Throughout Soong-Chan Rah's book, The Next Evangelicalism, I've been wondering just what the Church of the future looks like. Who will be the faces leading the way and how will the "success" of their ministries be measured? The answers to some of these questions begin to take shape with questions posed by Rah himself:"Instead of putting forth yet another white leader in his thirties with a mega-church paradigm as the model of ministry, should we be lifting up the Haitian pastor, who drives a cab during the day, attends seminary classes at night and pastors the church on the weekend?"
"Or the Dominican pastor who returns to the Dominican Republic on 'vacation' and hold numerous evangelistic rallies and ends up planting several churches?"
"Or the Hmong pastor that an entire community relies upon to be both the civic and spiritual leader, but whose church never grows past forty worshipers? Are we willing to acknowledge that the immigrant church that appears to be people in need, might actually have something to teach us?" (p.179)
1 comment:
Why even have a church at all? Why not look around at your friends and say, "This is my church"?
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