Free Video Offer
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In this 4-hour live training, Jim Wilson explains and illustrates the
7 Fulcrum points that churches are using to leverage current culture to
reach young adults with the gospel. The conference was taped live and shows
Jim Wilson teaching how to leverage culture for the gospel's advantage.
It includes clips from worship services at Graceland in Santa Cruz, Sandals
in Riverside, Mosaic in Los Angeles, Westwinds Community in Jackson,
MI and Vangard in Colorado Springs.
You'll also hear direct quotes from Postmodern leaders like Erwin
McManus, Mark Driscoll, Ron Martoia, Dan Kimball, Dieter Zander and
others.
To get your free video download, purchase a copy of Future Church
(Broadman & Holman, 2004) through PayPal
for 14.99. |
Video features McManus and other Future Church Leaders
Erwin
McManus was born in San Salvador, Central America, and raised in Miami.
During his college years he was on a philosophical quest for truth.
He was an atheist part of the time, an agnostic some of the time, and uncertain
the rest of the time. In the midst of his quest, something broke
through and shattered his disbelief--God revealed Himself to him.
Under the ministry of Jim Henry and the First Baptist Church of Orlando,
FL, McManus surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and answered a
call to ministry.
Wanting to fully prepare for his
future, McManus moved to the Dallas Metroplex to enroll in Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary and continue his ministry there. He
was convinced that if the message of Jesus was true, it would work in the
worst situations, so he focused his efforts among the urban poor.
He and his wife Kim worked side jobs to support their ministry among the
people no one wanted--drug dealers, prostitutes, the homeless. While still
in Seminary, he traveled to California for a week as a part of a “Pioneer
Penetration” team. He was hooked. He wanted to return to California.
Today he is the pastor
of Mosaic, a Future Church, in Los Angeles CA, and has a new book, The
Unstoppable Force. Erwin sat down with FreshMinistry's Online
Editor in preparation for a Wilson's book, The
Future Church. This is an excerpt of that interview. |
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FreshMinistry: When I first began my research
on how to reach the emerging generations, I focused on Generation X, but
I've come to believe that that's not the issue. How do you see it?
Erwin McManus“World views are far more important than generations.
You have to understand the material from which a person is shaping his
or her world view and how to speak to this emerging world view that is
formed from multiple, conflicting views of reality.” In response
to the modern world, Christian apologetics emerged. It is not
this kind of evidence that people are looking for anymore. (Scientific
approach.) We have to return to a first century prescription of how
to take the gospel to the world. Paul honed in on the statue of the
unknown God and quoted their poets to prove the existence of God.”
(Artistic approach.)
FM: What have you done to learn about postmodernism?
EM: “When your grandfather teaches you reincarnation and your
grandmother teaches you that Jesus is Lord, you aren't taught postmodernism,
you are postmodernism.”
FM: Personally, I don't like the term, "postmodernism" because
to tells what the age is after, but it doesn't describe it very well.
EM: “I like the term ‘hyper modern’ to characterize this age.
This is not a disconnect with the modern world, it the acceleration of
modern assumptions taken to an extreme.”
FM: How has the age changed evangelism approaches?
EM: “Every human has God placed evidences within their soul.
Postmodern evangelism is extracting those evidences from the soul and show
them to them. I say, 'Inside you is a craving you need to listen
to.'"
FM: How has postmodernism affected the church?
EM: “The churches that will cease to exist are not those who are
doctrinally errant, but are spiritually errant. You can't get away
with it anymore. You can't just talk about what the bible says, you
better flesh it out or you are dead.”
“That's what's exciting about the world in
which we live. Only the viable church of Jesus Christ will survive,
the inauthentic need not apply. I want to live in the world that
if the church is not the revolution that Jesus died to establish 2000 years
ago it ceases to exist. I want to live in a world where the church
has no more crutches, or buffers to guard her from injury. I want
a church where a culture no longer protects her. Whenever the gospel
enters an environment, it prevails.”
“Its not about structures, strategies,
programs or patterns. If you don't rediscover the apostolic, you'll
die!”
FM: What advice would you give churches that want to minister
in the postmodern age?
EM: “The most revolutionary thing you can do is call people to
pray. Pray for the emerging church and young pastors and the churches
in the future that make you uncomfortable.”
FM: What advice would you give preachers that want to minister
in the postmodern age?
EM: “First, The sermons that are changing the world are the ones
where the pastor is real--sharing his journey with the congregation.
Second, stop preaching sermons and start telling stories. Third,
Break though the pressure to be a great preacher and become a great leader.”
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