though postmodernity is neither a style nor a generation—see above). This particular fellow sat on the row in front of the researcher. These examples are anecdotal but are recorded accurately.
128 Often when preaching, Pete assumes people have a good amount of biblical knowledge and a basic understanding of Christian cultural terminology. This “church speak,” is detrimental to connecting culturally with postmoderns, particularly those who are unfamiliar with, or even threatened by church culture.
Inherent Incongruence or Sound Solution? There are some key ways to approach biblical preaching that make it more engaging to the postmodern mind. This is what effective communicators to postmoderns like Andy Stanley apparently have not appreciated on the one hand, and what traditional expositors like John MacArthur apparently care little about on the other. As Pete pointed out, “People want to hear what’s in the Bible, whether they’re believers or not.”
Summary
God is using Bent Tree Bible Fellowship to change lives by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit through the accurate, applicable, and well-articulated proclamation of the Word by Pete Briscoe. This commitment to expositional, verse-by- verse preaching is bearing visible fruit. There are myriad good things about Bent Tree Bible Fellowship. The church shows intentionality in many key ways that result in life-change. However, for the sake of this study, a glaring shortcoming must be pointed out: there could be much improvement made regarding the worship environment on Sundays to engage, influence, and retain postmodern people. At the time of the case study, the environment was a hindrance.19 If
19 Again, this researcher only attended two Sunday services; As previously mentioned, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship has nearly completed a new addition to their facility. This will provide presumably much improvement of their worship environment. Yet the needed improvement consists of more than mere physical surroundings.
129 churches like Bent Tree Bible Fellowship are to turn the tide and begin changing the culture, they must become more adaptable regarding both the tangible and intangible variables that allow them to reach people who adhere to the growing postmodern worldview. Change is hard, particularly regarding worship style and leadership. It means helping some leaders see that they may need to find other ways to serve God for the church to further her influence. The church leadership needs a bold determination to provide new leadership and style in worship that will not place barriers before postmoderns who are hyper-sensitive to environments and nonverbal messages. Such bold changes would complement an already capable expositor like Pete Briscoe who has what it takes. Many critical intangibles are present already, which are perhaps the most difficult elements to gain if absent. Some of those intangibles include: sincerity, a culture that embraces unchurched people, positive and energetic leaders, excellent staff who seem committed to the church’s mission and vision, great alignment and branding, strong doctrinal base and tradition, and a missional focus. If the courage is not mustered soon, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship may find that, despite their coming new facility, they will not see the life-change they have witnessed in the past. The staff at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship knows the church is not reaching postmoderns as well as they wish, but they are reaching some. They do show that the two ideas of expository teaching and evangelizing postmoderns can coexist. More than this, they can flourish when done together in a church culture that is even more deliberate about understanding the postmodern mindset and addressing the inherent voids of the postmodern experience.
130 Bent Tree Bible Fellowship as It Relates to the Hypotheses
1. Bent Tree Bible Fellowship and Pete Briscoe employ expository preaching successfully to reach postmoderns by providing cultural contextualization. Bent Tree Bible Fellowship provides a culture that is similar to the North Dallas/Carrolton suburb in which it is placed. There is a good variety of ages and proper reflection of racial diversity. The importance of this congruence with the surrounding culture’s demographic makeup cannot be overstated. Bent Tree Bible Fellowship seems to be engaging more culturally to postmoderns than some other observed suburban churches in the area by comparison. There is also an excellent execution of written and electronic communication to the church. The re-branding of the church’s communication to better reflect the values of the church has been a huge success in both focusing the church and endearing the church to the postmodern who is interested in exploring Bent Tree online. There is also good continuance of the brand when the visitor comes to the church as far as printed materials are concerned. The branding is intentional and well done. It is professional— perhaps even too much so—and could possibly convey a canned or overly polished picture of the church that the rest of the church’s culture and environment could find hard to live up to in the eyes of the postmodern. Pete is an excellent expositor of the Word. He does so with great eloquence, reason, and passion. His love for God and his Word comes through clearly. Pete’s one weakness could be a lack of attention to cultural considerations of the postmodern unchurched visitor. He sometimes uses churchy illustrations as well as churchy-sounding words and clichés. What is even harder to convey are some expressions that, while they are familiar (and perhaps even desirable) to the modern-minded well-churched, are not natural to many who have not been in church culture, particularly the postmodern. An example of this hard-to-define trait is when Pete spoke of Oprah Winfrey throughout one of his messages. His subject was God’s jealousy. He handled the
131 explanation of this difficult issue—what it means that God is a “jealous God”—as well as anyone I have ever heard. It was exegetically and theologically sound. However, when he mentioned Oprah, as he did several times, it seemed to the hearer that he did not like her. That he was against her. That she was absolutely wrong. There was a small non- verbal sense that he was even making fun of her. He even quipped that this was his “anti- Oprah” sermon. To people who have the cultural mindset, i.e. speak the native “language” of pluralism and radical tolerance, this comes across as unnecessarily absolutist and offensive. They could feel that Pete dislikes Oprah because she does not share his beliefs about God. This is a difficult principle for the postmodern hearer to understand. The postmodern, in effect, is guided by one great “dogma” as it were: “dogmatism is bad.” The great irony of postmodern thinking says, “There are no absolutes...absolutely.”20 Many have pointed out this “nifty logic trick,” as Heath White calls it.21 The mistake that preachers make, as Pete illustrates, is giving in to the temptation to show visible disdain for this core postmodern dogma. When Pete showed disdain for Oprah (perhaps even unintentionally) because of her pluralism concerning God, this trumped all the logical, grammatical, historical, and doctrinal arguments he made supporting his disagreement for the idea Oprah held about God. In short, it came across as negative toward Oprah, rather than positive toward God. This is a subtle but important distinction that moderns, who accept the premise of one absolute and universal truth for all, might never even notice, even if they disagree with Pete’s argument.
20 Heath White, Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006).
21 Ravi Zacharias, and Norman Geisler, Who Made God? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 42. I first heard of this logic trick from Ravi Zacharias around 1990, who, when debating postmoderns, said he loves to ask the question, “Are you absolutely sure there are no absolutes?”
132 Another example in the same sermon was an application point where Pete, in a sense, asked the hearers to show disdain to others who do not believe by “standing up for” God and “defending God.” He says,
When people around us use ”Deity-dishonoring” language—when they say something about our God that is inappropriate, blasphemous, filthy—we [should] say something. We [should] say...”the Guy you’re talking about is the most important person in my life. It hurts me when you talk of him that way.” You say, “Oh Pete really?” Go for it...defend the honor of your God. ... this may be in the board room, at work, in the club, in the church, it could be anywhere, when leaders make decisions that dishonor him, you say, [Pete shouted loudly] “NO! I’m not doing it!” (emphasis his).22
The way he spoke the above quote was even more important to the postmodern hearers than what he actually said. However, what was said is, nonetheless, repulsive to them. Far from confronting someone this way, the postmodern unchurched people personalize and think about how many times they may have used “Deity- dishonoring” language and what it would be like if an absolutist (read: arrogant) Christian called them out in that way. They are uncomfortable with the audacity of this kind of confrontation over someone’s beliefs about God. Many pastors (or Christians) who hear this kind of criticism have a hard time understanding. It is easy to write it off as not being strong on truth or being weak in application of the Word; however, this is not the case. There are ways to make similar, perhaps even more biblically-sound application for the hearers that will not alienate postmoderns unnecessarily resulting in a stronger, more efficacious impact. In this case, as with others, the preacher is dealing with a cultural issue. The modern-minded preacher struggles to speak the “language” of postmodernism. And just like the well-meaning missionary who can offend people accidentally and unnecessarily in a culture he does not
22 Pete Briscoe, “I'm Totally Jealous” (sermon at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, June 1, 2008), www.btbfmedia.org/sermons/podcast.xml (accessed July 31, 2008).
133 fully understand, thereby losing ground in communicating the gospel, the modern- minded preacher can cloud and complicate the communication of the good news to the postmodern. Pete does not offend in this way nearly as much as so many others, but he would be well served to think about what he says and how he says it from the perspective of a postmodern (as would all communicators, including the author). This should be a deliberate part of sermon preparation as postmodernity grows even more dominant. As indicated above, Pete said he “sometimes” thought about postmodern people while preparing and delivering sermons. While this is good (most pastors probably never do), a missionary in a polytheistic culture would always remember the cultural context, along with the religious myths and worldviews of those to whom he preached. This is important for all preachers to remember as well. The positives of Pete’s style far outnumbered the negatives. Pete made good use of narrative, both in making the stories of the Scriptures come alive and in illustrating spiritual points. He was a wonderful storyteller. This gift could be used more frequently. By far, the weakest aspect of the culture at Bent Tree with regard to reaching postmoderns was the worship environment and experience. Simply put, it felt like going back in time. Some of the physical things will be corrected with the new facility, but the non-facility-related aspects were the primary offenders. This included the age and appearance of the vast majority of those on stage and leading worship, but more than this were the cultural signals they sent without even knowing it: things like the swaying, looking up toward the ceiling, and hand motions—all that are of another (albeit, relatively recent) era. Without going into too much detail over difficult-to-communicate impressions, suffice it to say it felt homogeneously 1990s. There are many new and rich ways people express and experience worship, including ancient forms that are finding new appreciation among postmoderns.
134 A church can freeze the culture of any particular genre. Rick Warren quipped that it seems every denomination has their favorite century to which they are trying to return.23 Even churches with a shorter history risk canonizing their style. There are more- and less-postmodern-friendly styles. Postmoderns appreciate diversity. Postmoderns appreciate the ancient. Postmoderns want to feel a sense of spiritual connection and community. Therefore, sometimes it is not necessarily what visible changes are made and encouraged in the worship environment as long as there is a sense of openness to change in the culture of a church.
2. Bent Tree Bible Fellowship and Pete Briscoe employ expository preaching successfully to reach postmoderns by conveying authenticity.
An important aspect of an evaluation of authenticity (as much as we might wish it were not so) is how authenticity is perceived. This means thought must be given to how authenticity is conveyed, or even not conveyed. And finally, thought must be given as to how inauthenticity might be conveyed wrongly or unintentionally. There is no questioning Pete’s sincerity. He is passionate and serious about his preaching and living out the Word in his personal life. Anyone who gets to know Pete can see this. He is real, approachable, and has an instantly likable personality. These traits by themselves make him extraordinary among large church pastors who can sometimes be charismatic before a crowd and quite different personally. This actual authenticity is what matters most to God and to people. This study provokes two questions: (1) How well does Pete convey this authenticity, particularly to postmodern people? And, (2) Are there aspects of Pete’s persona that convey inauthenticity?
23 Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message And Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995).
135 Interviews show Pete conveys authenticity effectively. His personal likeability translates to a larger setting well. He is an extremely polished speaker. His articulation is near perfect, and he speaks with almost no detectable dialect. In fact, Pete is so eloquent that he runs the risk of being too polished. He should be careful not to take on the persona of the professional orator, which can be perceived as inauthentic. With this in mind, when Pete is sure of himself, he could come across as somewhat condescending to someone who is sensitive to absolute truth claims. Pete seems to have certain “trademark” words that he likes to use. For example, he used the word “dream” in a distinctive way several times. “My dream for you today is that you understand God’s love for you.” While effective when used sparingly, this unusual use of words could come across as insincere if used too often or in the wrong place.24 Pete does, like many preachers, use hyperbolic language. Again, subjectively speaking, this is good if used the right way. It can run the risk of conveying inauthenticity if not. Another danger is the perception of trying to incorporate certain popular (and overused) words. An example of this in Pete’s preaching is the word “passion” or “passionate.”
24 Case-in-point, this researcher saw a video of Pete speaking at a church that a friend of his pastors. He said to the church, “It’s an incredible joy for me and my family to be here today, we’ve been dreaming of this day for five years.” This researcher does not believe that he intended it to be humorous; rather, it’s just a habit of usage. This might seem nit-picky, but postmoderns pick up quickly on these kinds of things that to them do not pass the smell test. They appear to be flattery and convey inauthenticity.
136 Pete seems to become tearful rather frequently. While no doubt genuine, this can come across as inauthentic, particularly from the perspective of men.25 Postmoderns are more open emotionally than moderns, but they are hypersensitive to feigned emotion. Pete is a gifted preacher. This fact cannot be stressed enough. This researcher feels unworthy to critique him. Yet everyone has room for improvement and needs reminders in this area. In comparison to other preachers, Pete comes across as extremely sincere. This is a high value for him. To his credit, he is intentional in his clothing, hairstyle, and physical fitness, yet does not come off as one trying too hard. As mentioned above, Pete evaluates others’ preaching in terms of their sincerity, which is indicative of his desire for the same. A glaring area for needed improvement at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship might be the impression of inauthenticity that others who have leading roles in the worship service convey, namely the worship team. The cultural considerations for connecting with postmoderns via the worship style at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship have been discussed previously. Closely related is the issue of perceived sincerity. For the sake of clarity, the actual authenticity of those who led and played in the two worship services attended is not in question, but they could come across as inauthentic to someone who is not familiar with the church’s culture.
25 Bryan Chapell warns, “Avoid consistent emotionalism. Once you begin to recognize that the conclusion is the place for pathos, it can be a place for manipulation. You know that; they know that; everyone knows that. Are you still being authentic? I had the sadness in some measure of being in a pulpit where there had been a man, a pastor or two prior to me, who had been in that church for 50 years. That was great. The difficulty was that over the last 15 years of his life, he cried in every sermon. Now I was there some 15 or 20 years after that, and the people still laughed about it. In every sermon he was that kind of weeping pastor, and it was, in their minds, manipulative.” Bryan Chapell, “Lesson 10” (lecture notes, Covenant Theological Seminary, Fall 2006), 6; http://worldwidefreeresources.com/upload/48ea244b37c74.pdf (accessed September 12, 2012).
137 A church (particularly the leaders) must be careful about outward signs leaders display that are associated sometimes with particular worship styles and certain generational idiosyncrasies. For example, there was a time when it was popular in certain circles of church culture for people, even leaders, to shout words like, “Amen!” and “Praise Jesus!” during elements of worship such as singing or preaching. Though these kinds of expressions no doubt began in earnest and were practiced by sincere people, they are now used humorously in popular culture, conveying over-the-top revivalism. When used sincerely (and there are still places where they are), they are, to the outside observer, symbols of insincerity. With this exaggerated illustration in mind, consider the worship experience at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship. It seems out-of-date and Christian subcultural. Postmodern observers perceive this as inauthentic. It could be even more abrasive to the postmodern than a formal liturgical or truly traditional form of worship (since postmoderns tend to appreciate ancient ritual), considering these expressions are of foundational security that postmoderns are inherently missing, yet inwardly crave.26 Rob Redman claims that churches providing a liturgical vintage form of worship are actually attracting postmoderns.27 In speaking with the staff and several attendees of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, there is a real need to change the vision and personnel of the worship team. As one staffer quipped, “We’ve got to ‘youthinize’ our worship team.”28 This person was
26 Dan Kimball and Richard Warren, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003).
27 Rob Redman, The Great Worship Awakening: Singing a New Song in the Postmodern Church (San Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons, 2002), 129.
28 “Youthinize” was intended as a clever wordplay on “euthanize.” It was intended in jest, of course, and may have included the implication that some of the older people on the worship team need to “take themselves out.” The staff member will remain nameless.
138 making the point that younger people must be given a more prominent role in the style and leadership in worship at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship. These critiques notwithstanding, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship is way ahead of most churches with regard to conveying authenticity, and Pete Briscoe is effective in “put[ting] the cookies on the bottom shelf” so that everyone can get them, including postmoderns.29 The question of whether a suburban church can reach the growing number of postmoderns by expositional proclamation is answered almost affirmatively. But is there an example of a church (and pastor) that accomplishes both these critical objectives even better? The next case study will explore this question.
The Church at Brook Hills: Questioning Convention and Living Out the Bible
A Surprising Narrative
Sometimes good things come from tragedy. God seems to work this way. The recent history of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, is one of those stories that show that God meant what he said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).
