Accidental Pastor

It is a rumor and probably a myth that Nero "fiddled" while Rome burned as a result of a fire that he set. No matter where the phrase comes from it has come to mean: "To occupy oneself with unimportant matters and neglect priorities during a crisis." Is this the story of the life of the church in America today, or what?

There has been a lot of conversation in the last year or so about "heresy." I suppose we can partially blame that on my friend, Spencer Burke, who titled his latest book, "A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity." Or perhaps we can thank those folks like D.A. Carson and the Pyromaniacs or Slice of Laodicea for occupying their time with hunting down those who do not adhere to their standards of orthodoxy.

On the eve of the start of the tenth year of publication for Next-Wave I wonder if most of us are not occupying ourselves with unimportant matters. But Charlie, you might say, what is the big crisis?

First of all, I will have to ask my younger friends to forgive me in advance for a couple of things. I am probably a "modern" thinker. I am a baby boomer. I think in terms of cause and effect. I don’t think you can build a building by picking out the color of the wallpaper first. I think sequentially. I believe that movements need to move. I have personally witnessed the rapid decline of a movement in the aftermath of the death of its founder. I was raised in the era of Billy Graham and the Four Spiritual Laws and just can’t shake the feeling that the world and its inhabitants are "going to hell in a handbasket" at a rapid pace.

I have to admit that I have been somewhat comforted by the ideas put forth by some of my friends that "hell" may not be all we thought it was cracked up to be, or that making a decision is not the same as making a disciple, but can we really be satisfied with the results of our "church" methodologies?

I was personally quite motivated to evangelize young people because my oldest son, who had been raised as a church goer and attendee of Christian school, was quite willing to tell me as he approached the age of 16 that he didn’t believe in God or, for that matter, the church he was raised in. I tried everything I knew to cause him to change his mind. I took him to evangelistic meetings. I reasoned with him. I gave him books. Nothing worked. Eventually he got married, had his firstborn son, and attended a Promise Keepers conference and went forward for the altar call on Friday night. "Whew," that was a close one, I thought.

As a teenager in the 60s, the era of sex, drugs and rock and roll, I was a poster child for the idea, "Don’t trust anyone over 30." And in fact, when I reached the age of 30, I didn’t trust myself very much. Certainly the church of my youth had nearly completely missed my generational cohort by refusing to usher our music and our desire to lead into their sanctuaries of worship. If this were not so, every church in America would be bursting to overflowing. We know that the megachurch success stories are the exception, not the rule.

If the parents and elders of my youth missed evangelizing my generation, what will happen as the "new" baby boomer elders make the same mistakes? What of the millions of young people who have been raised without any exposure to the Bible or church except what they can see as they whisk by Robert Schuller, Joel Osteen and Benny Hinn while on their way to MTV? I am sorry that I can’t abdicate my own role in the process of evangelization of the next generation by becoming "transformational," "missional," "incarnational," and leaving it up to the Holy Spirit to preach the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the next generation.

Perhaps I can join with so many others of my generation and proclaim that the younger leaders are "not ready" to assume leadership and responsibility. Bill Clinton was the first baby boomer president, and George Bush has been the second. Let’s be honest. Did they do that bad a job compared to their predecessors?

Today there are those who are praising Nobel Laureate Al Gore for his role in highlighting the global warming crisis. No matter what your politics, it is clear that Mr. Gore made a valiant effort to stop the "fiddling." I am wishing that church leaders of every age and every stripe would face an inconvenient truth. We are failing our children! Whatever we thought worked, no longer does. We have to do something more than just talk about it if we are going to change the outcome.

Just a quick side note in conclusion. My son has followed through on his Promise Keepers’ commitment and is an active part of his local church community. As I prayed with my daughter-in-law over the phone yesterday before she underwent surgery I realized that our faith in God is alive and well and continuing into the next generation. I am grateful for God for his intervention in our lives and for the hope that our faith provides as we face the challenges of daily life.

