Barna, George - Revolution

[Amy Garner]

I just finished Revolution by George Barna. His premise is that the nature of how Christians interact and establish faith communities is changing. In some ways his ideas are similar to those of Brian McLaren; Barna calls these “new” Christians Revolutionaries. Revolutionaries are more interested in being the church and producing fruit than in participating in a brick and mortar church. They have a deep abiding faith and express that outside the confines of the traditional church. He points out that all though church attendance is declining in the U.S., there is an increase in spirituality among Christians. Unlike many within the traditional church who are worried about declining numbers, he believes these Revolutionaries are going to transform not only the church but the country.

Barna believes this Revolution could be the third Great Awaking in the U.S.

Revolution is an easy read and I enjoyed it.

[Andrew Henck]

I am a big fan of Brian McLaren and am looking forward to adding "Revolution" to my reading list...

[Edith K. Thurmond]

Amy, (and Andrew)

The following came in my mailbox today and I thought I would pass it along. I haven't read the book so can't comment personally, but I do always enjoy reading what Rev. Kevin Martin has to say. Most times I agree and sometimes I disagree. But he always makes me think!

http://www.vitalchurchministries.org/Newsletter/410.aspx

Edited to add: Amy, welcome to NazNet! I look forward to your continued participation and sharing with us.

Blessings,

[Wilson L. Deaton]

I think this book was awesome.

I can see why it is contraversial but I think the critics are reacting too just one theme of the book.

Barna's premise is that there is whole new group of completely committed Christians striving to really be Christlike whom he calls revolutionaires. These people have all the characteristics we would expect and desire of all good, entirely sanctified Nazarenes.

Well, almost all the characteristics: Barna says that some of these revolutionaries have discovered that they can be dedicated, committed growing Christians without affiiliation with what we think of as a traditional local church congregation. It is this part of his work that is causing the fear and criticism.

He says that these non-local-church Christans still maintain spiritual disciplines, including, "assembling" with other believers, giving, serving, and worshiping, but they do so outside of a local church setting.

He shows how many of these revolutionaries have left the church not because they are backsliding but so that they won't! He acknowledges that it is ironic but shares statistics revealing the sorry state of so many churches nationwide. For example he states:

Eight out of ten believers do not feel they have entered into the presence of God, or experienced a connection with him, during the worship service.
The typical churched believer will die without leading a single person to a lifesaving knowledge of and relationship with Jesus Christ
Only nine per cent of all born-again adults have a Biblical world-view
In a typcial week only one out of four believers will allocate some time to serving other people. Most of that time is dedicated to volunteering in church programs that serve congregants.
The likelihood of a married couple who are born-again churchgoers getting divorced is the same as couples who are not disciples of Jesus.


My favorite summary statement is when he said that, "... we are not called to go to church. We are called to be the Church.

Barna does not call for the demise of the local church. He says that whether we like it or not attendance/membership will shrink as more and more Christians live out their faith outside of local congregation churches.

Wilson

[Ron Davis]

I think this book was awesome.

I can see why it is contraversial but I think the critics are reacting too just one theme of the book.

Barna's premise is that there is whole new group of completely committed Christians striving to really be Christlike whom he calls revolutionaires. These people have all the characteristics we would expect and desire of all good, entirely sanctified Nazarenes.


Wilson

I agree. As committed as I am to the local church it is still easier to live out my faith outside of that body. I don't think Barna is trying to say it should be that way but it is what is happening. As Barna put it, "We don't have to agree with it, but we do have to deal with it."

[Randy Dillon]

Barna's premise is that there is whole new group of completely committed Christians striving to really be Christlike whom he calls revolutionaries.

How can they be completely committed to Christlikeness when He gave Himself for the church, and they do not?? The inspiration of Christ within us is to promote US? His blessed inspiration does not create individualism.

These people have all the characteristics we would expect and desire of all good, entirely sanctified Nazarenes.

Oh, so this 'unattached and unaccountable free-spiritedness' is why we can’t find our “entirely sanctified Nazarenes” !