Description Birmingham, like many growing Bible-belt cities, has its share of large suburban churches. All seem to offer the usual smorgasbord of programs, nice facilities, and excellent worship. But few consistently reach people who are unchurched. Fewer still are actually cutting back on the programming and polish to focus simply on teaching the Bible and living it out. Yet that is precisely what the Church at Brook Hills is doing, and
29 Harry A. Ironside, quoted in Dave Wolske, The Nitty-Gritty Baseline Quiddity Collection (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2010), 287.
139 people are literally flocking to the doors. Four-thousand people pack in each week to listen to expositional sermons of over-an-hour in length. Oddly enough, they keep coming. Many of them are quite different than the kind of people one would expect at a typical suburban church. They are people who know little about the Bible and do not share a biblical worldview, people in a culture increasingly influenced by postmodernism.
Scandal
To make things even more amazing, this is a church closely connected to an unsavory story of a recent scandal. The Church at Brook Hills was planted in 1990 and shortly thereafter they called Pastor Rick Ousley, under whose leadership God grew the worship attendance from 30 to as high as 4,000.30 Rick stepped down due to serious health problems in June 2005. But less than two years later a revelation hit the news. A woman came forward claiming she had a long-term sexual relationship with Rick. According to her story, it started when she was 18 and he was 29, and it went on for over 25 years.31 Ousley was forced to admit this affair. The admission was vague, and immediately people “did the math” and realized there was more to the story:
After a life-threatening aneurysm in the spring of 2005, Rick resigned to spend time with his family. In announcing his resignation, Rick said, “For too long, my family has gotten leftovers from me, because I’ve been so caught up in the task at hand.” Rick admitted in a written statement that in the fall of 2005,
30 Greg Garrison, “At 28, Pastor Has Five Degrees and a 4,300-Member Flock: Church at Brook Hills Leader David Platt May Be Youngest Megachurch Pastor Ever,” Christianity Today, August 15, 2006, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/augustweb-only/133-22.0.html (accessed February 2, 2010).
31 Greg Garrison, “Evangelist Ousley's Ministry Suspended,” Birmingham News, March 23, 2007, 1, http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1174639279160590.xml&coll=2. (has been removed) Can now be found here: http://www.stopbaptistpredators.org/article07/rick_ousley.html (accessed February 3, 2010).
140 ironically not long after he left the pastorate to devote himself to his family, he “committed a moral and spiritual indiscretion with a woman not my wife.”32 Because of Ousley’s notoriety as a successful former pastor and practicing evangelist in Birmingham, the story of his infidelity stayed in the media. And it grew. As one member of The Church at Brook Hills recalls, “It [Ousley’s adultery] was the talk of all the newspapers, talk radio, and everyone was blogging about it. Every time it seemed the church’s name was mentioned. It was terrible—just terrible. As soon as you thought the story was over, more women came forward with new accusations. It was just terrible.”33
Hiring a Young Pastor As if matters could not be worse, The Church at Brook Hills had gone against conventional wisdom and hired a 27-year-old pastor just before the news of Ousley’s infidelity hit:
When the Church at Brook Hills hired David Platt as senior pastor this summer, he became one of the youngest megachurch pastors in the country. “He may be the youngest ever to be senior pastor of a megachurch,” said John Vaughn, founder of the Megachurch Research Center in Bolivar, Mo.
Vaughn, who helped coin the term megachurch to define churches with 2,000 or more weekly attendance, said that in 26 years of researching megachurches he has not seen such a young minister named senior pastor of such a large church.34
These things resulted in a serious decline in numbers. “Sunday worship attendance had dropped off to 2,300 after Ousley left,” said Executive Pastor Larry Herndon.35
32 Alan Riley, “This One Hits Close to Home,” The Meantime, March 26, 2007, http://alanriley.typepad.com/in_the_meantime/2007/03/this_one_hits_c.html (accessed February 4, 2010).
33 A member of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author at the Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, AL, February 2, 2010.
34 Garrison, “At 28...,” 1.
35 Ibid., 2.
141 The newspapers rushed to the new pastor to comment on the scandal. But Platt did not give in to the temptation to pile on. Instead he showed maturity and Christ- likeness beyond his years that piqued the curiosity of both grieving churched and scoffing unchurched alike. Platt’s only words, as recorded in the Birmingham News, were as follows: “We don't have much comment,’ said current Pastor David Platt. ‘We want to be a source of prayer and support for Rick Ousley and his family.’”36 People who may not have done so otherwise gave The Church at Brook Hills a chance. They found a pastor who is serious about being equipped and is committed to proclaiming the Bible for the equipping and transformation of others.37 Garrison quotes former Brook Hills’ executive pastor, Larry Herndon:
“He has such a command of the Word of God and love for it,” Herndon said. “You forget how old he is; he's not speaking from experience, he's speaking from the Word of God. He disarms the audience with his youthful presence and casual manner, sets people at ease, then he starts teaching, and you get engaged. When he speaks, he's confident of what he's saying.”38 But he is more than just a good speaker. Platt has some unusual giftedness and foci. He has been blessed with an amazing memory and is fixated on kingdom advancement. Herndon writes,
Platt can recite long Scripture passages from memory and moves from one precise biblical reference to another to back up his points, which focus heavily on evangelism and world missions. “I want my preaching to be saturated with the Word of God,” Platt said. “We have to know Christ, know him well and know his word.” 39
36 Garrison, “Evangelist Ousley's Ministry Suspended,” 2.
37 As the Christianity Today article states it: “Platt has five college degrees, including a doctorate and two master's degrees from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and two bachelor's degrees from the University of Georgia. He was hired by the seminary as assistant professor of preaching and apologetics and dean of the chapel after he finished his doctorate.”
38 Garrison, “At 28...,” 2.
39 Ibid.
142 The Rock that is Higher than I When meeting Platt, one is not impressed with his physical presence. He is about 5’ 10” and average build. It looks as if he saves money by cutting his own hair with electric clippers. His dress is youthful-casual. He looks even younger than he is and could blend in easily on any college campus. However, what quickly becomes apparent is a no- fluff sincerity. This guy is real. He comes across as kind, yet seems truly unconcerned with impressing people. His words are direct and clear. He has a warm, hint-of-Georgia, youthful accent.
Philosophy of Preaching
Underneath the relaxed, humble exterior, there lies a focused understanding of his mission as preacher. David Platt is committed to expository preaching. When asked why, he says, “My job is to expose the voice of God for the glory of God. I define preaching as expository exaltation for purposeful application.”40 Then he broke down that definition like a student ready for a Homiletics exam, or perhaps a professor ready for a Homiletics lecture.
Preaching to exalt God: the way to exalt God is to exalt his voice and expose his voice.
Purposeful: The purpose of the Bible is not to answer every single question people are asking in the world today. The Bible doesn’t really answer every single question. The purpose of the Bible is to conform us more to the image of Christ. So no matter what our folks are walking through I can preach [even] Leviticus with confidence because I know that it, more than any book they can get in the Christian book store, or more than any great opinion I can share with them, it is promised, guaranteed by the Spirit of God to conform them to the image of Christ. And that’s what they need most: to be conformed to the image of Christ. And so that is the purpose of the Bible. Preaching through the Bible conforms them to the image of Christ. It’s the way God does that.
40 David Platt, interview with author, at the Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, AL, February 3, 2010. All subsequent quotes are from this interview unless otherwise noted.
143 And then that brings about great application in their lives. Is this how a now-31-year-old unassuming pastor can stand before a church full of people, most of whom are older than he is, and speak with authority? He continued unabated:
I preach to 4,000 people every Sunday, and there’s no way I can answer all their questions and [address] every single thing they are going through. But I can get them in touch with Holy Spirit of God who will bring Christ alive in them in every single situation they find themselves in.
I think that [philosophy] affects methodology. And I think the best way to [accomplish this task] is to walk through a text of Scripture and let the text drive the sermon.
He paused and then acknowledged the validity of methods other than expository preaching:
There are places and times to do the topical or doctrinal sermons, but I think the regular diet [of a church], in order to really expose the voice of God and not be imposing my thoughts on the text and letting the text drive the sermon, I think is just to take a text and preach it, dive into it, walk through it.
Platt then made clear reference to his age and inexperience:
The reality is, and I don’t say this tritely, I really believe I have nothing to bring to the table apart from his Word. Part of it is the fact that I’m young, and I don’t have a clue of what I’m doing! I think, “What do I have to offer these folks? They are smarter, wiser, have been through many more things than I have. At what point do I have enough to be able to base my preaching on my thoughts and my opinions?” The Word is the authority by which I speak, and as a result I can speak with confidence into anyone’s life. As long as what I am saying is tied to the Word then the Word will do the work. That’s why I love God’s truth, because the Word does the work. It accomplishes the purpose that God has given. And it’s awesome just to see that—it’s awesome to see people’s hunger for the Word grow the more they dive into it. This is David’s passion and commitment. This is the rock upon which he stands. This otherwise unassuming young man finds his confidence in God’s unfailing Word every day as he leads this church: “I think that’s the testimony in the last 3½ years [that I’ve been the pastor of The Church at Brook Hills],” Platt said with a serious tone,
144 “I’ve made numerous mistakes and could have done things a lot differently at different points, but the Word has been constant.” These are precisely the sentiments of the members of The Church at Brook Hills with whom this researcher spoke:
When David came we all said, “He’s so young!” And when he started preaching some people left the church. I talked with one friend of mine who was thinking about leaving ‘cause she didn’t like his preaching. I asked her if she was leaving because she didn’t like how he preached or what he preached. I said, “I don’t think you have a problem with David, I think you have a problem with the Bible.” She stuck around. We did lose quite a few people. But we gained a lot more (emphasis hers).41
Postmodern Pilgrims
Those who have been coming since Platt became pastor at Brook Hills have been different. Generally speaking, they have been younger. They dress differently, drive more Prius automobiles and fewer SUVs, care less about rules and care more about the rest of the world. 42 “We are growing most with younger folks—college students to couples with young kids—that’s our primary growth area,” Platt said. “Most of our baptisms are 20s and 30s.” More than the age of the new attendees of The Church at Brook Hills, their difference is their lifestyle backgrounds. Examples of this new kind of attendee include some who are homosexuals:
We have numerous folks who are coming from homosexuality that I can think of off the top of my head. Some probably had some churched background but not most. We had more [homosexuals] until I preached about “The Gospel and Homosexuality.” I hope I handled that with grace and love. The ones who hung
41 Elaine Spivak, a member of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, Birmingham, AL, February 3, 2010.
42 The author is unsure about the proper plural word for the Toyota Prius. Prii? Priora? Others have had the same question http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/01/what-is-the-plu/ (accessed February 3, 2010).
145 around after that were thankful for that and are growing—still struggling—but growing.
Many stereotypically see homosexuals and other groups as more postmodern. The researcher asked him if he thought they were reaching postmodern people: “I think so, yeah,” was his reply. “When I hear about postmodernism I feel it is like trying to nail Jello to a wall. Pluralism, skepticism, relativism all coming together with a lack of truth...moral relativism...when it all comes together, when I talk to people about it...it is so hard to define.” The researcher asked him for a specific example of a postmodern type of person whom The Church at Brook Hills is reaching:
I recently got a letter from a guy, um, who was totally unchurched and skeptical who came, and really what drew him is some of the stuff we’re doing around the world and he was like, “ok, maybe there’s something real here, and he started getting involved in community and he ended up coming to Christ. Which is really cool. Anyway, we definitely have that picture a lot.
Core Cultural Change
The Church at Brook Hills is reaching a different kind of person—many of whom are postmodern—than most other large suburban churches in Birmingham not merely because of the age of the pastor or the creativity of the physical environment. There’s more. Led by Platt, The Church at Brook Hills has experienced a core cultural change. It used to be a pretty typical suburban mega-church that was program-driven, offering exciting worship, excellent facilities, professional branding, and a charismatic preacher (Rick Ousley); however, things have changed and it has been much more than a face-lift. It has been, for the whole church, a shift in their way of thinking and in the way many of them see the world.
146 Contrasting Leaders Jim Houston, minister of pastoral care, describes some differences: “[Rick and David] are two guys with very different styles. Both of them are very good communicators. What Rick brought to the table was an excitement and motivational-type style.” Pointing his finger out the window, he smiled and said:
He would have us thinking we could walk through those woods and tear down every tree, you know, it was that kind of thing. It was very solid theologically, it’s not that it was not solid—it was. He used [his preaching] as a motivational tool and maybe did not touch on the hard things as much as David. Jim was careful to be complimentary. “It wasn’t bad, God used him. Used him in a great way.”43 Executive Pastor Chris Nichols is a 46-year-old former engineer who has been a member of Brook Hills since 1999 where he served in many volunteer capacities before coming on staff for the last two years. He agrees with the contrast between Ousley and Platt’s styles:
Rick was an incredible, incredible communicator and very charismatic in his way. But you know, we never really...we knew that Rick was kind of in a different strata than us (sic.). We didn’t go in the circles with that. He would leave worship service and like, the guy would bolt for the car and he was out of here. I observed that and thought, “That was different.” And he would travel and teach a lot.44
When probed about this, Nichols told how he got to know Rick.
Eventually, I got to know Rick a little bit. We flew with Rick and Joyce to a Student Life conference, and we would leave on Friday afternoon on a private plane out of Shelby County [Airport] and he would preach that night and the next morning and get back on the plane Saturday afternoon and come back. You were on the plane with [famous people]. It was like a celebrity thing, and it had like an odd feel to it. Vicky [my wife] and I laughed that it was like a TBN-type show or something.
43 Jim Houston, Minister of Pastoral Care, the Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, Birmingham, AL, February 9, 2010. All subsequent quotes from Jim Houston are from this interview.
44 Chris Nichols, Executive Pastor, the Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, Birmingham, AL, February 9, 2010. All subsequent quotes from Chris Nichols are from this interview.
147 This stylistic difference transferred to the church’s ethos. Nichols remembered, “Rick was about a lot of stories and catch-lines. We used to have posters hanging in this lobby with ‘Rickisms.’ Like, ‘We don’t throw rocks, we throw ropes,’ which was one of his sayings. Literally, Rick sayings on posters, very cool-ly done and artsy.” Rick was serious about the physical appearance of the church as well. Nichols continues, “Excellence was over the top. We want the slickest, the brightest, the best, you look good when you’re on stage, you talk well.... And frankly, there were people that you would talk to in the community who would call this ‘the ritzy church.’ And you know, that’s what we were.” Then he says with deliberate diction, “But things have changed a lot.” Jim Houston saw a huge shift when David came:
David came in, and it was a whole new ball game. He’s a wonderful preacher. Our people were hungry for the Word, and he came in and began to give it to us, and he began to give us all the Word. And that was hard. I’ll be honest with you: it is not that we did not approach the Scriptures that David preaches, but it was not as urgent as David is preaching it to us.
A Whole New Crowd
The turnover has been significant. Everyone agrees. Houston, who has been on staff for thirteen years and is close to many of those in the older generation, sees it clearly:
We’ve probably lost 1,000 people, but we’ve gained 2,000. It’s not about numbers, that’s not the issue. But it’s a younger crowd. Some of the older people, you know, they are not ready...they’ve worked all their lives and then all of a sudden...radical hit. Many of them have just not been ready for that.
Nichols explains the turnover:
No doubt, there’s been a turnover in people [insiders]. From outsiders, first there were curiosity seekers. The numbers began to grow because people were like, “We’ve heard that you guys have got this preacher that’s not talking about
148 prosperity things and stuff.” But then the more we dove off in to stuff and his preaching started to reach a larger audience on the web and Secret Church. So we’ve seen a lot of people from the body of Christ. But I think the thing you started seeing were people who had maybe experienced cultural church earlier in their lives and had dropped out then who get in here and the power of the Word begins doing its work.