From 1990 to 1995 I went to school, well not really. I had gotten intrigued with the concept of church growth and church planting and attended conferences and seminars aplenty, bought books and audio material, and, in general, immersed myself in the subject. I guess that is why I have always liked conferences, they can be great learning experiences.

There are two events happening this week, or ten days, that I would really have liked to attend. One is Soularize. This year it is in the Bahamas. A highlight for Jordon Cooper was his opportunity to swim with the sharks, literally! My friend Spencer Burke puts on a great event and there are some people there I want to meet some day.

The other event is Off The Map by my friend, Jim Henderson. If you haven’t attended a Henderson event, you must experience it at least one time in your life. It is part Conan O’Brien, part Charlie Rose, part Oprah, part Deal or No Deal, and just downright entertaining as well as inspiring. For some reason I just knew I couldn’t make those events this year, too much happening in the Wear Family, Inc.

Tuesday my 4 yr. old has an outpatient hernia repair. I take the red-eye to Tampa tonight and then return to California on Wednesday. It has been hard to sleep this week with all that is happening in the family. But a thought for my friends in the Bahamas and next week’s Off The Map in Seattle bubbles to the surface once in a while.

Next-Wave editor Bob Hyatt writes:

I’m currently privileged to edit what Andrew Jones calls "possibly the greatest emerging church online publication ever."

It’s not only a privilege but even a pleasure to have a hand in shaping what has been and continues to be a voice, a reflection, a sounding board and even a challenge to this emerging church conversation we find ourselves in.

In this Issue of Next-Wave we have two ways for you to reflect with us…

One is the amazing e-book that Charlie Wear has put together. It chronicles the history of Next Wave by highlighting the contributions of all those who have edited over these last eight years. It’s an amazing compendium of articles, interviews and reviews as well as some bonus materials…

It’s official. Next-Wave has been publishing for 100 months. Amazing! I have spent a considerable amount of time compiling articles by the five editors of the ezine, interviews and bonus material.

You can download the ebook in either pdf or doc format. If you want to help defray the costs of keeping Next-Wave going, feel free to make a contribution.

100 Months — Five Editors  pdf
100 Months — Five Editors doc

Blessings…

This is Bob Hyatt’s interview with Doug Pagitt…Feel free to return to Next-Wave after listening or downloading.

Editor Bob Hyatt has assembled another excellent issue of Next-Wave. Of special note is his interview with Emergent pioneer, Doug Pagitt. Bob has reminded me that next month is the 100th issue of Next-Wave. That’s something, huh? Over eight years of articles, conversations, comments and wrangling about this thing that God is doing.

I am going to reflect about the past eight years in an article for the 100th issue, but it continues to amaze me.

The Feb07 issue of Next-Wave is online…Enjoy!

The Nov06 issue is online and the cover story by Dan Kimball deals with the barriers that get in the way of "being" the church every day of the week. Editor Bob Hyatt has put together another fine collection of articles and in his editorial he encourages pastors, leaders and others to contribute to the conversation by submitting articles to Next-Wave.

In the summer of 1998 I discovered the Internet as a means of communication. No, I didn’t "invent" the internet like Al Gore. Prior to that summer, I knew there was something called Compuserve and America Online, but I didn’t know how it worked, or that it could be used as a means of communication. What I did know is that I wanted to do something to encourage and support ministry to what I thought of as "Generation X."

I was raised in a denominational church. This particular group had a legalistic bent. When my first marriage failed, I began a spiritual journey that lead me to the pastorate of a Vineyard church. Along the way I became interested in church growth theory and church planting. A father of four teenagers, I also became concerned that the church was doing little to avoid the mistakes it had made with my generation.

By and large, the church missed the baby boomer generation. Permissive parenting styles, situational ethics and increased experimentation with recreational drugs created an atmosphere where no religious practice was more common than nominalism. The "don’t trust anyone over 30" generation certainly didn’t trust the church to solve their spiritual "issues." New age religion abounded in the "age of Aquarius."

When this environment was coupled with authoritarian leadership styles, traditional church liturgies, and an unwillingness to listen to the real concerns of my generation, the result, in most cases, was a massive exodus from mainline denominations and Catholicism, particularly in North America. Europe was already post-Christian. While the third-world was experiencing a pentacostal-led awakening, there were few bright spots on the North American church scene.

