ARE WE A PEOPLE AT HALF TIME? - Leadership Network

“THE NEXT CHURCH”
was the cover story of the August
issue of The Atlantic Monthly.
V O L U M E 2 , N U M B E R 4 D E C E M B E R , 1 9 9 6
F R O M L E A D E R S H I P N E T W O R K
Set amidst the changing landscape
of American religious and social life,
it focused on the emergence of
the large pastoral church and
represented more than a year of
research, interviews with pastors,
church leaders and others on
the part of the author,
Charles Trueheart.
We thank The Atlantic Monthly
for permission to excerpt the article
for the readers of NEXT.
THE STAFF OF LEADERSHIP NETWORK
INSIDE NEXT
■ VITAL ■
READER RETURN RESPONSE REQUIRED
(back of dust cover)
Seamless multimedia worship, round-the-clock niches of work and
service, spiritual guidance, and a place to belong: in communities
around the country, the old order gives way to the new...
COVER STORY
WELCOME TO THE NEXT CHURCH
■
1997 LEADERSHIP CONFERENCES
(page 8-9)
■
THE BOOKSHELF (page 10)
■
LEADERSHIP NETWORK FORUMS
(page 11)
■
FAX FORUM QUESTIONS (page 12)
■
NETFAX (page 13)
■
LEADERSHIP NETWORK WEB SITE
(page 14)
■
WEB.WATCH (page 15)
■
1997 GEN-X FORUM (page 16)
No spires. No crosses. No robes. No
clerical collars. No hard pews. No kneelers.
No biblical gobbledygook. No prayerly
rote. No fire, no brimstone. No pipe organs.
No dreary eighteenth-century hymns. No
forced solemnity. No Sunday finery. No
collection plates.
The list has asterisks and exceptions,
but its meaning is clear. Centuries of
European tradition and Christian habit are
deliberately being abandoned, clearing the
way for new, contemporary forms of worship
and belonging.
The Next Church, as the independent
and entrepreneurial congregations that are
adopting these new forms might collectively
be called, is drawing lots of people,
including many Americans with patchy or
blank histories of churchgoing. It constitutes,
its champions believe, a distinctly
American reformation of church life, one
that transcends denominations and the
bounds of traditional churchly behavior. As
such, it represents something more: a
reconfiguration of secular communities,
not just sacred ones.
Social institutions that once held civic
life together—schools, families, governments,
companies, neighborhoods, and
even old-style churches—are not what they