Nichols gave an anecdote of a recent email that was sent as an example of the kind of person who is now coming more often to The Church at Brook Hills since the changes have taken place:
One guy wrote in and said that his wife wanted to be a part of a church and came here and said, “I was totally expecting McChurch.” The guy went on to recount how it was like the longest service he had experienced and then “all of a sudden I started having to grapple with things I had never thought about before.” And basically he was writing to tell us, “You have ruined my life!” The result has been, among other things, a different kind of attendee. They resemble a better cross-section of people who live in the area than that of other churches.45 According to Nichols and other members of the staff, there are still the church-hopping and curious visitors, but there is a much higher number of the unchurched variety, too. They are more open to different worldviews and lifestyles. Moreover, they are more concerned about the environment and are more diverse in ethnicity, nationality, and profession. They are more educated but not necessarily wealthier. And they are much more concerned about social action and making a difference in the world around them. They are advanced technologically and harder to impress. This is due to the exposure they have had to people and positions of all persuasions—religiously, politically, and socially. They are postmoderns.
45 While in Birmingham, this researcher attended a Bible study of 45 people from many different evangelical churches. One of many issues this researcher discussed with the attendees was their perception of the makeup and diversity (including age, race, socio-economic status, etc.) of The Church at Brook Hills verses other churches in suburban Birmingham. There was virtual unanimity regarding this conclusion. The staff members of The Church at Brook Hills also agreed with this assessment.
149 Preaching to Postmoderns When asked if he thought about reaching postmoderns when he approached the task of preaching, Platt said he definitely did. He said he had thought often that postmoderns were much like those living in pre-Christian Western society. He had made this point in his dissertation: “I tried to build the case that the religious pluralism, biblical skepticism, moral relativism that they were facing in that day, while it wasn’t as pervasive as a result of technology and other factors, they were facing the same things. And we have a lot to learn.”
When preaching to postmoderns, he goes directly for the heart: worldview. He seeks to get them to think about theirs and compare it with his:
One of my passions is I want to preach in such a way as to transform people’s worldview into a thoroughly Christian, solidly biblical worldview. I really want apologetics and preaching to go together in the context of what I’m doing on a week-by-week basis. Every once in a while I will do an apologetic kind of discourse on “how do we know God exists” or something like that, but when I think about apologetics in preaching I think about infiltrating apologetics into preaching all the time. When we are preaching a text we are directly addressing some of the ideologies and philosophies that are present in the secular atheistic worldviews that surround us, and we put them in comparison right beside each other. I want to show how hollow a relativistic, pluralistic, everything-depends- on-me kind of mentality and philosophy is when it faces the real issues of life. I want to show how supreme Christ is, how strong biblical truth is, and how the sovereignty of God is a rock to stand on in the middle of difficult times. So, in my preaching I constantly want to put those next to each other showing the supremacy of Christ and the necessity of the Christian worldview, and show the hollowness of [the postmodern] worldview in a way that the false worldview just comes crumbling and crashing down.
There are, according to Platt, different ways to preach apologetics and worldviews; some are more effective than others. He said, “It is not as much a matter of preaching an apologetic sermon once every two or three months. It’s more about, in the context of doing exposition really integrating intentional debunking of false ideologies and philosophies” (emphasis his).
150 Platt’s focus on worldview goes to the heart of postmodernity. According to Ronald Nash (quoted by Ken McElhanon), a worldview is “a conceptual scheme by which we consciously or unconsciously place or fit everything we believe and by which we interpret and judge reality.”46 Platt believes that expository preaching provides the best framework for addressing and “debunking” the postmodern worldview. His is an expository preaching that helps people not only think through the meaning of the text but also think critically about interpretation and application: “I try to use a variety of rhetorical questions, and say, ‘Okay, here’s what the Bible says,’ and some of you might even be thinking, ‘What about this over here?’ And then I try to address those things.” Platt feels this strategy does not just expose the text but exposes something else: the falsehood of postmodern views of the world. He believes this is how God’s Spirit changes the way people actually live:
I want the people that God has entrusted me to pastor to be able to think Christianly—and to think really well Christianly. I want them to perceive their businesses and politics around us Christianly. It doesn’t translate into political sermons. The Spirit does this—I don’t do this—the Spirit through the Word does this. As preachers, we have the responsibility to intentionally put these biblical truths up against these false ideologies of the world to show just how hollow they are.
Mythbusting: What Postmoderns Really Want
Hungry for the Word As trends seem to indicate, many preachers are giving up on expository preaching in favor of shorter, topical, felt-need or current issue discourses. This is
46 Ken A. McElhanon, “worldview,” in Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. A. Scott Moreau, Harold Netland, and Charles Van Engen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2000).
151 particularly the case for those who desire to reach postmoderns.47 Indeed, some speak of doing away with preaching altogether for more creative ways of expression, while others, embracing postmodernism, want to bring a “drastically different” way to “mine...the new landscape” of interpreting and delivering the biblical text after the “hermeneutical earthquake” of deconstructive postmodern thought.48 Platt disagreed. “Postmodern people are just hungry for the Word. I don’t want to sound too simplistic in this—because I know that the trends, postmodern philosophies, ways of thinking, worldviews—it’s prevalent.” He continued, “But at the same time I do think that we’re built with a hunger for truth, a desire for meaning, and a desire to fit into a bigger picture that Scripture speaks to. It is evident that when we show the Word for what it is, it’s just good.” Platt cited a bare-bones event that The Church at Brook Hills threw together without any advertisement that was born out of identifying with the persecuted church in the Third World. The response was surprising:
Something we have started doing that is an example of this [proposition that postmoderns are hungry for the Word] is Underground Church. It is based on underground churches overseas in Asia. For 12 hours they just sit with the Word and study it. So we started doing Underground Church from 6 p.m. to midnight to study the word, taking breaks to pray for the persecuted church. Thousands came, many traveling from out of town, and many wanted to stay after midnight! Subsequent Underground Church events were by reservation only. “No music, no childcare, no frills. Just hard-core study of the Word,” Platt said with a smile.
47 Stetzer agrees. “Some new churches want to abandon preaching in their attempt to be more relevant.” Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2006), 270.
48 Robert Kysar and Joseph M. Webb, “Introduction: Living at the Epicenter,” in Preaching to Postmoderns: New Perspectives for Proclaiming the Message (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. 2006), xxx.
152 This hunger for the Word shows itself on Sundays as well. Platt certainly cannot be accused of giving sermon-ettes. Like other well-known postmodern expositors, he is not short on words. 49 His sermons frequently last more than an hour. “Even Sundays, I preach for almost an hour, sometimes more than an hour, every Sunday.” Smiling, he continued, “Unfortunately people keep coming and so I feel like I can continue to do that.” His is a minimalist approach. “I don’t use a ton of illustrations, and I have to cut explanation of the text somewhere to get it down to an hour. It’s the Word that does the work I think.” Several members talked about the length of the sermons, and none of them seemed annoyed in the slightest. “Oh, I hardly even notice,” a middle-aged woman said with a smile. “I’m serious! The time goes by so quickly it seems.” When asked if others’ mind the length, she quipped, “Some did, but they’re not around anymore. And God has filled their seats with younger people who care more about knowing what God says than getting out of church on time! And that’s a good thing!”50 A girl in her late teens seemed surprised: “No way. He talked over an hour? I don’t believe it. Really?”51 That could be the best endorsement of them all.
Authenticity According to Platt, the preacher must truly believe and become what he preaches: “[Authenticity] is huge. You’ve got the pathos and the ethos in preaching, and I
49 Mark Driscoll, Erwin McManus, and Dan Kimball deliver lengthy sermons and frequently preach over an hour.
50 Elaine Spivak, a member of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, Birmingham, AL, February 3, 2010.
51 Kylie, attendee of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, Birmingham, AL, February 7, 2010.
153 think credibility is tied to passion in many ways. Authenticity, the picture of, ‘I feel the sense of the things I preach,’ is one of the things I pray based on the Puritan prayer from a long time ago.”52 Honesty with weaknesses and personal struggle is also important. Platt is open about showing “vulnerability with how I’m struggling with the things I’m preaching in my own life and how I’m trying to put these things into practice.” He continued, “I’ve tried to be clear in the context of preaching, I don’t have everything figured out, like I’m wrestling through what does the word look like in my life. We’re wrestling through this as a church so let’s do this together.” This kind of honesty is attractive to postmoderns.
Belonging to Community “We” language is a big part of Platt’s deliberate efforts at building Christian community, something that does not come easy in the suburbs.
This is one of the things that I want to be extremely intentional about. Preaching to form community. I constantly speak in terms of us as a faith family and us together as a community of faith—and using “we” language. Using “us” even in the way I frame points in a sermon. I think there’s a desire for community in the postmodern picture. That context in a worship gathering is one thing, but we need more. That’s why we pour so much of our resources, time, energy, money, whatever, into small groups. I think this is huge, so I want to preach in a way that that encourages that kind of community, and then constantly encourage
52 Platt is referring to a poem entitled, “A Minister’s Preaching” found in Authur G. Bennett, ed., The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth, 1975), 191. It reads (in part, emphasis added): My Master God, I am desired to preach today, but go weak and needy to my task; Yet I long that people might be edified with divine truth, that an honest testimony might be borne for thee; Give me assistance in preaching and prayer, with heart uplifted for grace and unction. Present to my view things pertinent to my subject, with fullness of matter and clarity of thought, proper expressions, fluency, fervency, a feeling sense of the things I preach, and grace to apply them to men's consciences.
154 folks to get plugged into small groups community. That makes all the difference in the world when we come together for a worship gathering.
The culture of a church is hard to determine objectively, yet it is critical to reaching people. Platt expressed the critical importance of cultural context: “As far as our context, we’re a suburban church. So we reflect this [in the church’s culture]...I really wish we had more racial diversity, but we are the same as the community.”
Physical Environment Platt downplays the usual visual indicators. When asked about the physical environment and dress, he replied,
You hardly ever see someone here with a tie. I hope there’s an inviting atmosphere of openness and warmth. I think those things are good, but I think even those things can seem really shallow and superficial if they’re not tied to deep community. People in our culture see through that in a heartbeat. In fact, I think that’s one of the reactions against the megachurch thing—it’s all slick and clean, but where is the depth? So, we’re actually trying to minimize the clean and slick on the outside and pour our resources instead into fostering that kind of deep community. That’s why we’re doing our signs in cardboard and magic markers and focusing on people and relationships.
When asked about the Emerging/emergent movement and some of its star players, Platt replied with tact after pausing a moment in thought:
I think the key is to keep guarding and promoting the gospel. There is a strong trend to dilute, and (not trying to sound clichéd) dumb down or miss the gospel, and do really strong proclamation. I think Driscoll does a good job in another context, in Seattle. I think that if we’re not careful, other things, like social justice, can become more important than the gospel. The gospel has to drive those things. And the Word has to be central.
Passion for the Nations Platt’s coming to Brook Hills coincided with a growing emphasis of concern in the church for God’s mission in the rest of world, particularly the church in the unreached and poor Third World areas. This rising missional emphasis is clear on the church’s history that was once posted on the church’s website. Notice the change in
155 emphasis throughout the church’s historical markers from people, programs, and buildings (an emphasis on internal growth) to local and eventually global missions. This shift in focus is evident even in the introductory sentences of the church’s history statement:
Drawn Together By God
Clearly, God has drawn people to The Church at Brook Hills. There is no other explanation for the blessing and tremendous growth the church has experienced. The challenges have been great: caring for large numbers of infants and preschoolers, overcoming limitations, using creative means for Bible Study, and instituting multiple worship services. We have faced each challenge with the humble recognition that challenges make us grow spiritually as well as physically.
We are committed to starting new churches, have made missions giving and hands-on projects a priority, and are developing innovative ways to communicate. We are sensitive to the plans God has for you and for us as we look for inventive means to worship, minister and evangelize.
Landmark Dates in Brook Hills History
* January 26, 1990: Three couples meet to pray about establishing a new work on the Highway 280 corridor.
* February 4, 1990: 44 people constitute a new fellowship at Southeastern Bible College.
* February 1990: Brook Hills hires its first staff minister. Still-small congregation moves to Woman's Missionary Union (WMU).
* August 1990: The church calls its first Pastor.
* October 1990: We purchase land on Highway 119. Fewer than 100 people purchased 55 acres of land valued at more than $2.4 million.
* May 3, 1992: The dedication of the land to the building of the church. The Faith Family met on the undeveloped campus and dedicated the site to God.
* 1991-1993: Four land transactions occur, giving the church, at virtually no cost, 37 acres at the corner of Highway 119 and Brook Highland Parkway.
* February 1993: Congregation moves from WMU to our first building (now called the Multipurpose Building).
156
* January 1999: Following a pledge and giving campaign, church construction present facilities and move “up the hill” into current buildings.
* January 2001: A daughter church, The Church at Shelby Crossings, is birthed in Pelham, Alabama.
* September 2002: The new South Annex opened, providing more room for preschoolers, an additional worship room and adult education space.
* 2004: The church enters the “Year of Recovery,” a challenging time where God begins working in the lives of many people with addictions, habits and hangups (sic.).
* 2005: The church begins the year with a “40 Days of Purpose” campaign, beginning a year-long emphasis on personal involvement in ministry. Our first Pastor retires from his role at Brook Hills in September, concluding 15 years of ministry with our church. The church conducts The Extreme Home GraceOver, a city-wide mission construction project benefitting (sic.) deserving families. The Pastor Search Team begins its work of selecting a new Senior Pastor candidate.
* 2006: The Faith Family undertakes a churchwide (sic.) study of foundational beliefs through an emphasis called “Think Like Jesus.” On May 21, 2006, the Senior Pastor Search Team selects Dr. David Platt as the candidate for our next Senior Pastor. On June 11, the church votes unanimously for Dr. Platt as our Senior Pastor. Dr. Platt accepts and begins his ministry at Brook Hills.
* 2007: More than 1,000 people embark on short-term mission trips as part of a new focus on Global Disciple-Making. Dr. and Mrs. Platt travel to Kazakhstan where they adopt a son, Caleb Thomas, in March. The Brook Hills Worship Team records a new live CD entitled “Awaken.” Nearly 600 more adults join new Small Groups launched in the fall. The Platts welcome a second new member to their family, Joshua David, in December.53 The decision was made recently with a revamping of the website to remove the above information altogether. Daniel Phillips, on staff at The Church at Brook Hills as a Communications Associate, agreed the decision to remove it was deliberate:
The focus of the church had changed so much from a focus on growth, numbers, and buildings to external and international missions. I guess it was
53 This text is presented in its entirety as it recently appeared on The Church at Brook Hills website.
157 considered no longer necessary information, how the church came to be. It was now about meeting our vision, mission, and goal.54
With instantaneous precision, he explained, “Our vision is to be like Christ, our mission is to make disciples, and our goal is to impact the total world. Our guiding light [for the revamp of the website] was that the website would reflect what we at Brook Hills have focused in on.” The goal was no longer about attracting people to be a part of a big church so that it could be bigger. It was about inviting people to join together in mission; the point was to place emphasis on Christ rather than to emphasize this building: “Brook Hills wants to become more a base of ministry than a place for ministry. It’s more than what happens inside these four walls.” This change is more than just a more missional focus, which is no doubt attractive for postmoderns; it is a matter of authenticity. There is a big difference between a church that talks about missions in the midst of all the other exciting things the church is doing. One member said,
The whole focus of the church has completely changed. We used to be “the place to be” church around here, for all the Christians who were tired of the “church as usual” boring stuff. We had the exciting programs, flashy preacher, big cool building, you know, awesome worship, we had all that stuff. But that’s not what we talk about now. Just a couple of weeks ago I told the girl I work with that she ought to go with us to Haiti because we were talking about all that’s going on there. She’s all into stuff like that. ... When I told her about scrapping the nice signs and using junk to decorate the church for saving money to help the poor, she was like, “Dude, I’m coming to that church.” I would have never invited her before. It would have totally turned her off, you know?”55
54 Daniel Phillips, Communications Associate of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, Birmingham, AL, February 10, 2010. All subsequent quotes from Daniel Phillips are from this interview.
