An e-book by Dr. John S. Bohannon

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The emerging church movement has significantly influenced contemporary Christianity. Evidence abounds—the creation of blogs, conferences, seminary classes, doctorate programs, and the birth of an entire class of literature. In recent years much has been written to help the church better understand this latest Christian phenomenon. However, a deficiency still exists when it comes to understanding the role of preaching within the movement. Since preaching is God’s appointed means to convert sinners and preserve the church, then an understanding of this movement’s preaching is of vital importance to the church and the culture it serves.

Endorsements

"An absolutely superb treatment. Dr. Bohannon's critique and evaluation is thorough, even exhaustive! It is also judicious and compelling. This book is a must read for those who care about the importance of theological conviction and its impact on the contemporary ministry of the Word. Not all who read this work will agree with his conclusions (I do!), but all will be forced to carefully consider what he says."

—Danny Akin
President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

"If you're passionate about preaching and want to discern what preaching should look like in emerging contexts, you'll want to read this book. Bohannon provides the reader an exhaustive and insightful look into the preaching ministry of four of the emerging church movement's most colorful and sometimes controversial leaders. There are things to affirm and others to reject, and now, thanks to Bohannon, we have a helpful tool to help us discern the difference between the two."

—Ed Stetzer
President of LifeWay Research

"Much has been written about the emerging church, but little thought has been given to the preaching of this movement. John Bohannon offers us a thorough taxonomy of the homiletics of the emerging church, showing how the movement's leaders measure up as expositors. In so doing, he offers each of us the opportunity to take the pulse of our own preaching. If the health of the church depends upon the quality of its preaching, we will want to pay attention to this critique."

—Kenton C. Anderson
Professor of Homiletics, ACTS Seminaries of Trinity Western University; author of Choosing to Preach

Who Is John Bohannon?

John S. Bohannon (Ph.D., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the cofounder and preaching pastor of Water's Edge Community Church in Lake Country, Virginia. He has authored publications on preaching and church planting and serves as an adjunct preaching instructor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. John resides with his wife and three children in Lake Country, Virginia. To learn more about him, visit his blog.

Here is the full video of our interview with Dr. Michael Horton.

To watch or share shorter clips from the interview, use these links:

• What Is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism?
• Why You Can't "Be" the Gospel
• What We Should Learn From the Mainline Denominations
• Is the New Perspective on Paul Dangerous?
• Why Is the Resurgence of Reformed Theology Encouraging?
• Michael Horton's Advice to the Young Reformed
• What Is the Greatest Theological Challenge Facing the Next Generation of Pastors?
• Building a Kingdom vs. Receiving a Kingdom
• The Gospel-Driven Life

Re:Train

If you want to be in missional ministry, you need training. World-class theological and practical ministry training at four strategic locations: retrain.org.

Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the video.

We make the same mistakes the disciples did when we only focus on building the kingdom, not receiving and being stewards of the kingdom. In this clip, Michael Horton explains the difference.

In this interview series, Mars Hill PR Director Nick Bogardus interviews Dr. Michael Horton. For more information and resources from Dr. Horton, check out White Horse Inn.

Advance 10

The Advance 10 conference will equip leaders to engage the changing culture of the New South with the unchanging message of the gospel. Find out more.

Tyler Jones is lead pastor of Vintage21 Church in Raleigh, NC, and Southeast Regional Director for Acts 29. He will be speaking at the upcoming conference Contextualizing the Gospel in the New South on April 26-28.

There is a 250 year-old cemetery near my house and often my family and I will meander through it. The range of life recorded in this small plot of land is immense. As you may expect, there are gravestones testifying to lives lived that remind us of the few years we will walk this planet. I often find myself captivated by single graves, wondering exactly who those men were. What made them passionate? What did they yearn for, fight for, and die for? The cemetery also bears witness to eras of history. Entire sections contain the graves of veterans, memorializing many lives lost in a few short years.

