Brave New Church : What the Future Holds

by KEW RICHARD

• ISBN13: 9780819218704
• ISBN10: 0819218707
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-03-01
• Publisher: Abingdon Pr

Summary

As midnight approached the first day of the year 2000, optimists and pessimists waited to see if the world would be different in the seconds ahead. But nothing changed...or did it? In Brave New Church the Reverend Richard Kew asks us to step back from all the hoopla and look critically at where the church is at the beginning of this new century, and where it is headed.

Kew is no novice to observing trends today; in previous books he correctly identified many of the religious trends in the 1990s. Now Kew turns his attention to what is emerging in the new century and examines how the increasing globalization, eccelsiastical reconfigurations, fiscal and demographic realities, the internet, and other challenges confront the church.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Introduction	xiii
Globalization Will Continue Apace	1	(17)
The Arrival of the Global Village	1	(3)
A New Global Generation	4	(3)
The Global Village	7	(1)
Globalized Denominations	8	(3)
The Global Mission Endeavor	11	(2)
Death to the Tyranny of Geography	13	(1)
Disintegration	14	(4)
A Process of Radical Ecclesiastical Reconfiguration	18	(15)
Tectonic Changes on the Church Scene	18	(5)
Following in the Steps of Martin Luther	23	(2)
Ecclesiastical War ``Games''	25	(1)
The Rise of Generation X	26	(1)
Too Irrelevant?	27	(2)
Back to Tradition	29	(4)
The Future Lies with Mission-Driven Units	33	(14)
Back to the Fifties	33	(1)
A Whisper of Evangelism	34	(2)
Breaking the Christendom Habit	36	(1)
No Longer Such a Churchgoing Nation	37	(2)
Talking Evangelism More Than Doing Evangelism and Mission	39	(3)
Christians and the Culture	42	(5)
A Growing Mound of Major Fiscal Challenges	47	(12)
Benefits of the Boom	47	(2)
Spirituality and Fiscal Health	49	(2)
Where Does the Money Come From?	51	(2)
The Largest Capital Transfer Ever	53	(1)
Finding a Variety of Ways to Play the Bills	54	(5)
Radically Changing Demographics	59	(12)
Wishful Statistics	59	(1)
The Missing Generations and Leadership	60	(2)
The Missing Generations and Youth Ministry	62	(2)
Interdenominational Youth and Campus Ministries	64	(2)
Ethnic, Household, and Demographic Diversity	66	(2)
How Do We Respond?	68	(3)
The Fast Approaching Gray Wave	71	(15)
The Coming Age Wave	71	(3)
Globalization and Aging	74	(1)
Battered Family Systems	75	(1)
The Challenges to the Churches	76	(1)
A Christian Elder Corps	77	(4)
Oldsters, Pastors, Surrogates, and Missionaries	81	(2)
The Sandwich Generation	83	(1)
Christians Don't Retire	83	(3)
An Array of Impossible Moral Dilemmas	86	(13)
Beyond Culture Wars	86	(3)
The Human Genome Project and Beyond	89	(2)
How about Cloning Then?	91	(2)
To Understand and to Find Moral Ways Forward	93	(2)
Science and the Presence of God	95	(4)
The Continuing Spirituality Boom	99	(14)
Spirituality Crept Up While We Weren't Looking	99	(2)
Even Science is Changing Its Tune	101	(2)
Give Me That On-line Religion	103	(2)
New Religious Wars?	105	(3)
It's Formation, Stupid!	108	(5)
Learning to Live with and Love the Internet	113	(12)
The Internet Crept Up and Caught Us by Surprise	113	(2)
By Trial and Error	115	(2)
The Internet Changes the Way We Work	117	(2)
Another Meeting Place	119	(1)
English---The Lingua Franca	120	(1)
Change, Change, Change	121	(4)
Massive Theological Rethinking	125	(11)
Theology Responds to the Changing Culture	125	(2)
What Goes Around, Comes Around	127	(3)
The Changing Face and Influence of Liberal Christianity	130	(2)
Postmodernity---Again	132	(1)
The Wild Card of the Global South	133	(3)
Conclusion: Why Trends?	136
Active Vision, Not Wandering Aimlessness	136
The Purpose of Trends	137
Developing a Way to Address the Future	139