55 Jeremy, attendee of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, AL, February 7, 2010.
158 The researcher asked him if she came. He replied, “Yeah, last week. She brought a friend and they both loved it. I think her friend is into weird stuff, too. Like other religions and stuff.”56 According to Executive Pastor Chris Nichols, God had begun to move the church in that direction even before Platt came: “I and others had been reading our Bibles and seeing much more than what we were hearing at church.” Nichols, who has adopted five children through international adoption in addition to his four biological children, spoke of the decision to bring Platt on as pastor: “I was in the Ukraine with my dad when David came to preach the first time at our church. I heard the second sermon he preached here and was amazed. He was saying, in that one sermon, what God had been showing me for the past couple of years.” As a part of the pastor search team, Nichols made it clear to the “Lay Pastors” [function like Elders in the church] that if they called Platt, the vision of the church would continue to change. According to Nichols, a defining moment took place when one of the lay pastors stood and challenged the rest that they should not stand in the way. Calling Platt was not the beginning of a new emphasis for the church, it was a commitment to the emphasis that had already started from the ground roots. “Driven” would be a great word to describe Platt’s commitment to missions, particularly to the world’s poor. This is apparent in his brief biographical sketch on the church’s webpage, which is adorned with a picture of Platt with an elderly man from India in traditional garb:
David holds a deep and abiding passion for global disciple-making. “I believe that God has uniquely created every one of His people to impact the world. Some may count it as idealistic, but I believe it is thoroughly biblical, rooted in Psalm 67:1– 2, yet covering Scripture from beginning to end. God is in the business of blessing His people so that His ways and His salvation might be made known among all people.”
56 Ibid.
159 David practices what he preaches through his travel nationally and internationally, teaching from God's Word in churches, seminaries, the underground church or even under a shade tree in Africa or Latin America.57 A constant theme of Platt’s preaching is missions and the need for prosperous suburban Americans to recognize their relative wealth as it relates to gospel opportunities abroad. And he is not afraid to make it personal. One member recounts:
He really is about helping the needy and about sacrificing for the sake of the poor in the world. I think he started the whole thing with [helping] the people in India by saying to the church, “I’ve got an announcement to make: we’ve discovered we’ve got 2.5 million dollars...[pause]...and it’s in the parking lot.” Boy that really got everybody’s attention.58
The church’s focus for 2010 was “all the buzz.” That was where the conversation with this long-time member quickly landed:
Have you heard about ‘The Radical Experiment’? That’s really changed things. Have you seen the stage set-up? We made the whole thing out of junk from the landfill in order to give the money to missions. The church doesn’t buy coffee anymore. People can buy a cup from a guy who is a vendor. We used to have a nice fancy bulletin, but now we’ve got everything on a punched 8½ x 11’’ piece of white paper—and you have to buy a notebook if you want one!
The Radical Experiment
The church’s website has a link to another completely different website that is dedicated to this emphasis. In its own words, “The Radical Experiment is a one-year commitment that The Church at Brook Hills is undertaking during 2010. The goal of the Radical Experiment is for individuals, families, and our faith family to spend our lives together for the sake of the church, the lost, and the poor around the world to the glory of God.”59
57 The church’s website “Our Pastor” page. http://www.brookhills.org/new/pastor.html (accessed February 1, 2010).
58 Elaine Spivak, a member of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, Birmingham, AL, February 3, 2010.
59 “Radical Experiment,” http://www.radicalexperiment.org (accessed February 3, 2010).
160 As a part of The Radical Experiment members of The Church at Brook Hills have been asked to commit to five specific challenges:
Pray for the entire world Through a prayer emphasis that revolves around Operation World, we will pray together for the entire world over the course of a year.
Read through the entire Word Using a chronological Bible Reading plan, we will read through the entire Bible together as a faith family. Daily devotional guides, weekly family worship times, small group discussions, and our worship gatherings will all be coordinate around our readings in the Word.
Commit our lives to multiplying community We will commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the local church. But even deeper than that, we will commit ourselves to a small group that is intentionally sharing, showing, and teaching the Word while serving the world together.
Sacrifice our money for a specific purpose For the next year, we will look at all of our expenses as a church, individuals and families through the lens of specific need in the world. We will work to set a cap on our lifestyles so that we can free up as much of our resources as possible for the sake of the glory of Christ in His church, among the lost, and among the poor.
Spend our time in another context As we continue to give the majority of our time to making disciples right here in Birmingham, we will commit, as individuals and families, to give 2% (one week) of our time in Gospel ministry outside of Birmingham for the sake of God’s glory in all the world.60
Before the Sunday morning worship started, this researcher asked Mark—a 20-something guy dressed in a military-style field jacket, T-shirt, and worn jeans with a little girl in one arm and a Bible in the other—what he thought about The Radical Experiment: “I think it’s amazing. I mean, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen so many people taking this,” he said, holding out his Bible, “and really living it out.” I asked if he
60 Ibid. This special website also provides videos and mp3s to help all members understand this emphasis. There is also a page dedicated for members to share their stories.
161 planned on taking up all the five challenges. He did not hesitate: “Yes sir. I mean, finding a week to do a mission trip is going to be hard with a kid and a job,” he said laughing, “but I’m trying to make it happen.”61 As illustrated by the aforementioned comments from members, the church was focused on this campaign.62 A huge banner was displayed on the corner of the church’s property on a main road, and homemade signage was everywhere inside the church’s facility. Indeed, the entire stage of the worship center was decorated with cool- looking salvage from landfills that members of The Church at Brook Hills found for the effort. It looked like a typical shantytown in a Third-World city. These visual aids combined to remind church members and communicate to those who visited that this church was serious about pinching every penny for the sake of the poor in the world and making the main things (commitment to the Word, to community, as well as praying, giving, and going to the ends of the earth) the main things.
The Experience When attending The Church at Brook Hills, pleasant faces greeted visitors from the parking lot to the clearly marked doors. Even coming into the earliest service (9:00 am), there was a feeling of excitement and expectation that began in the parking lot. There were lots of smiling people, but none of the usual (and perhaps “forced”) smothering that first-time attendees of growing mega-churches sometimes experience. Tables were everywhere in the atrium with information about various ministries and opportunities for people to be involved. The term “Disciple-Making” was a visible theme.
61 Mark, attendee of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author at The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, AL, February 7, 2010.
62 Several different interview comments revealed the same theme, which do not appear in this case study. I have chosen only a few representative comments for the sake of space.
162 These stations were manned and busy with activity. There was clear signage for those with children and for people of other age groups. People were given one inconspicuous 8½ x 11-inch, hole-punched sheet of paper that had fill-in-the-blank sermon notes, announcements, and a perforated edge for those who wanted to respond by giving information. Flat, brown paper bags stamped with the words “The Radical Experiment” (much like one might receive after buying a card at the Hallmark store) were available for those who wanted additional notes and helps for families who were following along with devotionals. It seemed that almost everyone had a Bible and a bulletin/note sheet as people filed into the large worship center. The music was excellent. Sincerity is a hard thing to gage objectively, but there was absolutely no sense of “show” with any one on stage. There were no stars as three different people led over the course of the service. “Simplicity” was the word that came to mind describing the musical worship experience. There was a mix of old and new songs played by a band that was mostly 20-somethings but with a healthy mix of ages.63 A young leader with an acoustic guitar led one particularly old hymn in a new way. The lyrics of the songs were much less chorus-like and more theological in nature, something that might seem rather unusual for “contemporary” churches. The overall sound and environment was excellent. This researcher looked around during the musical aspect of worship and noticed about the same number men as women.64 There were all ages present, and it
63 The researcher later found out that the music budget has been significantly cut for the sake of “The Radical Experiment” to give more money to missions. This has caused the band to write much of their own music. The researcher didn’t recognize any of the songs this particular Sunday and this is why.
64 This was surprising. Having listened to several of the messages available online, the researcher supposed (wrongly) there would be more women than men, by a two-to-one margin. Reasons for this assumption include the researcher’s subjective experience with other churches having pastors who speak with soft emotion as does Platt. It seems most of their churches are filled with more women than men.
163 seemed that younger attendees (who outnumbered the older) sang out during some songs, while older attendees sang louder during others. But no one seemed uncomfortable or disengaged. There was little hand raising or usual outward, visible signs of emotion, but there was a genuine expression of response evident on many faces. Platt led a welcome time after the first couple of songs, and the gratuitous “stand and greet someone sitting near you” time felt somewhat forced. The researcher sat between a young family and a few twenty-somethings. Even in this well-to-do southern suburban community, people with trendy-tattered clothes and edgy stylish cues were in the seats.65 The researcher was unable to attend the Sunday night service. According to several people interviewed, the strong majority of those who attend on Sunday nights are from the twenty-something age group. When Platt stood to preach, the congregation emitted a collective sound of shuffling as people reached for their notes and opened their Bibles. Platt’s first words were familiar to the regular attendee. “If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, please turn with me to...”66 The morning’s text was not easy. It was Exodus 3, but Platt covered several subsequent chapters as well. There were extensive notes. His sermon had twelve main points, three points of “response,” and about twice that many sub-points! There were no less than forty blanks to be filled in on the notes. And although this was no short sermon, people stayed completely engaged the entire hour it lasted. This researcher saw no
65 Of course postmodernism is not a fashion nor is it intrinsically related to a generation or pop-cultural stylistic trend. Generally speaking, however, younger and less-traditional people tend to be more open to and affected by postmodern thought and behaviors, whether they know it or not. Nevertheless, all these observations are quite subjective.
66 I have listened to dozens of Platt’s sermons (whole and in part) and all I have heard started this very way. This habit has obviously resulted in a congregation with one of the highest percentage of Bible-bearers that I have ever witnessed. This kind of introduction is also a consistent verbal reminder of Platt’s philosophy of preaching, leading, and living: the Word drives everything else.
164 nodding off or fidgeting. The sermon was about God revealing who he is to Moses at the burning bush. Platt stated that he desired for those present to peer out of “this superficial, Super Bowl culture”67 and see something infinitely greater. His hope was for the congregation to “pause and gaze in wonder at the beauty and greatness of the I AM.” The sermon was heavily theological and contained much text to read—sometimes twice—yet everyone within sight seemed entranced by his words. John Piper seemed to be an influence on both Platt’s style and content, with whom he shared similar passion and vocabulary. But his was not a copy of Piper’s style or of anyone else’s. His humor, figures of speech, pronunciation, and inflection were all of a different generation and were all his own. It worked well. Upon first hearing him, the listener wondered if he might have a slight speech impediment. Sometimes his words slowed, almost as if he was slurring. But it was, instead, his natural way of expressing emotion. There were other times when he spoke rapidly with clear diction, especially when reading. At times he almost whispered, and at other times he almost yelled in high pitch. He seemed to start out a bit slow, but then picked up the pace as he preached. He rarely stumbled or wasted a word. Here is an excerpt of the researcher’s personal notes concerning the impact of Platt’s style:
[Platt] takes us, his hearers, on an emotional and intellectual expedition—a pleasant roller-coaster journey of the high enrapturing visions of God’s great beauty, goodness, holiness, and love for each of us, his children, who will one day be with him in a heaven which is beyond what our imagination has dared dream; as well as the lows (as it were) of the sinfulness and great need we all have, and the dangers of giving sway to the attraction of sinful nature, the world, and the enemy.
67 The Sunday visited happened to be Super Bowl Sunday.
165 Altogether, the different aspects of his style as well as the depth of his teaching worked well. He possessed a natural likeability and his character seemed to build as one listened. The message ended with four points of application “for those who catch a glimpse of Yahweh the I AM”:
Routine religion is no longer tolerable. Casual worship is no longer possible. Total surrender is no longer optional. Global mission is no longer negotiable. Toward the end of the sermon, the band slipped back on stage and led in a song that further highlighted the greatness and glory of God. People this time responded and spontaneously began to stand up, some raising hands, until virtually every person was singing.68 This was not done in a way that seemed insincere or scripted whatsoever. Some attendees shed visible tears. There was no prompting on the part of the band for any visible display. After the music, the lights went dim, and people began moving around. The screens lit up revealing a video of a boy, perhaps ten years old, who had received Christ recently. He told about how he had come to understand the gospel and, with the aid of his mother, had prayed to receive Christ. His testimony was surprisingly honest and doctrinally sound. The lights were raised revealing a gathering of people at the stage area around a baptismal pool, and the boy was in the water. Platt asked him if he had surrendered to Christ and confessed him as his Savior and Lord. He said, “Yes.” As Platt said, “Before this church and the world, we baptize you in the name of the Father, the
68 There was a woman there who was handicapped and had trouble walking and standing without assistance. During the worship before the message, she sat and sang while the congregation stood. During the singing after the message, she asked both of those standing beside her to assist her to stand. They did, and she stood and sang with enthusiasm. It was quite moving.
166 Son, and the Holy Spirit. You have died with Christ and are raised to walk in newness of life,”69 the boy’s father baptized him. Two other baptisms followed in the service: a young couple who had recently had children. The wife had begun to feel the need to reconnect with a church (she had apparently gone to church as a child), and the husband had never really been interested in spiritual things. After much prodding, he finally agreed to come. According to his testimony, he prepared himself for the worst, and then began to sit through the longest sermon he had ever heard and was miserable! But then the lights began to come on and he began to “get it.” The couple began coming regularly and then got into a small group. The husband was deliberate in telling of his journey and of his eventual decision to surrender to Christ. Again, it was a doctrinally and biblically sound, matter-of-fact testimony of one truly regenerated. They were baptized by the leader of their small group. An offering was taken where baskets were quickly passed, and Platt explained that people with other baskets would be at exit doors if anyone wanted to give above their usual, regular giving for helping the poor. And everyone was dismissed. Attendees left the service with a sense of awe. Minds pondered the greatness and glory of God and his grace to reveal himself to and redeem undeserving human beings. In conclusion, the worship experience seemed to be the well-executed product of an intentional strategy. As the “Worship Gathering” page of the The Church at Brook Hills website states:
The Worship Ministry at Brook Hills fuels the mission of the church–to glorify God as we make disciples of all nations. When we come together in a worship gathering, we praise God for what He has done and is doing in our lives and the lives of others, we petition Him in prayer and hear His voice as we pray, and we learn God's vision for our lives and how to follow His direction through the study of His Word.
69 This is not an exact quote.
167 Corporate worship is a rhythm of revelation and response. That is, when we gather, we listen to revelation from God's Word through music and teaching, and respond not only with our voices, but with our lives. The Worship Ministry at Brook Hills is dedicated to facilitating opportunities to worship and to respond to God's Word.
Teaching on Worship Gathering
The five non-negotiables:
Humility: God is the absolute center of our worship. Not only does God desire our worship, He deserves our worship. In worship God draws us to Himself. As believers, we want our lives to be so identified with Christ that God gets great glory through us both individually and as a Faith Family.
Honesty: God requires that we worship Him in spirit and in truth. In a culture where appearances are everything, it is all too easy for us to redefine worship according to external circumstances. We forget that God is more pleased with our purity than our professionalism.
Jesus defines worship according to internal circumstances through the reality of His presence and the response of our hearts. In His grace we realize that Jesus desires to cover our sin and comfort us in sorrow. Because of this we can then worship in spirit and in truth and come openly and honestly before the throne of grace.
Clarity: God has given us clear directives in His Word about worship. The Word is to be primary in our worship. Worship is a rhythm of revelation and response. God reveals Himself through His Word and we respond to that revelation. When the Word is absent in our worship our response is manufactured and the results are pleasing to us. When the Word is apparent in our worship, our response is authentic and pleasing to God.
Community: As a Faith Family, our goal is to know Christ and become like Him. We desire to worship God and bring Him glory personally through our every thought, action and attitude. As a community of believers as we gather together for the purpose of worship. We are not just individual worshipers; we are a community of faith. As a community we die to our individualistic attitudes and we engage together in spiritual battle.
Diversity:
168 There is one driving passion behind our worship; we desire the glory of God in Christ (Philippians 3:10). We must get over the different styles of worship that divide the body of Christ and get lost in the love God has for every nation, tribe and people. Worship reflects the unity and diversity of heaven.
This researcher’s one-time visit suggested that this strategy is being accomplished. The sincerity with which it is executed is remarkable. There is no sense of show. There is no pressure to act, give, or respond in some way. Clear instructions are given on several ways to respond, but there is no pressure to do so. After leaving the crowded worship center and walking toward the parking lot without speaking, a couple that looked to be in their early twenties began a conversation.
