ARE WE A PEOPLE AT HALF TIME? - Leadership Network

denominations.
Unaffiliated churches have led the way
in acting independently, creatively, aggressively,
competitively, intentionally, to build
huge communities of people whose lives
orbit the church seven days a week. In
most cases they have had no help from
denominations—no staffing, liturgy,
financing, or brand recognition. Indeed, a
few dozen of these churches are big and
influential enough to constitute denominations
in everything but name: they train
pastors and lay leaders, they “plant” and
counsel churches, they publish their vision,
and they seek new followers.
Just as significant for the next generation
of these large churches, and for the
established Protestant denominations, is
that they are training their pastoral staffs
themselves. They would rather identify
their own best pastors and create a priesthood
(another word they don’t use) in their
own image than take whichever stranger
the bishop wants to send their way every
five years.
These new pastors may join the staff of
the church or lead a church plant—be it
geographic, to serve a new community, or
ethnic, to serve a growing minority, or
demographic, to serve a new generation..
Leith Anderson and other church leaders at
Wooddale are currently planning the first
church plant into another denomination.
“We are not in the business of building
denominations,” Anderson told me. “We
are in the business of building the kingdom
of God.”
GETTING INTENTIONAL
As an old-fashioned Episcopalian who
has seen and admired examples of the Next
Church across the country, I returned from
my reporting feeling more impatient with
the creaky, lazy, obscure, complacent, and
sometimes forbidding dimensions of my
familiar church. I also came away with a
new appreciation for the interior logic of
evangelism.
Evangelicals are about the business of
growing the flock, broadening God’s market
share, spawning new Christians and
leading them to a mature faith and a life of
service. The Next Church leaders and their
congregations are willing to say so, and to
act accordingly, in ways that would scare
many of the people in my church out of
their wits. For old-church people like me,
the church provides safety from those who
believe other than we do, and safety from
pressure to act on our supposed convictions
and faith by seeking out others to
share them. A gated community, in other
words. In familiar and safe surroundings, I
understand, we take comfort and draw
closer to God. But might we be missing
something—something as important as
giving as good as we’re getting
I’m not a natural mark for megachurch
membership. I attend a beautiful, traditional
old stone church with the finest organ,
choir, and music director in my city. I look
to few things as warmly as singing great
lungfuls of old hymns on Sunday morning
and kneeling for that transcendent moment
of grace at the communion rail. But I also
wonder whether my church is not in danger
of withering away. And whether it
doesn’t deserve that fate if it doesn’t get
intentional, and soon.
The full text of this article appeared in the August,
1996 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It is available via
their web site at http://www.theatlantic.com or in
The Atlantic Monthly found in the Newsstand section
of America On Line. Leadership Network has been
given permission to reprint the article and a copy is
available by faxing a request with your name and
address to (903) 561-9361.
POST-PUBLICATION REFLECTIONS
Since writing “The Next Church,”
Trueheart has moved to France where he is
a correspondent in the Paris Bureau of The
Washington Post. NEXT interviewed him
concerning reaction to the article and additional
reflections based on his research for
“The Next Church.”
NEXT: What was the genesis for the article
How and where did the idea for the
writing assignment originate
TRUEHEART: The genesis of the article
was a proposal to The Atlantic Monthly a
couple of years ago from Bob Buford
and Leith Anderson to cover some of the
same material in an article of their own
entitled “The Full-Service Church.” The
editors of the magazine were intrigued
by the idea but (apparently) felt an outsider
journalist might be more suitable
to tell the story than a couple of committed
insiders. I am in their debt for an
outstanding idea as well as for lots of
help and friendship and insight along
the way. Errors of judgment and interpretation,
of course, are mine alone.
NEXT: What kind of response have you
received to the article And from whom
TRUEHEART: The letters I have seen,
and other responses communicated to
me, fall into two general areas. I seem to
have struck a chord with people who are
frustrated by their slow-moving and
non-user-friendly churches, and apparently
inspired a few sermons and smallgroup
discussions at various churches.
The negative responses tend to fall
somewhere in a line of criticism that
says the Next Church is about yuppie
self-gratification, closed-mindedness
and gated communities, that the Next
Church has little or nothing to do with
God (or heaven or hell or death) and
everything to do with entertainment.
There’s a tone of mockery in some of
these letters, as the writers seize on the
outward manifestations (a shoppingmall
church, for example) and don’t
take the time to understand the inner
results as I tried to describe them. In
others, there’s some defensiveness from
pastors and attenders of small, old-style
churches who believe they are still on
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