Well, almost all the characteristics: Barna says that some of these revolutionaries have discovered that they can be dedicated, committed growing Christians without affiliation with what we think of as a traditional local church congregation. It is this part of his work that is causing the fear and criticism.

What “we think”? What about “what God thinks”? Fear? There is no fear on their part, obviously, but there should be plenty of godly fear. I fear that if we remain silent about their rebellious hearts we will have their blood on our hands!

He says that these non-local-church Christans…

Oh boy, we DO enjoy those adjectives today, don’t we? Wasn’t it Dr. Havner that asked why we couldn’t just be called “Christians”? No, for in our pluralistic and inclusive society we must broaden out the meaning. How long will it be before we accept the term “Atheistic Christian”?

…still maintain spiritual disciplines, including, "assembling" with other believers, giving, serving, and worshiping, but they do so outside of a local church setting.

Then they are just another form of yet another breakaway independent church.

He shows how many of these revolutionaries have left the church not because they are backsliding….

Oh, of course not, this is not backsliding, for everyone with a spirit of self-justification knows the church is to blame! Nazarene churches increase membership from other Nazarene churches losses too.

….but so that they won't!

Imagine what is being said here, the church that Christ pledged to build is the root cause for the departure of the saints!

He acknowledges that it is ironic but shares statistics revealing the sorry state of so many churches nationwide. For example he states:
· Eight out of ten believers do not feel they have entered into the presence of God, or experienced a connection with him, during the worship service.
· The typical churched believer will die without leading a single person to a lifesaving knowledge of and relationship with Jesus Christ
· Only nine per cent of all born-again adults have a Biblical world-view
· In a typcial week only one out of four believers will allocate some time to serving other people. Most of that time is dedicated to volunteering in church programs that serve congregants.
· The likelihood of a married couple who are born-again churchgoers getting divorced is the same as couples who are not disciples of Jesus.

We used to call this a church in need of revival, not a church in need of our individual departures!

My favorite summary statement is when he said that, "... we are not called to go to church. We are called to be the Church.

He is wrong. Ol’ Mr. Barna is not a theologian. We are to both “go to and be” the church. “Go to and be” are product words - attesting to the dunamis of the Sprit-Filled. Going to church doesn’t make me a Christian, but being a Christian means going to church. One can’t help it, it becomes the very desire of their submissive hearts. The old is gone, behold, all things have become new!

Barna does not call for the demise of the local church. He says that whether we like it or not attendance/membership will shrink as more and more Christians live out their faith outside of local congregation churches.

As stated, Mr. Barna is out of his field of expertise. Theology isn’t one of them.

[Joseph Boggs]

Where to begin? There are so many things in your response that deserve a well-thought out rebuttal. So I'll just dive in.

First of all, your basic premise that Barna is not a theologian is simply wrong. That's all there is to it. ALL believers are called to be theologians. It's part of faith - theology is literally "Words about God" - and if that's something that all believers cannot do, then what exactly shoudl we be doing? The ivory towers of academia have held theology captive long enough...it's time to return it to it's proper place.

Second, you talk about how Jesus died to found the "church." Again, you're wrong. Jesus died to take away the sins of the world. And the movement he started was not a local church movement. It was a community movement. The book of Acts makes that very clear. This “thing” that most of us call the local church in America today is decidedly NOT the church that Jesus gave his life to found…what these revolutionaries are beginning to realize is reality – the local church in America today is more like the Pharisees than we are like Jesus.

Third, I have not read the book yet (it’s on my list), but I have read Barna before, and I know that he is not saying that there is no point for revival in the local church. Jesus spoke as much to the Pharisees as everyone else. All Barna (and McLaren and Myself and Others) is saying is that more and more Christians are realizing that being a Believer is not about institutionalized religion, it’s about following Jesus.

Now, if there are institutions out there that follow Jesus, then by all means we should join those institutions and work inside and with them to change the world. And, to be sure, there ARE a few such institutions. The problem is that many of them aren’t churches. Institutions like Sojourners or Amnesty International – these are institutions that I would say are following Jesus…as they seek to make a real difference in real lives facing real crises. What we do in churches is simply take care of ourselves and our own families.