The young woman asked, “Well, what did you think about that?” “It was totally not what I was expecting,” the young man she was with replied. “Me neither,” she said. After a few more steps of silence, she spoke, with an almost gleeful tone: “I don’t really know what to say. I was blown away.” After more steps, the man spoke up. “Yeah. It was awesome.”70 Others were evidently “blown away” by the service. One man coming out of the service that morning—a Christian visitor in his early 40s—immediately sent a text to his wife who was not there: “I just experienced one of the best services and heard one of the best sermons of my life.”71
Summary There has, no doubt, been a major change in the focus of The Church at Brook Hills. It started with the church making a gutsy decision to bring on a very young, talented, but otherwise untested pastor who has a stubborn commitment to faithfully
70 Real conversation overheard by Chad Sparks of attendees of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, AL, on February 7, 2010.
71 Unnamed attendee of The Church at Brook Hills, interview with author, The church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, AL, February 7, 2010.
169 preach the Bible with humility and a singular missional focus that he lives out authentically before his congregation. This change of pastoral leadership and consistent proclamation of the Bible has given the church a spiritual depth that was not present before.72 This change seems to have helped The Church at Brook Hills readjust their priorities from the slick-and-packaged, consumerist, personality-driven church it once was, to a globally-conscious, Word-driven, God-centered faith family. The Radical Experiment seemed to be a well-executed plan to help all members of the church actually live out what David Platt has been teaching them about the Bible’s message. Collectively, the people are excited about this, and many are experiencing the joy of sacrifice and purposeful obedience. The revolutionary sense of mission they have discovered has given the church a shared identity that is causing them to bring neighbors and friends without really being asked to do so, and is attracting those who are longing for something more. Included in this group are those who would clearly be defined a postmoderns. There is no doubt that a key aspect, humanly speaking, to this church’s transformation and success has been the uniquely gifted David Platt. For a man of his age, he seems to have an exceptional commitment to Christ and his Word. But before Platt came as pastor, God was changing the Church at Brook Hills already. He continues to be the one affecting change through his revealed Word.
72 A question asked by the researcher was, “Do you think Brook Hills has experienced a growth in spiritual depth since the change of pastors and the focus on Bible preaching?” Of 39 people asked, all 39 answered affirmatively. Only one had to pause for a moment to think before answering affirmatively.
170 The Church at Brook Hills as It Relates to the Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1: The Church at Brook Hills and David Platt employ expository preaching successfully to reach postmoderns by providing cultural contextualization. As previously shown, the cultural context where expository preaching occurs at The Church at Brook Hills is magnetic for postmoderns. The church has a culture that looks and feels a lot like its suburbanite community demographic. Add to this an unusual number of twenty- and thirty-somethings, and the result is an electric sense of excitement. Music, faces, and the Sunday morning experience are superb. It still has a little bit of a megachurch organizational feel, but the lack of a come-on-too-strong feeling from volunteers and greeters compensates for this. People are friendly and sincere. Could there be improvement? Yes. Creativity, particularly with regard to encouraging community, is something that could be done better. The facility is packed, which is a good thing, but it does not have much space that encourages building relationships with others. This is a common problem with large church facilities that are more than ten years old. Besides the layout of the facility, the décor and furnishings seem more corporate than comfortable. David is an unusually gifted expositor whose appearance, youthful expressions, and humility disarm hearers who are impressed quickly by his subtle intellect. He has a subdued passion that is evident. At times it seems that he has a bit of a speech impediment, but this seems to be just a stylistic speaking habit. Regarding context, he quite naturally uses examples from popular culture and seems to handle sensitive issues with directness and tact. This researcher never got the feeling that he went too far on either side: softening the message of the Word or unnecessarily offending the sensitivities of the postmodern skeptic. His lengthy sermons are not a hindrance. Upon first hearing about his habit of preaching an hour or more each week, one immediately assumes this practice would be a stumbling block for people new to Christianity, particularly the stereotypically Attention
171 Deficit Disorder-prone postmoderns. This, according to many attendees interviewed, is not the case. In fact, the researcher was unable to find a single person who thought Platt’s sermons were too long. Most responded to the question with a look of surprise, as if to say, “I’ve never really considered it!”
Hypothesis 2: The Church at Brook Hills and David Platt employ expository preaching successfully to reach postmoderns by conveying authenticity.
Authenticity is a strong advantage of this church and preacher. The church comes across as genuine, missional, and loving to outsiders. Baptisms at the end of the services attended were done in a way that included videos of those being baptized that were as sincere as could be. The others who were a part of the services were genuine in their expressions of worship and speaking. What little hand-raising and other visible responses were done tastefully and were neither acknowledged nor coerced. David Platt could not be more likeable or come across as more sincere. This, more than the environment, is why postmoderns come and stay.
Conclusion of Chapter These two churches, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship and The Church at Brook Hills, similar in many ways, are quite different. Both are making disciples effectively. Both have passionate and capable expositors who are faithful preachers and have earned the respect of their respective flocks. In regard to reaching postmoderns, Brook Hills has some distinct advantages, and “gets” the context much better than Bent Tree. Bent Tree still has a slight baby boomer Christian culture that gets in the way of reaching younger generations and unchurched people in general. Though this is not a competition between the select churches and pastors, comparing and contrasting the two does highlight strengths and weaknesses that may not have been as apparent otherwise.
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS
Introduction
This chapter presents conclusions based on the research and records and applies some implications to today’s church. The researcher will suggest limitations of the research and opportunities for further study as well.
Interpretation of the Results Based on the case studies of these two churches, suburban churches can reach postmoderns through expository preaching. For this to be accomplished successfully, it is crucial to create a context that removes cultural barriers and demonstrate that authenticity marks the church and preacher. In fact, when there is a favorable cultural context and perceived authenticity, expository preaching is the best style of preaching to reach postmoderns. These two churches support this conviction.
Limitations
A limitation that could affect the accuracy of these case studies is the inherent difficulty of positively identifying postmodern people. There is no outward set of standards to determine a person’s classification. Assumptions must be made based on subjective factors, such as examining new converts’ personal testimonies, anecdotes,
172 173 counseling experiences, and feedback from attendees.1 As unscientific as it sounds, the researcher is able to determine by these indicators whether or not postmodern-minded people are attending. Add to this the fact that postmodernity is now the prevailing cultural worldview, which means most unchurched people, particularly of younger generations, will be postmodern. It would be difficult to ascertain objectively attendees’ worldviews for the sake of this project. Another limitation is the short window of time the author had to observe these churches. The examination period was for only two weeks at each church. This was unfortunate particularly in the case of Bent Tree. The researcher visited in the late summer, meaning he did not get to observe the church at its best. Neither was he able to hear Pete Briscoe—who was taking an annual break for refreshment, prayer, and study— preach in person. The church could have been “off its game.” Additionally, the researcher observed services at Bent Tree a few weeks before the church was to occupy its new auditorium. The old space looked tired and in need of freshening. By contrast, the author attended The Church at Brook Hills at a time of great energy due to the fact that they were just three weeks into a year-long “Radical Experiment” that had been well-promoted. Excitement was at an all-time high for the church, and Platt’s name was becoming recognized nationally. There was definitely the sense of accelerating momentum. Regarding the research project itself, the researcher chose two hypotheses early in the process and should have expanded on them. If given the opportunity,
1 One of the most telling indicators of a person’s worldview is the nature of their emails and other correspondence. The author has experienced this first hand. While proclaiming the Scriptures, the hearers’ worldviews are confronted with biblical principles. The subject churches’ pastors and some key staff were asked about the nature of the feedback they received in order to ascertain their worldviews. Postmoderns tend to be concerned with tolerance, radical egalitarianism, and libertinism. They tend to disregard factual evidence and are moved by stories.
174 additional hypotheses would have been presented. Potential hypothesis areas may have addressed some of the following five subjects:
1. The Importance of Community as a Context for Reaching Postmodern Suburbanites.
During the observation and information-gathering stage of this project, the researcher recognized the essential and unique role that community plays in reaching and discipling postmoderns. Terry Bowland points out that postmoderns are searching for community where individuals can find identity and significance:
The truly great thing about this particular trait of postmodernism is that authentic biblical community provides EXACTLY what our present generation is seeking. But it must be authentic, biblical Christianity. If the church is simply a stuffy formal place where people come once a week wearing their religious masks, we can kiss reaching our current generation good-bye.2 It would have been interesting to explore the different ways the select churches encouraged community, particularly among postmoderns. It seems that the utilization of physical space and virtual community-connection opportunities (online), as well as more conventional avenues of community-connection (viz. small groups, events, serving together) might be expressed differently among postmoderns than more modern- minded people.
2 Terry A. Bowland, Make Disciples: Reaching the Postmodern World for Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1999), 128–129 (emphasis his).
175
2. The Role and Extent of Offering Personal Experiences for Postmoderns, Including Local and Cross-Cultural Missions, and Sensory Expressions of Worship.
Postmoderns seem to be attracted particularly to Christians and churches that are missional.3 After hypothesizing that people of this culture drifting “into the murky waters of postmodernism” are “seeking to engage in authentic and life-changing ministry,”4 Rod McIlvaine finds that “postmodern culture has witnessed a rise in spirituality and a hunger for participation.”5 He concludes,
[Missional Christians] exude humility, service and sacrifice derived from their passion to be like Christ. There is an orientation to God’s word that stresses grace and truth. They value brokenness, transparency and community. There is an earthiness about their culture. Missional churches love their city. They enjoy its idiosyncrasies and diversity—its “third places” and coffee shops! Not only are they deeply engaged in the [postmodern] culture of their city, in many cases they are shaping that culture as they assist those in need in many cases.6 McIlvaine makes it clear that missional churches are committed to both experiential worship and participating in hands-on ministry to outsiders.
3. The appeal of intellectually challenging (depth) versus surface-level (basic and sentimental) content in teaching. This may or may not have to do with sermon length. Dan Kimball makes the observation that the majority of postmodern church attendees “dig” theology and desire to dig deeper into the Scriptures, claiming they are “starving for depth in our teaching and
3 Driscoll, Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009), 211. In this book, Driscoll actually replaces the term “emerging church” with “missional church” and states, “The missional church conversation, which began among generally younger pastors regarding how the church could best position itself to reach people being shaped by our postmodern culture, has grown considerably” (210).
4 Rod McIlvaine, “Selected Case Studies in How Senior Leaders Cultivate Missional Change in Contemporary Churches” (D. Min. dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 2008), 29.
5 Ibid., 55.
6 Ibid., 176.
176 preaching.” Shallow and superficial elucidations about hell, sex, Bible trustworthiness, or the exclusivity of the gospel of Christ will not suffice.7
4. The re-emergence of interest in early Christianity in the church and the role of utilizing historical elements and illustrations to reach the unchurched (given the general postmodern fascination with the ancient). It would be enlightening to understand the renewed interest in history and ancient forms of expression and worship. Is it just a fad? Or does it indicate an intrinsic void somehow brought about by modernity’s emphasis on empiricism or just general frustration with modernity’s failures?8
5. Regarding preaching to postmoderns, it would have been fascinating to research methodologies and preaching styles that are effective. With all the talk of narrative preaching and story-telling, hard-core expositors like Platt and Driscoll seem to be doing quite well among postmoderns. What makes their styles attractive to the postmodern hearer? While some of this information came to the surface during the research, it was outside the scope of the hypotheses to deal with the question thoroughly.
Implications for Ministry
Based on this researcher’s findings, there is a resurgence in expository preaching in the United States as postmodernity increasingly affects American culture.
7 Kimball, The Emerging Church, 182.
8 Thomas C. Oden, After Modernity...What? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990). In this work, Oden discusses his disillusionment with modern Christian scholarship and his goal “to begin to prepare the postmodern Christian community for its third millennium by returning again to the careful study and respectful following of the central tradition of classical Christianity” (34). Oden and others further explore this sentiment in Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy in the 21st Century, Kenneth Tanner and Christopher A. Hall, ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002).).
177 The implications are significant potentially on both micro- and macro-levels of application.
Micro-Implications: Individual Local Churches On a smaller scale, individual churches and pastors would be wise to commit themselves to expository preaching for the spiritual health of their flocks. Proclaiming the Word in ways that engage postmoderns is wise for the forward-thinking church and pastor as the population of suburban areas—like the rest of the population—is fast- becoming postmodern. As with music and worship styles, if preaching styles and methods are not modified to appeal to and communicate God’s Word effectively with the emerging culture, they will become ineffective and obsolete eventually. The church will not grow evangelistically. They will become increasingly out-of-touch with the culture. Specifically, this means the church and pastor that do not present the Word in a way that understands and utilizes the cultural context and conveys authenticity is lessening the potential impact of the gospel, both in the immediate and distant future. In the immediate future, churches that utilize felt-needs or seeker-driven topical preaching as the regular diet of the main meeting proclamation will witness stunted spiritual growth among individuals in their congregations. Collectively, these churches can have a significant impact on the spiritual health of this nation. Courageously, Willow Creek made public its Reveal study, which was borne out of this concern.9 One result of their seeker-driven strategy was that their people were poor “self-feeders” and did not continue to mature spiritually. Churches and preachers that practice forms of textual preaching other than expository are more likely to avoid difficult passages and issues and rob their flocks of
9 Greg L. Hawkins; and Cally Parkinson, Reveal: Where Are You? (Chicago: Willow Creek Association, 2009).
178 the opportunity to understand context and how a particular passage fits into the grand story of the Bible. This is a key factor in how Christians develop several traits that are not healthy. For example, Christians who have learned to address complex problems in a simplistic manner utilizing proof texts and “bottom line” answers are significantly less equipped to handle life’s complex issues and are less effective in personally reaching their postmodern neighbors. An all-too-familiar stereotype of American Christians is their lack of ability to think biblically for themselves. Instead, they need a pastor or scholar to think for them.10 In a fascinating Christianity Today article, Terry Burge writes, “Biblical illiteracy is at a crisis level not just in our culture, but throughout America’s churches.”11 Sometimes there is alarming truth in stereotypes. Proclaiming the Bible by exploring the context in which it was written, and communicating and applying it to people in their own cultural context is how people make the Bible their own. They have been shown by example how to make this ancient document relevant to their own lives—more than this, how it changes their lives. For postmoderns, knowing how to understand and apply God’s Word must be caught more than taught. They also need to be motivated by the contagious sincerity of a preacher who passionately compels them to “taste and see” God’s truth for themselves. Thinking biblically does not come easily, particularly to postmoderns who know neither the content of the Bible nor respect its authority.
10 Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994).
11 Gary M. Burge, “The Greatest Story Never Read: Recovering Biblical Literacy in the Church,” Christianity Today, August 9, 1999.
179 Macro-Implications On a large scale, the potential benefits of successfully employing expository preaching to American postmoderns are significant in two related ways: First, regarding the temporal health of this nation; and second, regarding the global accomplishment of the Great Commission.12
Essential for Our Nation
The social, political, economic, and perhaps most importantly, moral health of the United States is waning at least, or is perhaps even in jeopardy. Burke writes,
The Postmodern Experiment began with a generation deciding to test what life would be like living out the philosophy, “If it feels good, do it.” This experiment encompassed the sum total of behaviors produced by this way of thinking, and society is just now getting the results. Postmodern thought formed the epicenter of a cultural quake that has rippled out since the sixties in a pervasive way that extends far beyond a mental construct of truth or morality. Its influence has rattled the very identity of a generation and continues to affect successive generations in a multitude of ways. Until we understand its effects, we cannot effectively reach those shaped by it. From the 1960s to the 1980s in America, radical cultural shifts took place to an earth-shattering magnitude, and global communication exported it worldwide.13 As a pastor, Burke read experts’ reports and observed in his dealings with people, particularly those born after 1960, that there was a real crisis happening in the United States. He writes,
I find myself asking, “What happened to this generation to produce so much chaos?” I hear story after story of neglect, physical abuse, sexual molestation, drug abuse, porn addictions, eating disorders, anger issues, serious crime, abortion, STDs, AIDS, and sexual addictions passing from one generation to the next. Issues once prevalent only in inner-city churches now live on Main Street.