The events these men died for are markers along the timeline of our country. They shift the politics, well-being and even the mindset of the people. Generations are affected for good and bad; the lives of loved ones are lost, the liberty gained is precious. History scrutinizes each event, large or small, and volumes are written about the heroes and cowards whose actions changed the world.

The Unnoticed War

We are in the midst of a war, and yet there are no records of battles waged in protest, no heroic lives lost. It is not marked by battles or invasions; you won’t hear reports on the news, yet lives are at stake. At this very moment, there is an exodus from the local church and ultimately away from worshiping Jesus—and we are standing by until the graves are marked. In our time and in our place, we—without strategy, without labor, without laying down our lives—are allowing the South to become a boneyard of religious history. This war being waged around us has at its very foundation liberty and eternal life.

I am not attacking the church, nor criticizing the many thousands who labor tirelessly to make much of Jesus—I am immensely thankful for these men and women. Actually, this is precisely the opposite of an attack. My desire is to help the church in the South take an honest look at where we are and how we are laboring to accomplish the Great Commission. I realize calling the South a “religious boneyard” is hard for some to digest. There is a church on every street corner and over 80 percent of people in the South believe in God with absolute certainty. It would seem that the church is healthy and doing well.

A Church Building on Every Corner

It is true that there is a church building on every street corner, in every city of the South. For example, I work in downtown Raleigh, many floors up in an office building, and from my window I can count seven churches in plain sight. In fact, this alone is the best evidence that the South is a boneyard of religious history. There are many, many churches in the South—but most are dying, if not dead already. One of the largest denominations in the South reports that when their churches reach 40 years in existence, those churches enter into a steep rate of decline ultimately ending in death. This same denomination reports that 82% of their churches are older than 40 years in existence.

Reviving the Boneyard

This is the reality of the South. There are always multiple church buildings in plain sight, and yet they simply represent an ancient age of church vitality that has passed. Many churches must own the fact that they are in steep decline and radically re-orient their very existence. Some churches are dead already; they should disband and give their resources to church planters so the mission can continue. All churches in the South must get serious about the mission and begin to reproduce by planting and revitalizing churches.

The problem the church is facing in the South is much deeper than just older churches that are less effective than they used to be and are dying. There are five or six contributing factors causing the decline of the church. In my next blog post, I will show you how to be Southern is to be religious, and yet Christian faith in the South exists primarily in name alone.

Advance 10

The Advance 10 conference will equip leaders to engage the changing culture of the New South with the unchanging message of the gospel. Find out more.

9 Leadership Lessons from Baseball: Click | View Series

Lesson 4: Have Spring Training

Every year, every Major League team has spring training. During this time, every position is open for varying degrees of competition, and the best performing person earns the job. Any organization that does not have spring training will never have the best team on the field. Using the statistics gained on a person and their performance, in addition to robust performance reviews that include the GM watching their performance firsthand, everyone needs to prove their place on the team and earn their position every year. In spring training, some Minor Leaguers surprise and make the team, some players don’t perform and are cut, some are sent down to the Minor Leagues to improve their game, and a few players change positions for the good of the team.

Rarely, if ever, does a church have spring training. The common belief is that you get to keep your position no matter how poor your performance, or that you cannot lose your position until you die, become a heretic, or commit adultery, no matter how many balls go between your legs. The result is that most churches take the field every year with a bunch of players out of position and people in uniform who have no business being on the team. These churches assume that they are losing for good reasons, like being nice and ineffective for God. At Mars Hill, the season after Easter is the start of our spring training and everybody knows it.

To be continued.

Mars Hill Global

Serving the church and spreading the gospel. Help support this effort by giving to the Global Fund. More info at MarsHillGlobal.com.

