Excerpts from Planting New Churches in a Postmodern World

I'm reading a new book called Planting New Churches in a Postmodern World, by Ed Stetzer. I grew up in a Swedish Baptist Church in the Baptist General Conference and have attended a Southern Baptist Church for the last 10 years. As a boomer I grew up in the modern church, but never quite felt at home with the concepts of modernity. I believe that men and women called of God can help to make today's church more relavent to the culture we live in. I believe, along with Stetzer, that the best way to do this is through a new church plant focusing on today's new generations. At the urging of one of my mentors I picked up Ed Stetzer's book Planting New Churches in a Postmodern World. What a great book. It is written by a Southern Bapitist Conference North American Mission Board member, Ed Stetzer. He runs the Nehemiah Project that encourages new seminary grads to be new church planters. Reading this book has changed my view of what the Southern Baptists are doing in the church planting arena. They are heavily pushing new church plants that are culturally relavant, missional, and relational. It is very refreshing. I am only on page 26 but it is awesome so far. Here is a couple of my favorite quotes:

Church planting is done properly when leaders make a decision to engage an unchurched world in radical fashion......Today North America needs to be treated as a mission field in the same way that we in the West have approached much of the rest of the world for the past several centuries. (p13)

A missional church is willing and eager to engage the culture with the truths of the gospel. Today, we desperately need persons, churches, and denominations to apply the lens of missiology to the North Ameircan context, not just to international fields. Christendom is dead and missionaries are needed. (p14)

I never thought I would hear a SBC NAMB board member say Christendom is dead! I think we have an admission that we need to change our ways.

Paul did four things in his effort to be culturally relavant:

• He understood the Athenian position on reality.
• He understood an underlying spiritual interest.
• He looked for positive points within their worldview.
• He encouragedd them to find true fulfillment in Christ. (p. 21)

Culturally appropriate evangelism answers the actual questions being asked by a given culture, rather than those questions the church believes the culture should ask. (p. 21)

And my favoriet quote from Stetzer so far:

Indigenous churches look different from culture to culture. Thus, one would expect that a biblically faithful indigenous church would look different in Senegal from an indigenous church in Singapore. One must also expect an indigenous church in Seattle to look different from one in Sellersburg, Indiana. Indigenous churches look different from location to location. Further, they look different from generation to generation. Faithful indigenous churches take their teaching from the unchanging biblical text and apply it to the ever-changing cultural milieu. (p.25)

So far I am impressed with the understanding Stetzer shows of church planting in postmodern times. I will post some quotes here as I work my way through the book. It looks very promising.