When was the last time your church participated in any kind of authentic social justice cause? When was the last time you organized a group of people to protest the blatant anti-gospel intentions and policies of our government? When was the last time you decided to research and purchase free-trade food products in order to ensure that the farmers in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and everywhere else have enough money to feed their families? What it boils down to is this: When was the last time your church did ANYTHING for someone outside of itself (and I don’t mean sending money to a missionary or anything like that – I mean someone who has no connection of ANY kind to church or to God)? I know for myself and my church, it would probably take me some time to figure that out.

Think about that for a while, and then you might begin to understand why some Believers are tired of putting a coat of whitewash on so many tombs.


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[Wilson L. Deaton]

How can they be completely committed to Christlikeness when He gave Himself for the church, and they do not?? The inspiration of Christ within us is to promote US? His blessed inspiration does not create individualism.

Randy,

How do you define "church?" From everything you say, even though I'm sure you would give the correct answer on a written test, it seems to me that on a practical level you equate "the Church" with "a local church."

A local church is but one "culturally conditioned form" (to use our Manual's phrase). You keep indicating that it is the only valid form.

In logic, there is a concept known as the, "Argument of the Beard." (A guy has a hair on his chin. Is that a beard? What about 2 hairs? 3? 127? 563?) Let's apply that to the church....

Imagine I'm in a city with no churches but I get a Bible in the mail, read it, and accept Christ. Am I now "a church?" Suppose I then convert my neighbor and we start having Biblical discussions and praying for each other. Are the two of us now a church? What if I then lead my boss to the Lord and he his wife and the four of us often for to talk and share what we've been learning from the Bible? Now are we a church? If not, does that mean we are not Christians or not spiritual? Suppose we then grow to 15 people and rent a small storefront room on Sunday mornings where we gather to read the Bible, pray, and sing a few acapella praise choruses. Now are we a church? Our 23rd convert plays the organ so we add that to our meetings. We also start a Bible class for children and initiate a food pantry for the poor. Now are we a church?

If not, when? What makes a "church" a church? How many people does it take? What level of structure must there be?

Let's go back to when there was just me and my neighbor. Suppose we find out that we can drive 10 miles to the next town where a "church" already exists. We drive up there and visit for a few weeks. We feel money has been wasted on the facility, we feel they spend too much time doing "business," they bicker over music choices which we feel are too "professional" any way, they seem to care more about themselves than other lost folk, and their teaching seems rather rigid and legalistic. So we decide to not join them but rather to continue doing what we had been doing. Does that now make us guilty for not joining a church since we had the option?

Wilson

[Randy Dillon]

Suppose we find out that we can drive 10 miles to the next town where a "church" already exists. We drive up there and visit for a few weeks. We feel money has been wasted on the facility, we feel they spend too much time doing "business," they bicker over music choices which we feel are too "professional" any way, they seem to care more about themselves than other lost folk, and their teaching seems rather rigid and legalistic. So we decide to not join them but rather to continue doing what we had been doing. Does that now make us guilty for not joining a church since we had the option?
I agree with your hypothetical that one may be saved alone, though one would then have to consider God, fetching a Spirit-led Phillip, to inquire upon the understanding of such a soul –a spiritual Eunuch of sorts, and the phrase, “how can I except some man show me” would then be quite a significant question to explore. (Acts 8:26-39, Rom. 10:13-17) So the main point to my understanding of the church is that of Spirit-led souls, fitted into a local organism, to edify this body and fulfill the Great Commission.

IF there were these 2 individuals that God assembled to give birth to a new local church (church planting) it would have this servant’s fullest blessing.

Yet in the scenario of your last paragraph there is a subtle underlying problem that isn’t as easy to detect, not at first glance. For we have to assume that God led these 2 individuals to this church, (Rom. 8:14) just to lead them out of it. OR, they are NOT being led by God at all in the first place, and thus we have men who are self-seeking rather than self-giving. My conviction is that experientially and scripturally, God leads us from our submissive hearts into an organized church for immediate accountability and servicing. He works to shape us into an ‘interdependency’ rather than an ‘individualism’. These 2 men may be the matches that strike a revival fire! As they submit and practice their self-denial in a local church, God will surely move. My concern is we see far too few of these calibers of men, as many will never enter into churches with a deep sense of their own unworthiness, where they should then consider it a privilege even to grab an old broom and sweep the floor.

