randy walls
by: John O'Keefe
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1. we ask this question of everyone, how would you define the "postmodern movement?"
At its heart the postmodern movement (PM) is missional. Convinced of the radical impact that postmodernism has had on society, a group of discerning church leaders are redefining the nature of their ministries in order to adequately engage the people who have been most heavily impacted by postmodernism. Ministers in urban population centers, and cities where the education industry is strong are most directly facing the impact of postmodernism. Ministers among rural populations, while connected to the influences of postmodernism, don't face the same challenges.
Some try to define PM generationally. I'm not convinced of that approach. The church in American has been compartmentalizing ministry to age groupings for decades. Thus, ministry to postmoderns becomes just another department of the local church's mission. If PM is to be a successful strategy for mission, it must find a way to be inclusive. Otherwise, we create another niche market approach to evangelism and discipleship. The outcome will potentially be a generation of postmodern churches that find themselves, a few decades removed from the current scene, full of like-minded people unwilling to adjust their ministry paradigms to fulfill the mission of the church.
If we, as church leaders, stay connected to the missional heart of PM, we will raise up a missionary minded church that utilizes all the resources at its disposal to build relational bridges to pre-christians, incorporating them into the body of Christ inclusively, regardless of their age and attendant cultural values and tastes.
I also realize that I'm an idealist when it comes to this issue. We've got homogenous churches all over the landscape. At our heart we humans flock into groups, and perhaps we serve ourselves and our groups best when we "do church" in narrow slices of experience. It's just that I'm not willing to give up what I feel to be a biblical model of integrating competing worldviews into one body of believers that demonstrates to the non-churched world a picture of what God wants and intends His kingdom to look like.
2. what role do you see higher education can have in developing postmodern leaders?
To quote a good friend and colleague of mine, higher education gives the Holy Spirit another chance to take a whack at you. He places you in an incubator environment so that you can grow beyond your current levels of skill and spirituality. I say skill and spirituality, because one often views seminary as a knowledge factory, where we invest our money and come out the other end of the machine as a highly tuned and refined professional minister. Skill enhancement is a part of the equation, and the academic rigor of analytical reflection is a great tool for developing your ministry resource arsenal. However, the partnering of skill enhancement with spiritual formation moves the church leader beyond professionalism, into authentic, Spirit-led leadership. That's the kind of leader that PM needs to thrive.
A word must be said at this point about the institutional aspect of this. Not every institution of higher education is radically committed to the spiritual development of its participants. If skill enhancement is the strength of the program, church leaders have to find a forum in which they can incubate spiritually as well.
Finally, whether it is formal or informal learning, effective leaders are life-long learners. You can't be in school for the rest of your life, but you can and must put the same amount of energy into sharpening your leadership skills as you put into maintaining your spiritual vitality.
3. how is the AG, in general, dealing with "postmodern" believers.
The answer to this question is directly related to my comments in question #1. The majority of A/G churches are in rural population areas. That means the effects of postmodernism are not as immediately apparent as they are in urban or education centers. I suspect that most rural A/G pastors are oblivious to the various shapes and contours of postmodernism. If they have heard of it, it is usually in a negative context related to the erosion of Judeo-Christian values in America. If they happen to be further blinded to the non-moral elements of the cultural shift, their response to postmodern culture is likely to be reactionary.
I don't automatically mean by this that the A/G pastors in urban or education centers understand this cultural shift either. They certainly face the impact of it, but they may be just as likely to react against it as their rural counterparts.
The safest and most honest affirmative response that I can offer to this question is that many A/G churches, regardless of their demographics are truly missional churches. Evangelism is not a program within these churches, it is the heart of who they are. These missional A/G churches reach out to their communities to incorporate every believer into meaningful relationship and ministry, regardless of their personal distinctive or worldviews.
4. when dealing with a postmodern people we are dealing with a people who are tattooed and pierced. how does the AGTS deal with people who "look" different?
The AGTS community is about as culturally diverse a community as it can be. People from all over the globe and the nation are studying here. In addition to the cultural diversity, there is also a pretty broad age demographic as well. We have students coming right out of their state university degree programs to AGTS. They sit next to people in their classes who have come back to school after a decade or more of pastoral ministry. This melting pot requires us all to adjust to each others' cultures.
We have men and women with tattoos and piercings (mostly ears, so nothing really radical in that regard) in our student population. So it's obviously not an admissions disqualifier. It's a personal taste issue.
That's how I view the tattoo/pierced crowd, whether students or otherwise. Their markings/gauging, etc. are personal taste issues that have no reflection whatsoever as to the sincerity of their commitment to God or their call to full time service for him.
5. what does the "Pentecostal" movement have to offer a postmodern generation?
Pentecostals connect with PM in two arenas that are inherent to our tradition. First, we are experientially oriented in our worship, our discipleship, and our ministry. In fact, one of the traditional arguments against Pentecostalism is that it is an experience looking for a theology. In fact, that is not true. Pentecostals have been highly theological in our tradition. We just haven't done it in the manner of many other established theological traditions. The reason being that we are primarily theological at the level of personal narrative. We've told the stories of our faith experience more than we have written them. In fact, even when we write them, they are still printed versions of our personal narratives. This oral tradition is the way that we have passed on our faith tradition. That's the second arena by which we connect with PM. Our faith is very personal and we love telling the story of our experience.
I think these two things connect with PM by being open to the mystery of God. We experience his awesome presence in ways that affirm his reality. Then, we tell the story of how incredible these experiences truly are. That's compelling for someone looking for a inner affirmation of the loving presence of an imminent God.
6. looking back over history, the AG has been a powerful and exciting place to worship and to bring life to the christian community - do you think the postmodern movement can help wake-up the AG?
I think PM brings the opportunity for fresh encounters with the Spirit of God moving through the lives of new seekers. There really is nothing "new" under the sun, but there are certainly new ways, or rather renewed ways of viewing and encountering God in worship and community life. Rather than exclusive forms of Spirit-filled worship, PM may encourage Pentecostals to be inclusive in their form of worship, bringing our zest for vitality into worship forms that may not be inherent to our tradition. I have a Spirit-filled friend who uses a set of rosary beads in his devotional meditation in order to bring his mind under discipline in his prayer and intercession. Granted, he's not doing Hail Marys or Our Fathers, but he's using a simple device to keep him focused. He's reinvented the old prayer wheel model that Dick Eastman and others have used using something that has traditionally been associated with Catholic spirituality.
7. at www.ginkworld.net we are striving to bring together the community of faith called "christian" - what do you believe are some of the things that need to be done to bring together peoples of differing denominations?
We can rediscover the uniform ways that we connect with God in worship. There are clear distinctive in our liturgy, and we, quite frankly, get caught up in defending them as absolute and authoritative for the body of Christ. These distinctive are the focal points for our own fellowship. We've got to stop viewing each other through these lenses. Every denomination has prayer as a part of its worship. Music is another dimension of worship that can lead to common expression. Why don't we come together in the worship of Christ along these common lines? There is a great prayer movement going on in America today that is bringing together Christians of all stripes. That's encouraging.
any closing thoughts?
This is the most exciting time in the history of the Church. We are on the cutting edge of the greatest ministry opportunity since the birth of the Church. The Lord is adding to the Church daily, those who are being saved, Acts 2:47. We must cooperate with His divine initiative and commit ourselves to the missional task of reaching the unreached
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