12 See the meaning of the term, “successful” in chapter 1 of this work under the introduction of hypothesis 1.
13 John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come as You Are Culture in the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 31–32.
180 After studying the confluence of shifts and trends, I’m convinced something radical did happen. Americans went out for a three-decade binge on self, and now our country is vomiting up the consequences uncontrollably.14 Not since the time of its founding has America faced such a threat. More than a prosperous way of temporal life is at stake. America has been a force for spreading religious freedom in the world, which is essential for the spread of the gospel. It would be a tragic mistake to chalk-up the nation as hopelessly unredeemable as if people were in a “great falling away” period before the return of Christ. Regardless of their eschatology, believers have been commanded to “go...make disciples of all nations (cultures),” beginning with the United States. Evangelicals and their friends in American politics have too often been guilty of pessimistically writing off the nation as hopelessly “slouching toward Gomorrah.”15 The answer to the United States’ place as the “last best hope of earth” is not political.16 Furthermore, it is not, most essentially, moral. As George Washington in his Farewell Address says,
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. ... And let us with caution indulge the
14 Ibid., 32.
15 The title of a book: Robert Bork, Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline (New York: Regan Books, 1997). In this work, Bork criticizes contemporary liberalism for its dual emphases of radical egalitarianism and radical individualism. He believes the postmodern shift, which enabled contemporary liberalism, happened during the Sixties and posits that cultural decline and degeneracy is its legacy. The title is a play on the last couplet of W. B. Yeats's poem, “The Second Coming”:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Bork believes that the “rough beast of decadence…now sends us slouching towards our new home, not Bethlehem but Gomorrah.”
16 Abraham Lincoln, His description of the United States, in a famous letter to Congress during the Civil War, one month before signing the Emancipation Proclamation on December 1, 1862, http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/congress.htm (accessed February 12, 2010).
181 supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.17
When Washington used the word, “religion,” as evidenced by the rest of his Farewell Address, he was speaking specifically of Christianity. His generation was living in a culture that the Great Awakening had impacted profoundly, which God gave primarily through evangelical churches and preachers who preached expositionally, conveying the gospel to the culture. The culture was changed, resulting in a more moral society. Therefore, combining and summarizing Washington’s and Lincoln’s statements: evangelical Christianity, the best hope of earch, is necessary for morality, and morality is necessary for the prosperity of the United States. But Christianity is in serious decline in this nation.18 Despite having more resources than ever, the church in the United States is perhaps weaker than any other time in history. According to Barna in his book, The Seven Faith Tribes,19 those who call themselves Christians are subdivided into two vastly different groups or “faith tribes.” Barna uses the term “Casual Christians” to describe the largest “tribe” in America that has about 66 percent of America’s adult population in their ranks. As a group, they claim
17 George Washington, Washington’s Farewell Address in fascimile, with transliterations of all the drafts of Washington, Madison, & Hamilton; together with their correspondence and other supporting documents. Edited, with a history of its origin, reception by the nation, rise of the controversy respecting its authorship, and a bibliography, by Victor Hugo Paltsits (New York: New York Public Library, 1971).
18 Although Rodney Stark in his book, What Americans Really Believe (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2008) argues that Christianity in America has remained relatively stable, most would strongly disagree. Tim Keller, in a blog post entitled, “Why Is Christianity on the Decline in America?” wrote, “Everyone agrees that our culture has become far more secular and hostile to Christian faith over the past two generations” (The Gospel Coalition Blog, April 9, 2012. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/04/09/why-is-christianity-on-the-decline-in-america/ (accessed September 12, 2012).
19 George Barna, The Seven Faith Tribes: Who They Are, What They Believe, and Why They Matter (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2009). His seven “tribes” are Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Eastern Mystics, Skeptics, and two Christian groups (Casuals and Captives).
182 to believe in God and are somewhat faithful to attend church, but their worldviews are anything but biblical. In fact, they generally do not believe all the stories in the Bible are true. This lack of biblical conviction bears out in their lifestyles. Barna found that they are poor givers to church or charity, and they are average among Americans regarding divorce rate, porn viewing, drinking too much, media influence, and gambling. They are statistically the least happy of all groups except one. The “Captive Christians,” according to Barna, are markedly different. Only 16 percent of the adult population, they are the happiest of all tribes. They are not likely to trust the media, view porn, or get divorced. They consider themselves to be “far from perfect” but have high moral standards. They give significantly more of their money to church and charities, and they are faithful to attend church. Barna found that they are solidly biblical in their worldviews. Barna also argues the condition of the United States is critical. He cites “the values and beliefs” of a nation as the key to achieving greatness and retaining strength. He writes, “Only those nations that have the moral and spiritual depth, clarity of purpose and process, and nobility of heart and mind are able to persevere and triumph.”20 But as the research, outlined in the rest of his book, argues, this nation is fast moving toward the graveyard of nations. It is time for evangelicals to get a new determination to see God redeem the nation. As with the Great Awakening, this consists of at least three things: (1) cooperation; (2) prayer; and (3) sincere, culturally relevant, transformational expository preaching.
20 Ibid., 2.
183 Essential for Our World The United States is not the “last great hope of earth,” but rather the church is. More accurately, believers are its only hope. Christians should be concerned with the state of this nation, remembering that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20). Believers are, as sojourners here (1 Pet 2:11), most concerned with the King’s command to make disciples of all εθνη—to be his witnesses (Matt 28:19), beginning in this “Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria,” and ultimately “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Perhaps the shift from modernity to postmodernity presents the greatest threat to the church and perhaps the greatest opportunity. Diogenes Allen argues that the end of the enlightenment’s grip upon this culture means that the Christian church is now reaching an unprecedented opportunity.21 Phyllis Tickle, in her book, The Great Emergence, postulates that Christianity is entering a time of radical shift not seen since the Protestant Reformation.22 She quotes Mark Dyer, an Anglican Bishop, who believes that every 500 years Christianity holds a “rummage sale” and does away with the old forms of expressions of Christianity. According to Tickle, the old forms do not become obsolete or invalid; rather they lose “pride of place” as the dominant form of Christianity. She believes the historical pattern is outlined thusly: The first shift started about 500 years after Christ when the Roman Empire fell. With it fell Constantinian Christianity. The Great Schism of 1054 took place some 500 years later, dividing Eastern Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism. The most recent shift occurred with the Protestant Reformation in 1517. If the historical pattern holds, the next iteration of Christianity is “emerging” even now. When these great
21 Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Post Modern World (Louisville, KY: Westminister/John Knox Press, 1989), 3.
22 Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008).
184 historical shifts happen there are no less than three “consistent results or corollary events” that are present:
First, a new, more vital form of Christianity does indeed emerge. Second, the organized expression of Christianity which up until then had been the dominant one is reconstituted into a more pure and less ossified expression of its former self. As a result of this usually energetic but rarely benign process, the Church actually ends up with two new creatures where once there had been only one. That is, in the course of birthing a brand-new expression of its faith and praxis, the Church also gains a grand refurbishment of the older one. The third result is of equal, if not greater, significance, though. That is, every time the incrustations of an overly established Christianity have been broken open, the faith has spread— and been spread—dramatically into new geographic and demographic areas, thereby increasing exponentially the range and depth of Christianity’s reach as a result of its time of unease and distress.23
By way of example, she cites the beginning of Protestantism that did two important things: it “established a new, powerful way of being Christian,” and forced Catholicism to modify its practice. Perhaps the most important question is whether the church will be able to awaken from her slumber and transform her culture as Christ commanded.24 She has been intoxicated, as it were, perhaps poisoned, by drinking the elixir of modernism and believing its promises. There are, however, two real and present dangers: addiction and hangover.
Addiction The church must not be addicted to modernity—dependent, as it were, on a bankrupt way of faithless objective thinking born out of the enlightenment. Modernity
23 Ibid., 17.
24 H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951) Evangelicals believe strongly that God has called believers to be of the “Christ transforming culture” designation, as Niebuhr described in this work.
185 has, after all, birthed all kinds of pains: humanism, liberalism, atheism, communism, fascism, et. al., and even proclaimed “the death of God.”
The “secular theologians”—Harvey Cox and, to a stronger extent, Thomas Altizer, William Hamiliton, and Paul Van Buren—asserted that the incarnational kenosis of God in Christ indicated that God had died into the world. This death called for a thoroughgoing secularization of faith. For Cox, and to some extent for Altizer, this radical immanence bespoke the kind of liberation from myth, dogma, and irrational faith that was heralded at the Enlightenment. It was time for faith to come of age, which meant, for these theologians, that faith should fully submit to the canons of secular, scientific reason.25
The push for faith to submit to reason drove evangelicals over time into one of at least two directions: isolation or assimilation. Those driven to isolation gave way to ignorance and anti-intellectualism—some proudly, some out of intimidation or laziness— and their ability to reach the culture diminished significantly. Other evangelicals were assimilated, but in a way quite different than the liberals who sought to synthesize faith and science. They adopted the tactics of modernity. For example, engaged evangelical churches have taught generations of eager Christian youth how to share Christ with modernity-based methodologies, wielding two basic tools: rational argument and blind appeal to biblical authority.26 These served evangelism well at one time, but the effectiveness of these tools has weakened considerably as the world has changed. People no longer attribute authority to words that originate from the Bible. People no longer appreciate rational truth as they once did:
We are approaching a major turning point in history. I can compare it only with the turning point from the Middle Ages to the Modern era, a shift of civilizations.
25 John S. McClure, Other-Wise Preaching: A Postmodern Ethic for Homiletics (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001), 82.
26 Bowland, Make Disciples, 112. Popular evangelism training programs such as Evangelism Explosion, Continual Witness Training, The Four Spiritual Laws, and the Roman Road are based entirely on logical reason and Scripture quotation. These are very good for a foundational/structural understanding of the Gospel but are “fishing with the wrong bait” when it comes to personal evangelism to postmoderns.
186 It is the sort of turning point at which the hierarchy of values to which we have been dedicated all our lives is starting to waver, and may collapse.27
As modernity collapses, the church must not hang on to old tactics, terminology, and ways of thinking.
Hangover Neither can the church live in a state of hangover. Evangelicals must not be sluggish and slow to understand this new epoch in human history. This is just as much a threat to the accomplishment of the Great Commission. The church could experience much loss in a short time—indeed some say Christians are losing already28—as people fall under the sway of a different kind of worldly enticement, or drug, as it were.
Be Sober, Be Vigilent (1 Pet 5:8 NKJV)
The future of Christ’s mission for the church depends much upon evangelicals’ sobriety and surrender to God and his Word—to “not get drunk with wine...but be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18), who inspired God’s revelation of himself to mankind—and “preach the word” (2 Tim 4:2) to those who have not heard the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Herein lay the answers for which God’s image-bearers truly thirst and what alone quenches and pleases.
Implications for the Author The implications for ministry are profound for the author who is the Teaching Pastor of Providence Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Providence Church is committed to utilizing expository preaching to make disciples of, grow, and unleash postmoderns
27 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, quoted in: Carl Wilson, With Christ in the School of Disciple- Building (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 18.
28 Josh McDowell, The Last Christian Generation (Holiday, FL: Green Key Books, 2006), 13. And George Barna, Real Teens: A Contemporary Snapshot of Youth Culture, (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2001).
187 (and others) to impact this changing world and to plant other churches that do the same. The two hypotheses provide a valuable framework for application as this church attempts to impact the world most effectively.
Cultural Contextualization One of our church’s seven core values is “Engaging the Culture.” In our documents, we explain this with the following:
Christianity is to “be in the world” but “not of it.” Too many times we are tempted to create a parallel Christian counter-culture that uses a particular lingo and acts in ways that place unnecessary barriers between contemporary people and the message of Christ. Paul said, “I have become all things to all men that by all means I might save some.” The concept of relevance (a term that is almost cliché today) was understood by Jesus and the Apostles. Jesus railed against traditionalism that alienated people, and he spoke a language that commoners of his day clearly understood, and in a way (parables, object lessons) with which people could relate. Why did he say to love God and others, and to go make disciples? Partly because he—God—loved us enough to reach into our culture and become part of it. At Providence Church, we think worship can be both edifying for believers and sensitive and attractive for seekers. Songs can be both contemporary and meaningful. Teaching can be both in-depth and understandable for those new to Christianity. This does not mean watering-down God’s message. In fact, Jesus made things quite simple, yet his profundity is renowned. In spite of first century Jewish culture, Jesus made it a point to say and show that this is what he was all about (think about his interactions with the likes of Levi, Zacchaeus, Women, Samaritans, Roman centurions, those at the wedding in Cana, and many other “undesirables”). Also, Acts is permeated with evidence that the church is fundamentally about reaching those of whatever culture in which they find themselves (whether it is the catacombs of Nero’s Rome, Athens’ Areopagus, a Jewish synagogue; or applied more recently it might be Lenin's Moscow, Tehran Iran, or the Hanoi Hilton). Because this is who we are to be, out of this core value and the next [Intentional Multiplication] flow the similar mission component of “making,” the purpose of “evangelism,” and whatever strategies we may deem helpful to reach a particular culture.
188 Keeping one’s finger on the pulse of the culture becomes much more difficult as a church and pastor ages. Fighting against the creation of, or surrender to, a Christian counter-culture is a real battle.
Conveying Authenticity Authentic Living is also a core value of Providence Church. In the explanation document, it is described thusly:
Authenticity is a big deal. Jesus had harsh words for those who pretended to be something they were not. Although it would be foolish to suggest that anyone in our church is perfect, we strive to be sincere. We’re not playing church or trying to put on airs. Too many times people can feel pressure in a church to act or look a certain way. Our desire is to be the people God has called us to be. Authentic living means our worship is not a performance for the display of musical talent, nor is it our aim to impress people with our eloquence, extravagant facilities, or anything else. Our desire is simply to be who God made us to be and to allow others to feel comfortable being themselves, too! There are no superstars here. Just real people like you. Authentic living also means we are genuinely striving to live holy lives, “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29). Obedience to Christ is not an option. Jesus told us to “be holy” (Matthew 5:48) and to “obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). He asked, “Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). And there’s no fooling God. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). Many times when God described himself in the Old Testament, he called himself holy. Holiness and sincerity were given foundations in the life of Jesus and were to be sought by the Apostles and all those who would follow him (Matthew 5:48). It was out of this demonstrable integrity that Jesus and the Apostles were able to teach with authority and quell the denigration of their detractors.
There is a long list of areas where Providence Church can improve; however, this is one that has been maintained with much attention. If anything Providence has erred on the side of authenticity at the cost of excellence for fear of being seen as fake. In the Bible belt, churches are famous for unintentionally promoting a “mask” of insincerity. Therefore, much pain has been taken to promote honesty combined with openness regarding both victories and failures in the pursuit of holiness. This openness begins with
189 the teaching pastor. As Bowland writes, “It is only when our postmodern world sees us experience, on a daily basis, the presence of Christ in our lives, that they will begin to take our message seriously.”29
Implications for Future Research Personal Ministry As with other priorities, a preacher is wise to put structures in place to ensure continued observance of and growth in those habits that glorify God and result in making disciples, growing believers, and unleashing them to accomplish the Great Commission. Every pastor must be a perpetual learner to adjust the conveyance of the gospel to an ever-changing culture. This project has uncovered several areas/priorities/questions that demand investigation. These include incorporating the experiential, utilizing emerging technologies (for feedback, further communication, enhancing study, community, etc.) and exploring creative communication methods.
Specific Churches Studied
Scottish poet Robert Burns writes,
Oh, that God would give us the very smallest of gifts To be able to see ourselves as others see us30
It is always helpful to be offered the great blessing of thoughtful evaluation.
Both of the case churches are reaching and growing people effectively. The researcher hopes that, as a result, they will focus more on the kind of people they are attracting, particularly in comparison to the community in which they live—not only regarding the age, race, sex, and spiritual maturity of those attracted, but in their worldviews. As
29 Bowland, Make Disciples, 129.
30 Robert Burns, “To A Louse,” 1785, quoted in Arthur James Marshall Smith, The Worldly Muse: An Anthology of Serious Light Verse (New York: Abelard Press, 1951), 293.