Wasn't it Samuel Logan Brengle that upon informing General Booth of the Salvation Army that he was called to preach, immediately found himself assigned to polishing the cadets boots in the basement?

So unless God truly is leading them to plant a new local church, (and by the way, my brother knows His Name is used in vain every day with so many of these kinds of self-centered pursuits), then they should stay at the local church already in existence, and eventually, ever so humbly, and with much prayer, join the fracas and win a revival debate! In short: Too many quitters and not enough fighters, soldiers to fight the good fight of faith.

[Joseph Boggs]

My conviction is that experientially and scripturally, God leads us from our submissive hearts into an organized church for immediate accountability and servicing. He works to shape us into an ‘interdependency’ rather than an ‘individualism’.

Question for you, then. Who exactly will they be "servicing" in the organized church? Do you deny that, in the typical American church, they would be devoting their "service" to those people already somehow affiliated with the church? I'm just curious - legitimately curious - because my own experience has more often than not shown that this is indeed the case. Which would necessarily lead to the follow up question: Is that really the "service" that Jesus is seeking?

Further, such "in"-reach ministry might well be a symptom of the greater problem of individualism WITHIN the church. We Americans (myself included) tend to look at the church as an entity that is there to meet MY needs and not necessarily to meet the needs of others. At best, many of us would prioritize the meeting of our own needs ahead of the needs of the other.

Organizations like the ones I mentioned above (Sojourner's and Amnesty International) - and even people like Al Gore with his Inconvenient Truth - are doing more to promote "interdependency" than most organized churches. Which is a bad thing...unless, of course, you are promoting interdependency on other Christians so that we don't have to interact with those mean old sinners out there in the world.

[Randy Dillon]

Where to begin? There are so many things in your response that deserve a well-thought out rebuttal. So I'll just dive in.
Thatta boy! By the way, welcome to the board, we trust that you’ll find edification here and will look forward to reading your thoughts.

First of all, your basic premise that Barna is not a theologian is simply wrong. That's all there is to it. ALL believers are called to be theologians. It's part of faith - theology is literally "Words about God" - and if that's something that all believers cannot do, then what exactly should we be doing? The ivory towers of academia have held theology captive long enough...it's time to return it to its proper place.
This is true, God has called us all to be theologians, and I stand corrected. However, there are those who have “labored more abundantly than the rest of them” (yet not them, but the grace of God which was with them.) My Point: Mr. Barna has probably never learned how to excel in scriptural exegesis. We can pursue this if you wish.

Second, you talk about how Jesus died to found the "church." Again, you're wrong. Jesus died to take away the sins of the world. And the movement he started was not a local church movement. It was a community movement. The book of Acts makes that very clear. This “thing” that most of us call the local church in America today is decidedly NOT the church that Jesus gave his life to found…what these revolutionaries are beginning to realize is reality –the local church in America today is more like the Pharisees than we are like Jesus.

To echo our brother Peter, “I will not be negligent to always put you in remembrance of these things, though you know them already.” So respectfully, may I recommend Ephesians 5:25 for your review and consideration? We agree that there is a call to fulfill within our communities, but “two are better than one, and a threefold cord is not easily broken.”

Third, I have not read the book yet (it’s on my list), but I have read Barna before, and I know that he is not saying that there is no point for revival in the local church. Jesus spoke as much to the Pharisees as everyone else. All Barna (and McLaren and Myself and Others) is saying is that more and more Christians are realizing that being a Believer is not about institutionalized religion, it’s about following Jesus.

Again, with complete courtesy, may I suggest the wisdom of Matthew 23:1-3 where Jesus admonishes His disciples to respect the office of even these hypocritical Pharisees? Have you ever read John Wesley’s thought upon these verses?

