MC535: The Emerging Church in
the 21st Century (4 units)
Eddie Gibbs, Donald A. McGavran
Professor of Church Growth
Fall 2003 Pasadena
DESCRIPTION:
This seminar seeks to identify the key characteristics of modern and postmodern contexts and to address the challenges each presents to the local church. The "modern" context refers to the self-confident, highly secular, rationalistic and humanistic worldview, whereas the "postmodern" reflects the collapse of the Enlightenment paradigm and abandonment of the search for objective truth and meaning, and its replacement by a therapeutic and survival mentality, in a decentralized world of competing interests.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
• Appreciate the nature of the changing cultural context
and spiritual climate in which the church seeks to bear witness in the Western
world and beyond.
• Understand the need for the church to be restructured as missional
congregations in postmodern culture.
• Provide practical guidelines to help the student to address issues relating
to worship, spirituality and witness as the church addresses the
post-Christendom and neo-pagan cultural context.
• Provide practical guidelines to lead the church to a more authentic and
robust discipleship in order to become develop missional communities.
COURSE FORMAT:
This course meets daily for two
weeks. Pre-reading is required. The classroom sessions will be interactive,
reflecting on the assigned topic for each day, seeking to identify the key
concepts and relating them to the ministry experience and goals of the
students. While postmodernity is
largely a Western issue, it is now beginning to impact other areas of the
world, especially the industrialized nations of Asia.
REQUIRED READING: (Choose from
any of the following to make up at least 1,000 pages for 500 level course)
Drane, John, The
McDonaldization of the Church. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd: 2000.
Flory, Richard F. and Donald E. Miller, GenX
Religion. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Gibbs, Eddie. ChurchNEXT. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
Grenz, Stanley J. A Primer On
Postmodernism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996.
Smith, Jr., Chuck, The End of the World... As We Know It. Colorado Springs, CO:
WaterBrook Press, 2001.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Guder, Darrell L., The
Continuing Conversion of the Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
Roof, Wade Clark, Spiritual
Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Wagner, C. Peter, Churchquake: How the
New Apostolic Reformation is shaking up the church as we know it. Ventura,
CA: Regal, 1999.
ASSIGNMENTS:
1. Write a 2500
word paper in which the first part identifies the key features of the cultural
context and the challenges it poses for the church, and the second identifies
the key transition points for the church, describing where the church is
currently in relation to each and what, why, and how transitions will need to
be made.
2. Observe, describe and analyze your
experience at two ‘postmodern’ churches.
Each of these reports will be 2500 words in length.
Th.M. Students will be required to add 1250 words to assignment #1
demonstrating an ability to critique and conceptualize. In addition, they will
need to observe, describe and analyze one additional church (2500 words).
PREREQUISITES: None
RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM:
Elective
FINAL EXAM: None