190 difficult as this is to do objectively, some subjective means of measuring will be helpful—perhaps even more helpful than some of the more traditional categories. The United States is finally—and thankfully—moving beyond the discriminations of yore. Further thought and research might yield better methods to indicate attendees’ worldviews.
Body of Christ The evangelical church in the United States is in a state of decline, particularly among “the middle and upper-middle class, suburban white American[s].”31 Short of a supernatural revival (for which all hope and pray), the church must mobilize to turn the tide, not by compromising doctrinally, but by translating and presenting the gospel more effectively. Measures must be taken to cooperate and corporately acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and to address the problem with workable solutions strategically. As a part of this needed effort, more case studies should be done of churches that are reaching postmodern suburbanites effectively to identify the values and strategies they successfully utilize. Additionally, seminaries must tailor their curriculum and faculty selection to respond to the needs of the church and to promote the planting of new churches led by well-screened and equipped planting pastors.
Conclusion
A Shift: Proclaiming God’s Thoughts To Postmoderns Before a preacher can proclaim the Word, he must know it (Bible content), understand it (biblical languages, hermeneutics, and systematic theology), and be able to apply it personally (spiritual formation and leadership). In these things conservative,
31 Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 191–192.
191 evangelical seminaries seem to prepare people well. What is needed is a shift in how preachers are prepared to communicate these things to others. It is a different world than the one dominated by modernity. As problematic as it is to define postmoderns, it is not difficult to observe the following traits: (1) They are living in a world of information overload; (2) They communicate in a different “language” than moderns; (3) Though more “connected” than any previous culture, they are lonely, unfulfilled, and long for community; (4) They are more interested in experiencing life than just learning about it; (5) They are open to spiritual matters. Therefore, the church has a great opportunity to give postmoderns what they most need—not to appeal to their “felt-needs” or compromise with an egalitarian form of tolerance. They need to hear from God who loves them, who alone can give them truth, meaningful relationships, and abundant life. Communicating God’s thoughts— God’s Word—must be done differently in a postmodern world: with variety, incarnationally, and with “true” sincerity.
Variety Postmoderns tend to be less homogeneous than moderns regarding their tastes, preferences, and group associations.32 As the younger generations have been influenced increasingly by postmodernity, words like “mosaics”33 and “pluralists”34 have been used to describe them. This fact should cause believers to recognize that the way they communicate cannot be monolithic. The days of communicating the Word in a twenty-
32 Tim Elmore, Generation iY: Our Last Chance to Save Their Future (Atlanta, GA: Poet Gardener Publishing with Growing Leaders Inc, 2010), 44–45.
33 Barna, Real Teens, 12.
34 Chris Altrock, Preaching to Pluralists: How to Proclaim Christ in a Postmodern Age (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2004).
192 minute homily the same way week after week are over. Different elements must be utilized, even in the same service. Experiential, musical, visual elements, as well as variety in sermon delivery tactics and various environments, are necessary to keep the attention of those who are sometimes called, “the plug-and-play generation…the generation of ADD,”35 or “the digital generation, the internet generation, nexters, and screenagers”36 among others. These designations do not apply necessarily to their thirst for entertainment alone but to the fact that they are accustomed to much variety in a world of technological communication. Variety is the culture.
Incarnationally The days of itinerate evangelism are coming quickly to an end. So are the days of plastic-perfect preachers with alliterated, three-point sermons. In both senses of the term (see above) the preacher-to-postmoderns must be incarnational. This means he must be both “Emmanuelian” and Experiential.37 The term “Emmanuelian” describes God’s physical presence with humans. Applied to the preacher, he must live with, talk like, smell like, understand, and be immersed in the culture—indeed utilize culture to show people God’s truth as Jesus did. The preacher must also be experiential. He must give people opportunities to do missions, feel emotion, and share their own thoughts as they grow, primarily by leading them in these things. Communication is not the same (formal and edited) as it used to be. Members of today’s generation possess text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other ways to express themselves and share their experiences with others. Sure
35 Gayle Buske, “Working With The ‘New Generation,’” http//www.teamdoubleclick.com (accessed August 6, 2008).
36 Elmore, Generation iY, 18.
37 “Emmanuelian” is a coined term.
193 mistakes are made—some big ones. But that is how postmoderns learn—out in the open for all to see. It is candid. In a strange combination of Platonic idealism and Aristotelian realism, this is a virtual world of honesty, imposing to many but none-the- less needful of the gospel. The preacher who wants to influence postmoderns must take a visible part in this world of virtual and physical existence, and communicate to others through it. Bringing these senses of “being incarnational” together, the preacher is wise to remember that he is no longer viewed as the professional spiritual fellow but the fellow participant on the spiritual journey.
“True” Sincerity President Harry S. Truman reportedly said, “Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it.”38 But in this postmodern era, perhaps more than any other, authenticity cannot be put on and taken off like another mask. It must come from the heart. Genuineness is not a fad or style. It cannot be summoned. It must be so much a way of life for a pastor that he breathes it. It must seep out from his pores. This is harder for some than it is for others and is a great gift of God. Some will only find sincerity through brokenness and pain. The reward, however, is the great blessing of being used by God to bring him glory through the effective proclamation of his Word to a people who have not known him.
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But
38 Angela Partington, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 4th ed. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). This quote appears without citation and is disputed.
194 they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom 10:13–17).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
12 Marks of a New Monasticism. Ed. The Rutbal House. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2005.
Abbott, Lyman. Henry Ward Beecher: A Sketch of His Career. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903.
Adam, A. K. M. Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2000.
Adam, A. K. M. Faithful Interpretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006.
Ahlstrom, Sydney E. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1972.
Akin, Daniel L. “A Crisis in the 21st Century Preaching: A Mandate for Biblical Exposition, 2007.” Expository Preaching Workshop Address on Expository Preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX, March 5, 2007.
Akin, Daniel, David L. Allen, and Ned Mathews, ed. Text-Driven Preaching: God's Word at the Heart of Every Sermon. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman, 2010.
Allen, Diogenes. Christian Belief in a Post Modern World. Louisville, KY: Westminister/John Knox Press, 1989.
Altrock, Chris. Preaching to Pluralists: How to Proclaim Christ in a Postmodern Age. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2004.
Anderson, Ray Sherman. An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Press, 2006.
Applegate, Debby. The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher. New York: Three Leaves Press, 2006.
Aristotle. Rhetoric. ed. W. D. Ross, trans. W. Rhys Roberts. New York: Cosimo Books, 2010.
Arthurs, Jeff. “The Postmodern Mind and Preaching.” In Preaching to a Shifting Culture: 12 Perspectives on Communicating That Connects, ed. Scott M. Gibson. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004.
195 196 Augustine, The City of God. Trans. Marcus Dods. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. First Series. Vol. 2. Ed. Philip Schaff. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887.
Baldwin, Charles Sears. Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1959.
Ballard, Paul H., Stephen R. Holmes, and William Wesley Elkins. The Bible in Pastoral Practice : Readings in the Place and Function of Scripture in the Church. Cambridge, U.K.; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2006.
Barger, Rick. A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture. Herndon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2005.
Barna, George. Real Teens: A Contemporary Snapshot of Youth Culture. Ventura, CA: Regal, 2001.
Barna, George. The Seven Faith Tribes: Who They Are, What They Believe, and Why They Matter. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2009.
Barna, George. Think Like Jesus. Brentwood, TN: Integrity Publishers, 2003.
Barth, Karl. The Epistle to the Romans. London: Oxford University Press, 1933.
Bauckham, Richard. Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003.
Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Trans. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Baxter, Richard. The Reformed Pastor. London: James Nisbet and Co., 1860.
Bennett, Authur G., ed. The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions. Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth. 1975.
Benson, Thomas W. and Michael H. Prosser. Readings in Classical Rhetoric. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1988.
Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, http://www.btbf.org/templates/cusbenttree-07-mem- details/details.asp?id=33300&PID=448561 (accessed July 26, 2007).
Bent Tree Way, The. Internal Bent Tree Strategic Branding Document, Copies of this document was handed out to Chuck Larsen, Will Langstaff, Heath Marion, Suzanne Martinez, Rod MacIlvaine, Mark O’Brien, Todd Phillips, Royce Smith, and Chad Sparks in the meeting that took place on July 25, 2007.
Bernard, Richard. The Faithfull Shepheard. London: Printed by Arnold Hatfield, 1607.
197 Bloom, Harold. William Gaddis. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004.
Bork, Robert.Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. New York: Regan Books, 1997.
Bowland, Terry A. Make Disciples: Reaching the Postmodern World for Christ. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1999.
Briscoe, Pete. “I'm Totally Jealous.” Sermon at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, June 1, 2008. www.btbfmedia.org/sermons/podcast.xml (accessed July 31, 2008).
Burge, Gary M. “The Greatest Story Never Read: Recovering Biblical Literacy in the Church,” Christianity Today, August 9, 1999.
Burke, John. No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come as You Are Culture in the Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005.
Burns, Robert. “To A Louse.” 1785. Quoted in Smith. Arthur James Marshall. The Worldly Muse: An Anthology of Serious Light Verse. New York: Abelard Press, 1951.
Buske, Gayle. “Working With The ‘New Generation.’” http//www.teamdoubleclick.com (accessed August 6, 2008).
Chapell, Bryan. “Lesson 10.” Lecture notes, Covenant Theological Seminary, Fall 2006), 6; http://worldwidefreeresources.com/upload/48ea244b37c74.pdf (accessed September 12, 2012).
Carson, D. A. The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996.
Carson, D. A. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005.
“Charles Finney: Father of American Revivalism.” Christian History, August 8, 2008, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/evangelistsandapologists/finne y.html?start=1 (accessed August 10, 2011).
Christian Book Distributors, “Authors Profile.” http://www.christianbook.com/html/authors/3021.html (accessed July 26, 2007).
Church at Brook Hills. “Our Pastor.” http://www.brookhills.org/new/pastor.html (accessed February 1, 2010).
Colson, Charles and Anne Morse. “The Postmodern Crackup: From Soccer Moms To College Campuses, Signs of the End.” Christianity Today, December 1, 2003.
198 Corbin, Juliet M., and Anselm L. Strauss. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990.
Corbin, Juliet M. and Anselm L. Strauss. “Critical Issues in the Measurement Of Ethnic and Racial Identity: A Referendum on the State of the Field.” Journal of Counseling Psychology (1990): 54, 224–239.
Corbin, Juliet M. and Anselm L. Strauss. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. 3rd ed. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 2008.
Cornman, Thomas H. L., and Joseph M. Stowell. Proclaiming Jesus: Essays on the Centrality of Christ in the Church in Honor of Joseph M. Stowell. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2007.
Cox Steven L. and Kendell H.Easley. HCSB Harmony of the Gospels. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007.
Cox, Wendell. “City and Suburban Trends: Sometimes It Helps to Look at the Data,” New Geography Blog. May 25, 2009. http://www.newgeography.com/content/00815-city-suburban-trends-sometimes- it-helps-look-data. (accessed February 8, 2010).
Creech, Joe. Righteous Indignation: Religion and the Populist Revolution. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
Creswell, J.W. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. 2006.
Daniell, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.
Dargan, Edwin Charles. A History of Preaching, Vol. 1. New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1905.
DeKruyter Arthur H. and Quentin J. Schultze. The Suburban Church: Practical Advice for Authentic Ministry. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.
DeYoung, Kevin. Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2008.
Dockery, David S. The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001.
Downing, Crystal. How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith: Questioning Truth in Language, Philosophy and Art. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006.
199 Driscoll, Mark. Confessions of a Reformission Rev: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006.
Driscoll, Mark. The Radical Reformission: Reaching out without Selling Out. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004.
Driscoll, Mark. Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009.
Driscoll, Mark and Gerry Breshears. Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010.
Dyrness, William A. and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, eds. Global Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008.
Edwards, Jonathan. A Faithful Narrative of A Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, Massachusetts, A.D. 1735. New York: Dunning and Spalding, 1832.
Einhard. Life of Charlemagne. New York: American Book Company, 1880.
Elmore, Tim. Generation iY: Our Last Chance to Save Their Future. Atlanta, GA: Poet Gardener Publishing with Growing Leaders Inc, 2010.
Erickson, Millard J. Postmodernizing the Faith: Evangelical Responses to the Challenge of Postmodernism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998.
Erickson, Millard J. The Postmodern World: Discerning the Times and the Spirit of Our Age. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002.
Erickson, Millard J., Paul Kjoss Helseth, and Justin Taylor. Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004.
Evans, Blanche. “Plano, Texas: Houses Sell Despite Area Slowdown.” Realty-Times Magazine. http://www.newhomesource.com/HomeGuideArticle/Article- dallasmarketplano. (accessed September 25, 2007).
Everts, Don, and Doug Schaupp. I Once Was Lost: What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2008.
Feagin, Joe R., Anthony M. Orum, and Gideon Sjoberg, ed. A Case for the Case Study. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. 1991.
Felluga, Dino. “General Introduction to Postmodernism.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue University, November 28, 2003.
200 www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/postmodernism/modules/introduction.html (accessed August 12, 2007).
Finney, Charles Grandison. Lectures on Revivals of Religion. Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.
Finney, John. Emerging Evangelism. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2004.
Fletcher, David. “Case-Studies of Policy and Vision Implementation by the Executive Pastor.” D. Min. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2004.
Fosdick, Harry Emmerson. “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” Sermon, June 10, 1922. Riverside Preachers, ed. Paul H. Sherry. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1978.
Fowler, Robert M., Edith Waldvogel Blumhofer, and Fernando F. Segovia. New Paradigms for Bible Study: The Bible in the Third Millennium. London; New York: T & T Clark International, 2004.
Fretheim, Terence E., and Karlfried Froehlich. The Bible as Word of God: In a Postmodern Age. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998.
Frost, Michael, and Alan Hirsch. The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church. Peabody, MA: Strand; Hendrickson Publishers, 2003.
Frost, Michael. Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006.
Fuellenbach, John. The Kingdom of God: The Message of Jesus Today. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995.
Fuller, Thomas. The History of the Worthies of England. Vol. 1. London: John Nichols and Son, 1811.
Galli, Katie. “Dear Disillusioned Generation—the 'Failed Experiment' Called the Church Still Looks Better Than the Alternatives: The Ct Review.” Christianity Today, April, 2008.
Garrison, Greg. “Evangelist Ousley's Ministry Suspended,” Birmingham News, March 23, 2007, 1, http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1174639279160 590.xml&coll=2 (accessed February 3, 2010).
Garrison, Greg. Article, “At 28, Pastor Has Five Degrees and a 4,300-Member Flock: Church at Brook Hills Leader David Platt may be Youngest Megachurch Pastor Ever.” Christianity Today, Religion News Service, August 15, 2006.
201 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/augustweb-only/133-22.0.html. (accessed February 2, 2010).
Gerring, John. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Gibbs, Eddie and Ryan K. Bolger. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005.
Gibson, Scott M. Preaching to a Shifting Culture: 12 Perspectives on Communicating That Connects. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004.
Graham, Franklin. Billy Graham in Quotes. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2011.
Grenz, Stanley J. A Primer on Postmodernism. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1996.
Grout, Jay and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music, 6 ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Grudem, Wayne, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994.
Guinness, Os. Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994.
Hanks, Billie. Discipleship: Great Insights From the Most Experienced Disciple Makers. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993.
Hamilton, James. Life of Bunyan. Works of the English Puritan Divines. Sligo, Ireland: Hardpress Limited, 2006.
Hannah, John D. An Uncommon Union: Dallas Theological Seminary and American Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009.
Hawkins, Greg L.; and Parkinson, Cally. Reveal: Where Are You? Chicago, IL: Willow Creek Association, 2009.
Hesselgrave, David J. Scripture and Strategy: The Use of the Bible in Postmodern Church and Mission. Pasadena, CA: W. Carey Library, 1994.
Hexham, Irving; Stephen Rost, and John Morehead, ed. Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004.