Now, if there are institutions out there that follow Jesus, then by all means we should join those institutions and work inside and with them to change the world. And, to be sure, there ARE a few such institutions. The problem is that many of them aren’t churches. Institutions like Sojourners or Amnesty International – these are institutions that I would say are following Jesus…as they seek to make a real difference in real lives facing real crises. What we do in churches is simply take care of ourselves and our own families.

If Christ has enlightened our hearts with such a superior discernment of how they are wrong and miserable failures, then should we not be obligated to go and show these churches how to do it right? Even if they’re dead -- Hey, He is The Resurrection and The Life, right?

When was the last time your church participated in any kind of authentic social justice cause? When was the last time you organized a group of people to protest the blatant anti-gospel intentions and policies of our government? When was the last time you decided to research and purchase free-trade food products in order to ensure that the farmers in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and everywhere else have enough money to feed their families? What it boils down to is this: When was the last time your church did ANYTHING for someone outside of itself (and I don’t mean sending money to a missionary or anything like that – I mean someone who has no connection of ANY kind to church or to God)? I know for myself and my church, it would probably take me some time to figure that out.
If the Lord had positioned our church to work at that level in society we should then march right into the midst of the fray. Our primary concern is the full salvation of the lost and dying of our communities, and that alone takes blood, sweat and tears that sadly, many aren’t willing to expend.

Think about that for a while, and then you might begin to understand why some Believers are tired of putting a coat of whitewash on so many tombs.
Even after we have done all that is commanded us, we are still unworthy servants. Our whitewashed churches - full of dead men's bones - can they live again? Can God make dead bones live? One will never know if all he ever accomplishes is an isolated protest of the "institution".

[Joseph Boggs]

If the Lord had positioned our church to work at that level in society we should then march right into the midst of the fray. Our primary concern is the full salvation of the lost and dying of our communities, and that alone takes blood, sweat and tears that sadly, many aren’t willing to expend.

First off, let me thank you for the welcome. As you can tell, I am not shy about getting involved in discussions. Second, let me express my deep commitment to the local church. I am an associate minister in one of the organized churches of which I speak. I see the difficulties around me every day. I do not want to leave the church. I have no desire to see the demise of the church as an institution. And I would seriously doubt that there are many Christians out there who would be in favor of such. Rather, I think they are dissatisfied with the mentality that the purpose of the church is simply to save lost souls. This is where I thought this conversation might lead, and where we have a fundamental disagreement.

I do not find the emphasis of Jesus in Scripture to be on getting people into some ethereal, postmortem existence called "Heaven." By far the greater emphasis is on the social action of the church and her constituent members. The parable of the sheep and the goats is the prime example, but there are a multitude of others. Jesus had problems with the Pharisees because they were too focused on getting people to say the right prayers and obey the right laws. They weren't bad people, they were simply on an adventure in missing the point. Nor were they unredeemable, as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea might well testify.

In the same way, the church - as long as it views as its sole or primary purpose the getting of people into heaven - will be on an adventure in missing the point. I firmly believe that the people who are leaving the church are not doing so because they do not want church. Rather, I believe they are doing so because they want church to be something different - that Christ is calling the church to be something different. This should serve as a wake-up call to all of us who call ourselves ministers.

It breaks my heart that so many members of my own generation are choosing to live their faith apart from the church. However, I cannot say that I do not understand why they are doing so. The church - especially our own denomination - has made herself irrelevant. What she needs is people like you and me to work together to find a new way to be the church that fits the fullness of the gospel message and reflects the social concerns of the world around us.

Brian McLaren - one of my favorite authors - put it this way (paraphrased):

If the church doesn't change and change soon, in a rather short period of time, we will become like the Amish, living in quaint little towns but completely irrelevant and ineffective to the culture around us.

May God never let me be a part of that...