The book Pagan Christianity is a book that makes some serious charges against the offices, functions, and forms of the church. Additionally, it has become something of a manifesto for those disgruntled with the church, rebellious against spiritual authority, and intrigued by suspicious doctrine. The conclusions of the book are antithetical to nearly everything I write with Dr. Gerry Breshears in Vintage Church and are personally concerning to me as a church pastor. Because Pagan Christianity poses such a serious threat to the health and well being of the church, I felt it merited a formal critique and commissioned my research team to review the book for some pastors who had asked for it. Over time, requests for that critique have become so numerous that I have decided to post it online for free to be of service to the whole church of Jesus Christ. Lastly, this critique is intended to in no way serve as a critique of the men who wrote Pagan Christianity. By all accounts they are brothers in Christ whom I love but with whom I disagree.

• Pagan Christianity Critique (PDF download – footnotes included)

Click here to read the critique on the site (minus footnotes)

Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the video.

Georgia A29 Pastor Matt Adair talks about church revitalization, the difference between planting and revitalization, and his one thing for planters/revitalizers. He offers a helpful perspective we haven’t heard yet in our video interviews. Watch. Learn. Tweet.

I sat down with Matt at the recent Acts 29 Boot Camp hosted by Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY.

Pastor Dad

Every dad is a pastor. The important thing is that he cares for his flock well. Pastor Mark Driscoll's new eBook offers spiritual insights on fatherhood. Get it here.

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At the recent Acts 29 AMBITION Boot Camp, sponsored by Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY, I had the opportunity to talk with Acts 29 Pastor Jamie George, from Franklin, TN, about what has made his church merger successful and his “one thing” for church planters.

Also, Jamie will be speaking at an upcoming local event in Franklin, TN, called Honesty: Death to Performance.

Porn Again Christian

Pastor Mark Driscoll's frank discussion on pornography and masturbation is now available from Amazon. Find out more.

“Missional Ecclesiology” takes its cue from Jesus’ words to his disciples: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). By this pronouncement, Jesus commissioned and launched the missional church as the community of divinely-called and divinely-sent ministers to proclaim the gospel and advance the kingdom of God.

Posts in this series:

1. The Trinitarian Church
2. Gathered and Sent
3. The Work of the Missional Church
4. The Structure of the Missional Church

Re:Train

We are launching The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) to prepare leaders for ministry locally and around the world. Additional details and downloadable application form here.

From the free e-book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship.

Empower People to Serve

One way to help people connect with Christ-centered community is by empowering people with the gospel to serve God and others. Serving is one of the greatest things that Christians can do as disciples. We should be committed to helping people grow as disciples by using their gifts and talents for God in a way that will bless others and make the community a better place. The Bible tells us that God gave each of us the ability to do certain things well (Romans 12:6‐8). The Holy Spirit gives gifts to believers to be used for the building up of the body of Christ. As a church, we need to help people find and use these gifts for God. Serving is a powerful connection point that many churches ignore or simply overlook.

Serving others is certainly not encouraged in our individualistic society. To be a servant means that we must look after the interests of others. It means selflessness as opposed to selfishness. A servant asks, “What can I do for others” instead of “what can they do for me?”

Serve Like Jesus

Christians must strive to be like Jesus, our perfect example. Jesus set the example of being a servant by saying, “For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). This scripture beautifully embodies the task of Christian ministry. Disciples are to serve and give their lives for others. Serving is the example that Jesus gave, and his followers should follow it. Jesus met both the physical and spiritual needs of the people he ministered to in the Gospels. As the Body of Christ, we become his representatives to a lost world.

Create Pathways for Service

A servant revolution in our churches will reach our community and show the love of Christ. Each week and month, our church provides dozens of different opportunities for people to make a difference through service projects that touch peoples’ lives in the community. These pathways of service help people connect to their community with their God-given ability to serve. Serving is one of the major connection points in our church. The church should be an army of servants who are making a positive difference in their families, their community, and the world. Help find creative pathways for people to connect to your church through serving.

Read Winfield Bevins’ free e-book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship.

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