202 Hilary of Pointiers. De Trinitate, Book VII. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, ed. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series. Vol. 9 of Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1969.
Hill, Daniel. “Reaching the Post-Christian.” Leadership, 25 no 4 (Fall 2004): 71–74.
Hipps, Shane. The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005.
Horton, Michael. “The Legacy of Charles Finney.” Modern Reformation 4, no. 1, (January/February 1995): 5–9.
Houston, Jim. Minister of Pastoral Care, the Church at Brook Hills. Interview with Chad Sparks. Birmingham, AL, February 9, 2010.
Hull, Bill. The Disciple-Making Church: Leading a Body of Believers on the Journey of Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1990 (updated ed. 2010).
Hulme, Edward Maslin. The Renaissance, the Protestant Revolution and the Catholic Reformation in Continental Europe. New York: The Century Co., 1914.
Hunter, George G. III. The Celtic Way of Evangelism, Tenth Anniversary Edition, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2010.
Hybels, Bill. Becoming a Contagious Christian. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994.
Hybels, Bill and Lynne Hybels. Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995.
Hyde, Michael J. The Ethos of Rhetoric. Columbia, SC: the University of South Carolina Press, 2004.
Ironside, Harry A. Quoted in Dave Wolske, The Nitty-Gritty Baseline Quiddity Collection. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2010.
Jobling, David, Tina Pippin, and Ronald Schleifer. The Postmodern Bible Reader. Oxford, U.K.; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001.
Johnson, Kylie, attendee of the Church at Brook Hills. Interview by Chad Sparks on February 7, 2010.
Johnston, Graham. Preaching to a Postmodern World: A Guide to Reaching Twenty- First-Century Listeners. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001.
Jones, Tony. The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Edition: 1st ed., 2008.
203 Jost, Lynn. “Preaching the Old Testament in the Post Modern World.” Direction, 25 no 2 (Fall 1996): 36–43.
Kazin, Michael. “The Gospel of Love.” The New York Times, July 16, 2006. Review of Debby Applegate. The Most Famous Man in America. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
Keel, Tim. Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007.
Keller, Tim. “Why Is Christianity on the Decline in America?” The Gospel Coalition Blog, April 9, 2012. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/04/09/why-is- christianity-on-the-decline-in-america. (accessed September 12, 2012).
Kelley, Dean M. Why Conservative Churches are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion with a New Preface for the Rose Edition. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1977.
Kimball, Dan. They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.
Kimball, Dan, and Richard Warren. The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.
Kirby, Alan. “The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond,” Philosophy Now, November/December 2006.
Kysar, Robert and Joseph M. Webb. Introduction: Living at the Epicenter. In Preaching to Postmoderns: New Perspectives for Proclaiming the Message. (p. xxx). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006.
Lamey, Paul. “How ‘Deliberate’ Is Your Church?: Part Two.” The Master’s Seminary Alumni Blog. October 31, 2005. http://tmsalumni.blogspot.com/2005/10/how- deliberate-is-your-church-part-two.html. (accessed July 26, 2007).
Lears, T. J. Jackson No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Leeman, Jonathan. The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010.
Levin, Meir. With All Your Heart: The Shema in Jewish Worship, Practice and Life. Southfield, MI: Targum Press, 2002.
Lincoln, Abraham. His description of the United States, in a famous letter to Congress during the Civil War, one month before signing the Emancipation Proclamation
204 on December 1, 1862, http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/congress.htm (accessed February 12, 2010).
Livingston, James C. Modern Christian Thought: The Twentieth Century. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006.
Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. Preaching and Preachers. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1971.
“Looking Everywhere Seeing the Divine.” Fuller Focus, 16 no 2 (Spring 2008): 12–14.
Loscalzo, Craig A. Apologetic Preaching: Proclaiming Christ to a Postmodern World. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
Lose, David J. Confessing Jesus Christ: Preaching in a Postmodern World. Cambridge, U.K.; Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2003.
Lyman, Albert J. “The Truth of the Incarnation in Certain Practical Relations.” Annual address before the alumni, June 1, 1897. In The Hartford Seminary Record. Ed. Waldo Selden Pratt. Hartford, CT: Hartford Seminary Press, 1897.
Magnaghi, Alberto. The Urban Village: a Charter for Democracy and Local Self- Sustainable Development. London: Zed Books, 2005.
Malpas, Simon. The Postmodern. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Mark, (last name unknown), a member of the Church at Brook Hills. An interview by Chad Sparks on February 7, 2010.
Mannion, Gerard and Lewis Seymour Mudge, ed. The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church. New York: Routledge, 2008.
McBeth, Leon. Men Who Made Missions. Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1968.
McClure, John S. Other-Wise Preaching: A Postmodern Ethic for Homiletics. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001.
McClure, Judith and Roger Collins. Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford World’s Classics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
McDowell, Josh. The Last Christian Generation. Holiday, FL: Green Key Books, 2006.
McIlvaine, Rod. “Selected Case Studies in How Senior Leaders Cultivate Missional Change in Contemporary Churches.” D. Min. Dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 2008.
McKnight, Edgar V. Postmodern Use of the Bible: The Emergence of Reader-Oriented Criticism. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005.
205 McKnight, Scot. “Five Streams of the Emerging Church: Key Elements of the Most Controversial and Misunderstood Movement in the Church Today.” January 19, 2007. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html?start=1 (accessed August 10, 2011).
McLaren, Brian D. A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished Christian Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Youth Specialities, 2004.
McLaren, Brian D. “A Letter to Friends of Emergent.” http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/000126.html. (accessed on July 26, 2007).
McLaren, Brian D. Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007.
McManus, Erwin Raphael. An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind. Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2001.
McQuilkin, Robertson. “Connecting with Postmoderns: What to adopt. What to adapt. What to oppose.” Preaching Today. http://www.preachingtoday.com/skills/themes/culture/200304.29.html. (accessed December 8, 2011).
Merida, Tony. Faithful Preaching: Declaring Scripture with Responsibility, Passion, and Authenticity. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2009.
Miles, Matthew B., and A. M. Huberman. Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 1994.
Miller, Donald E. “Postdenominational Christianity in the Twenty-First Century” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 558 (July 1998).
Murrow, David. Why Men Hate Going to Church. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2005.
Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1989.
Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper and Row, 1951.
Nichols, Chris. Executive Pastor of the Church at Brook Hills. An interview with Chad Sparks. February 16, 2010.
Oden, Thomas C. After Modernity...What? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990.
Old, Hughes Oliphant. The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.
206 Olson, David T. The American Church in Crisis. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008.
Origen. “Letter to Gregory.” Para. 1 in 11.88–9. Quoted in The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1885; rpt.1994.
Outram, Dorinda. The Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Pagitt, Doug, and Tony Jones. An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007.
Parker, Thomas Henry Louis. Calvin's Preaching. Edinburgh, Scotland: T & T Clark, 1992.
Patton, M. Q. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications. 1990.
Phillips, Daniel; Communications Associate of the Church at Brook Hills. Interview with Chad Sparks on February 10, 2010.
Piper, John, and Justin Taylor. The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007.
Piper, John. “How My Pastoral Ministry Shapes My Pulpit Ministry.” 2008 Resurgence Conference. February 26, 2008. http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/2008/ 2636_How_My_Pastoral_Ministry_Shapes_My_Pulpit_Ministry. (accessed November 22, 2009).
Previté-Orton, Charles William. Outlines of Medieval History. London: Cambridge University Press, 1916.
Pugh, Jeffrey C. The Matrix of Faith: Reclaiming a Christian Vision. New York: Crossroad Pub. Co., 2001.
Purcell, Sarah J. The Early National Period. New York: Facts on File Inc., 2004.
“Qualitative Research Methods: Participant Observation.” http://uk.geocities.com/balihar_sanghera/qrmparticipantobservation.html (accessed September 23, 2008).
Rabey, Steve. In Search of Authentic Faith: How Emerging Generations Are Transforming the Church. 1st ed. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2001.
Radical Experiment Website. http://www.radicalexperiment.org (accessed February 3, 2010).
207 Rah, Soong-Chan. The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009.
Rainer, Thom S. Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001.
Randall, Jennifer M. “Early Medieval Rhetoric: Epideictic Underpinnings in Old English Homilies.” English Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2010, Paper 61.
Rankin, David Ivan. From Clement to Origen. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2006.
Redman, Rob. The Great Worship Awakening: Singing a New Song in the Postmodern Church San Francisco, MI: John Wiley and Sons, 2002.
Rees, Fran. William Tyndale: Bible Translator and Martyr. Minneapolis, MN: Compass Point Books, 2006.
Reeves, William. The Apologies of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Minutius Felix. London: T.W. and T.S., 1716.
Riley, Alan. “This One Hits Close to Home.” In The Meantime, March 26, 2007, Blog, http://alanriley.typepad.com/in_the_meantime/2007/03/this_one_hits_c.html (accessed February 4, 2010).
Robinson, Haddon W. Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, second edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001.
Robinson, Haddon. “The Relevance of Expository Preaching.” In Preaching to a Shifting Culture: 12 Perspectives on Communicating That Connects, edited by Scott M. Gibson. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004.
Rockmore, Tom. Heidegger and French Philosophy: Humanism, Antihumanism, and Being. London: Routledge, 1995.
Rollins, Peter. How (Not) to Speak of God. London; Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006.
Ryan, Julia. “Review The Story of Jesus.” The Church of England Newspaper. http://www.religiousintelligence.org/churchnewspaper/eos/review-the-story-of- jesus/ April 20th, 2011 (accessed August 10, 2011).
Ryken, Leland. Worldly Saints: The Puritans as they Really Were. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986.
Schaff, Phillip, and David S. Schaff. The Middle Ages. In History of the Christian Church. Vol. 5. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907.
208 Scott Jones, Julie. Being the Chosen: Exploring a Christian Fundamentalist Worldview. Farnham Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2010.
Seidman, I. E. Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences. New York: Teachers College Press. 1991.
Seidman, Irving. Interviewing as Qualitative Research. New York: Teachers College Press, 2006.
Sergel, Al. “In That Smokey Room.” Relevant Magazine. http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/features/934-in-that-smoky-room (accessed on August 8, 2011).
Sheler, Jeffery L. Prophet of Purpose: The Life of Rick Warren. New York: Doubleday Religion, 2009.
Shelley, Bruce L. Church History in Plain Language. Dallas: Word Publishing 1995.
Simmons, Scott J. “Postmodern Evangelism: Being Postmodern without Being Postmodernistic.” http://www.aplacefortruth.org/postmodern.evangelism.htm (accessed August 13, 2007).
Sine, Tom. The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2008.
Sire, James W. “Logocentricity and Postmodern Apologetic: On Being a Fool for Christ and an Idiot for Nobody.” Paper presented at the Wheaton Theology Conference, April 7–8, 1994.
Slaughter, Michael. Unlearning Church: Just When You Thought You Had Leadership All Figured Out. Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2002.
Smith, Craig R. The Quest for Charisma: Christianity and Persuasion. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000.
Smith, James K. A. Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? : Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006.
Smith, Wallace Charles. “Incarnational Preaching.” In Our sufficiency is of God: Essays on Preaching in Honor of Gardner C. Taylor. Ed. Timothy George, James Earl Massey and Robert Smith Jr. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010.
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Quoted in: Wilson, Carl. With Christ in the School of Disciple- Building. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979.
Spivak, Elaine, a member of the Church at Brook Hills. An interview by Chad Sparks. February 2, 2010.
209 Stake, Robert E. The Art of Case Study Research, Thousand Oaks, CA. SAGE Publications, 1995.
Stanley, Andy and Lane Jones. Communication for a Change. Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2006.
Stark, Rodney. What Americans Really Believe. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008.
Stetzer, Ed. Planting Missional Churches. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman, 2006.
Stetzer, Ed. Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2003.
Stevenson, Geoffrey and Wright, Stephen. Preaching with Humanity: A Practical Guide for Today's Church. London: Church House Publishing, 2008.
Stewart, David and H. Gene Blocker. Fundamentals of Philosophy, 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
Stott, John R. W. Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994.
Strickland, Wayne G. “Seminary Education: A Philosophical Paradigm Shift in Process,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 2, no. 32 (June 1989): 227–235.
Strobel, Lee. Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993.
Sweet, Leonard I. ed. The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.
Sweet, Leonard I. The Church of the Perfect Storm. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008.
Sweet, Leonard I. Postmodern Pilgrims: First Century Passion for the 21st Century World. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000.
Sweet, Leonard I. Soul Tsunami: Sink Or Swim in New Millennium Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999.
Sweet, Leonard I., Brian D. McLaren, and Jerry Haselmayer. “A” Is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.
Tanner, Kenneth and Christopher A. Hall, ed. Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy in the 21st Century. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002.
210 Telling The Truth Ministry. “About Us.” http://www.tellingthetruth.org/about_us/about_us.asp. (accessed July 26, 2007).
Tellis, Winston. “Introduction to Case Study.” In The Qualitative Report 3 no. 2. July 1997.
Tellis. Application of a Case Study Methodology. September 1997. www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-2/tellis2.html (accessed February 11, 2010).
Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1889.
Thomas, Helen. Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008.
Timmis, John H. III. “Christian Rhetoric and the Western Church Fathers.” Communication Studies: The Official Journal of the Central States Communication Association 27, no. 4 (1976): 280–284.
Tomlinson, Dave. The Post Evangelical. Rev. North American ed. El Cajon, CA: Emergent YS/Zondervan, 2003.
Towns, Elmer L., and Ed Stetzer. Perimeters of Light: Biblical Boundaries for the Emerging Church. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2004.
Unnamed Pastor, “An Interview with an Unnamed Pastor.” ed. Chad Sparks, North Richland Hills, TX, July 26, 2007.
Unnamed member of The Church at Brook Hills. Interview by Chad Sparks, February 2, 2010. van Eijnatten, Joris. Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change in the Long Eighteenth Century. Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2009.
Warneck, Gustav and George Robson, ed. Outline of a History of Protestant Missions from the Reformation to the Present Time. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1901.
Warren, Rick, The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message And Mission. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995.
Washington, George. Washington’s Farewell Address in fascimile, with transliterations of all the drafts of Washington, Madison, & Hamilton; together with their correspondence and other supporting documents. Edited, with a history of its
211 origin, reception by the nation, rise of the controversy respecting its authorship, and a bibliography, by Victor Hugo Paltsits. New York: New York Public Library, 1971.
Watson, Richard A. “Review of Descartes and the Enlightenment.” The Journal of the History of Philosophy 30, no. 1 (January 1992). 138–140.
Weaver, C. Douglas. In Search of the New Testament Church. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008.
Weber, Jonathan. “Demographic Trends Now Favor Downtown: Growth Across the Country Moves Away from Suburban and Exurban Fringe.” MSNBC. May 20, 2009. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30810275/from/ET/ (accessed February 8, 2010).
Webber, Robert et al. Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.
Wesley, John. Sermons on Several Occasions. London: Thomas Tegg Publisher, 1829.
White, Heath. Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006.
White, Rick. “An Interview with Pastor Rick White.” ed. Chad Sparks, 4. Keller, TX, 2008.
Wiersbe, Warren W. 50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Spiritual Giants of the Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2009.
Wilhite, Keith; and Scott M. Gibson, eds. The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching: Connecting the Bible to People. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998.
Willimon, William. “Postmodern Preaching: Learning to Love the Thickness of the Text.” Journal for Preachers, 19 (1996): 32–37.
Wilson, Carl. With Christ in the School of Disciple-Building. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979.
Wilson, Nigel Guy. Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2006.
“Wired.” http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/01/what-is-the-plu/ (accessed February 3, 2010).
Wojcik, Daniel. The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
212 Wolcott, Harry F. Writing Up Qualitative Research. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 1990.
Wolske, Dave. The Nitty-Gritty Baseline Quiddity Collection. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2010.
Yaconelli, Mike. Stories of Emergence: Moving from Absolute to Authentic. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.
Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003..
Zacharias, Ravi and Norman Geisler. Who Made God? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.
Zuern, Theodore F., Joseph A.Tetlow, and Peter Schineller. On Being Church in a Modern Society. Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1983.