[Randy Dillon]

Question for you, then. Who exactly will they be "servicing" in the organized church? Do you deny that, in the typical American church, they would be devoting their "service" to those people already somehow affiliated with the church? I'm just curious - legitimately curious - because my own experience has more often than not shown that this is indeed the case.
Those are great questions. For we have no lack of organizational structures and resources to fulfill the task of preaching good tidings to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, setting at liberty them that are bruised, and proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord. But do we have the Spirit of the Lord anointing us for this function?

May I suggest that the above mentioned structures and resources run into a brick wall of carnality, or likewise, are sucked into a depraved craving that drains this heavenly pool into its own lusts and radical self-interests? We are in agreement over the problem here, just not the solution.

Which would necessarily lead to the follow up question: Is that really the "service" that Jesus is seeking?
We are endowed with divine callings, to service each other, in perfecting each other for the corporate ministry, which will then edify the body of Christ. (Eph. 4:11-13)

Further, such "in"-reach ministry might well be a symptom of the greater problem of individualism WITHIN the church. We Americans (myself included) tend to look at the church as an entity that is there to meet MY needs and not necessarily to meet the needs of others. At best, many of us would prioritize the meeting of our own needs ahead of the needs of the other.
Your use of including the first person here reflects a humility that’s very refreshing. Too much preoccupation with self calls up – front and center - the distinctive doctrine of our Nazarene denomination, to preach a message of entire sanctification where the self-willedness of our fallen natures is cleansed/corrected by a second definite work of God’s grace. THIS is the problem, an inward enmity diverting the heavenly flow, and one that must be struck dead center with an axe at its very root. Barna’s proposal ignores this theological idea, this scriptural warrant, and actually feeds the monster we’re seeking to have destroyed. Tryin’ to corner that critter has been a lifelong quest for me in Christian ministry.

Organizations like the ones I mentioned above (Sojourner's and Amnesty International) - and even people like Al Gore with his Inconvenient Truth - are doing more to promote "interdependency" than most organized churches. Which is a bad thing...unless, of course, you are promoting interdependency on other Christians so that we don't have to interact with those mean old sinners out there in the world.

Of course, that may be true with churches in dire need of revival.

[Randy Dillon]

Rather, I think they are dissatisfied with the mentality that the purpose of the church is simply to save lost souls. This is where I thought this conversation might lead, and where we have a fundamental disagreement.

No, we agree here more than we disagree, it’s just that at its best there’s a reciprocity between the two, power to save souls brings forth the fruit that collectively works to transform society, and that increases a harvest to win more souls. We’d both confess that we have little hope of any social utopia however, even though we’d agree that we should be that salt to societies ills. You’ve challenged me into looking again into some of these areas, and for that I thank you.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Thanks to Amy for starting this thread - and I know it has grown cold, but I am just getting to the book and, having read over half way through I want to add my reaction so far.

First, I think that while the "non-church-going Christian" aspect of the book is the most attention getting part of the book that it is not the main message.

Second, I think Barna is a bit hard on the Church in some of his comments. He classifies people as "church-goers" and then lays their spiritual failures at the feet of the church. In many cases, these are people the church is reaching out to without considering them to be believers yet. Or put another way, if I applied his approach to hospitals I would be writing a book about how bad hospitals are because there are so many sick people there.

Third, I fully agree with him that believers must take more personal responsibility for their spiritual lives. Just today I read this: "It is not a church's responsibility to make you into this mold. It is not society's job to push you in this direction. You are responsible for who you are." The dynamic of the church is not that people come to church, get a helping of passion for Christ, and then go home. Instead, it is that passionate people make the Church passionate for Christ. In that, I fully support Barna.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Barna says that there are 7 dominant spheres of influence in our culture:
1. Movies
2. Music
3. Television
4. Books
5. The Internet
6. Law
7. Family

He says there are 5 secondary influences:
1. School
2. Peers
3. Newspapers
4. Radio
5. Business

His main point is that there is one glaring thing missing: the Church. It is his contention that the local church has little or in influence on society. He thinks that the "revolutionaries" he talks about in his book are the hope of our culture.

Laying that aside, I wonder what you think of his lists. Can it be that movies have such a powerful influence on our society? And, if movies, music, and tv are so important, what can the Church do to better advance its message via these mediums?