ARE WE A PEOPLE AT HALF TIME? - Leadership Network

Post-denominational churches. The next
church. New paradigm churches. They are
all names that have been used to describe
a new kind of church that is emerging at
the close of the twentieth century and the
dawn of the third millennium. ■ The current
reformation underway is not so much a
reformation of faith as it is one of practice,
not so much against apostasy as it is
against irrelevance in a warp speed culture.
■ Missiologist/researcher/author C. Peter
Wagner has adopted the term, New
Apostolic Reformation, to characterize this
movement of God that is reshaping
Protestant Christianity in the US and
around the world. ■ His new book,
Churchquake!, to be released in March,
seeks to identify the dynamics of this movement
and chronicle the distinguishing characteristics
of this new wineskin. ■ We
thank Wagner and his publisher, Regal
Press, for their permission to print excerpts
in this issue of NEXT.
in this
issue:
1 New Apostolic
Reformation
C. Peter Wagner
4 An Interview
David Cannistraci
5 Fast Change
Silicon Valley
Learning Adventure
7 LN Recommends
8 Church Champions
Network
9 Large Church Networks
10 Young Leader Networks
11 Leadership Training
Network
NEW CENTURY
NEW CHURCH
September 26-29, 1999
V O L U M E 5 , N U M B E R 1 J A N U A R Y • M A R C H , 1 9 9 9
The greatest change in the way
of doing church since the
Protestant reformation is taking
place before our very eyes. I have
come to label this phenomenon the
“New Apostolic Reformation.”
The New Apostolic Reformation is an extraordinary
work of God at the close of the twentieth
century, which is, to a significant extent,
changing the shape of Protestant Christianity
around the world. For almost 500 years,
Christian churches have largely functioned
within traditional denominational structures
of one kind or another. Particularly in the
1990’s, but with roots going back for almost a
century, new forms and operational procedures
began to emerge in areas such as local
church government, interchurch relationships,
financing, evangelism, missions, prayer,
leadership selection and training, the role of
supernatural power, worship and other
important aspects of
church life. Some of
these changes are being
seen within denominations
themselves, but for
the most part they are
taking the form of loosely
structured apostolic
networks. In virtually
every region of the
world, these new apostolic
churches constitute
the fastest-growing segment
of Christianity.
For 2,000 years, Jesus has been building His
Church, just as He announced He would when
He was here on earth. Through the ages, the
Church has grown and expanded across the
FROM LEADERSHIP NETWORK
Another New Wineskin...
the New Apostolic Reformation
C. Peter Wagner
continents. Century after century, however, the
Church grew in a variety of ways. It grew one
way in New Testament times and another way
in the Roman Empire before Constantine. It
grew another way in the Roman Empire after
Constantine, another way in the Middle Ages
and another way at the time of the Protestant
Reformation. Then it grew another way during
the era of European colonialization, another
way in post-World War II and another way in
our own times.
One of the constants, though, was that as each
change appeared on the horizon of history, a
new wineskin was required to contain the
new wine of the Holy Spirit. This book is
about one of those new wineskins God is
providing for another crucial hinge of
church history.
In some aspects, these changes in the life and
ministry of the Christian church are more significant
than anything we have seen since the
days of the Protestant Reformation. This is not
only radical change, but the change is also
coming more rapidly than many think. We live
in a time when both the
degree of cultural
changes and the rate of
cultural changes are
accelerating alarmingly.
Many of the characteristics
of traditional
Christianity are not being
changed. For one thing,
the bedrock theology of
the Protestant
Reformation is not up
for revision. New apostolic
leaders are not
questioning justification by faith or the priesthood
of all believers or the authority of
Scripture. The Apostles’ Creed maintains its
high profile as an acceptable summary of the
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