Rethinking The Church - my review of James Emery White's book

After recently reading James Emery White's The Rise of the Nones, I was excited to read this earlier work of his.  As the title suggests, White encourages church leaders to re-think everything.  As the church growth movement enters another generation, we must again rethink not only our methodologies, but our strategies as well.  He also makes a clarion call not to rethink, but to appropriately remember our foundation of mission and vision in light of the Bible and theology.

I really connected with the chapter on rethinking evangelism.  White first suggests that we need to re-think our audience.  If we are trying to reach those who are not trusting in Christ for salvation, we must understand their level of knowledge and familiarity with Christ and the claims of the gospel.  For the purposes of illustration, White suggests an evangelistic readiness scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a follower of Christ.  He contends that in 1960, the average American was an 8.  They believed in Jesus, including that he was the son of God and lived a perfect life.  Many even believed that Jesus died on the cross for them. It was a short trip to trusting in Christ.  They merely needed to make their belief personal.  Several decades later, he contends that the average American now sits at a 3.  They likely know something about Jesus, but not much more than that he was a good teacher. They also have little to no trust in the church and religion.  It is a looooong, journey to a 10. In response, he emphasizes that evangelism must now be seen as a process, rather than a one-time event.  This is gold, especially for us long-time church folks!

The second best insight centers on White's assessment of the evangelistic environment of churches.  Using the "seeker" language of the late 90's, he describes a continuum with "seeker hostile" on one end, moving then to "seeker indifferent," then to "seeker hopeful," then to "seeker sensitive" and finally to "seeker targeted."  This is helpful and important for churches to take a good and honest look at their evangelistic ministry. After years of evangelistic emphasis, it is easy to remain even seeker indifferent.

From here, the book diminishes in quality in the remaining chapters as he addresses discipleship, worship, community and structure.  I just felt like it was very basic, and that I have heard this before, many times over!  I might be feeling this way for several reasons.  First, this book was originally published in 1997, then revised in 2003.  This means that the revised edition is 12 years old.  I have heard all of this for 12 years now, so it is nothing new, but it probably was when it was published.  Second, White acknowledges his indebtedness to Rick Warren and Bill Hybels.  In fact, his chapters pretty much follow the five purposes as outlined by Warren. I am so familiar with their philosophies of ministry that this is very old stuff to me.

In other words, this book might contain new ideas for some people, including many church leaders, but just not for me.  I cannot discount its value, for the first chapter was worth the entire book.

In the conclusion, White shares one more new insight.  He notes that as a pastor leads a church to change, the most difficult change will be from a "seeker sensitive" to a "seeker targeted" atmosphere, because at that point the average church member is forced to change and to stop seeing himself as the "customer."  While many might accuse White of supporting a consumer-oriented mindset of church, at this point he shows that he understands the missional nature of church and leaders.  But he also shows that he is a realist who understands that the move from consumer to giver/server is a long and slow one for the average church member.

If you are a church leader, especially a lay leader, trying to understand the changes happening in the church world, check out this book!