The Jesus People movement that spawned the Calvary Chapels and the Vineyards, while heartening, did not truly penetrate the heart of my generation. As one of those who had left the church and then returned in my late 30’s I did not see a lot being done to strategically target and communicate the gospel in a meaningful way to the next generations.

In the fall of 1998, With these thoughts in mind, I approached a friend of mine, Rogier Bos, and asked him to edit a web magazine to deal with these issues. When I first talked with Rogier, the term postmodern was not on my radar. I had seen John Wimber lecture on the cycles of a movement. As he drew 20-yr. waves on a whiteboard, it struck me that with every generation God was calling another wave of emerging leaders to reach the world with his message. I told Rogier we would call the web magazine, Next-Wave, and he took it from there. The inaugural issue of Next-Wave was published January, 1999.

I had become acquainted with Rogier Bos while he interned at a nearby church. Rogier is a native of the Netherlands. He was also a fledgling web designer and a student of the postmodern cultural shift that had already affected Europe and was beginning to be an important topic of conversation in the North American church. Rogier’s calling was to participate in God’s plans for church planting in Europe. He set the course that Next-Wave has followed for the last five years.

As he wrote in the inaugural issue: "Next-Wave is a web magazine for leaders about ministry and church in the 21st century, or postmodern era. Our goal is to connect pioneers, and to become a place to exchange insights, stories, pieces of wisdom, questions, models, experiences and strategies."

With a background in publishing a local weekly newspaper in the early 70s, I was unprepared for Next-Wave’s eventual reach. It cost me hundreds of dollars to print 3000 newspapers and deliver them to the local community on a weekly basis. Next-Wave was available to millions of readers on every continent for a cost of less than $100 per month.

Rogier received a small stipend during the months that he created and edited Next-Wave. When he and Sophie returned with their family to the Netherlands to begin their ministry with Christian Associates International, the press of family life, the move, starting a new ministry position and a new business made it impossible for him to continue editing Next-Wave. After a stint as communications director of CAI, Rogier is currently pastoring and planting a church in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Next-Wave has been created by the participation of its contributors. The first contributing editor, David Hopkins, became its most prolific author and the second editor of Next-Wave. His first article was entitled: Superman is dead: No more "hero-for-hire" clergy. David began writing for Next-Wave while he was still a student at Texas A&M. In his early 20s, David carried his responsibilities with Next-Wave while he held his first high school English teaching job, wrote his first play, became engaged and then married to his wife, Melissa. Since then David has become a famous comic book author and the proud father of Kennedy.

I became acquainted with Next-Wave’s next editor, Jason Evans, when I received his article, the Church at Matthew’s House. Jason is one of the emerging practitioners of the "simple" church movement. With his first issue in September, 2003, He created an extensive editorial team, and led Next-Wave to a new collaborative editing software environment. Today he continues to be as passionate as I am about seeing new churches planted to reach the emerging generations.

In between the editorial tenures of these three young men, I have fulfilled the publishing and editorial roles with Next-Wave. While our design has always been pretty funky, that is, until Malcolm Hawker became our web designer in June of 2005, our content has always been interesting. Searching the archives of Next-Wave is like a video clip of where what we now call the "emerging church" has been.

Now, with the October 2006 issue, I have once again stepped down from my "interim" editorial duties to Bob Hyatt. Bob’s writing first appeared in Next-Wave in August 2003 with his article, Profoundly Disturbed on the Fourth of July. That article had consequences in Bob’s life which are best explained in his own words:

"…[The] article was first published in the summer of 2003. Shortly thereafter, my church employer and I…uh…parted company. It was God’s way of getting me off my rear and into the church plant that I am now leading, but at the time it was a little scary. To their credit, the church, in letting me go took good care of my family and did their best to put a positive spin on things (both of which I am very grateful for)…"

Those who read Bob’s blog know that he is an engaging and passionate writer. He has contributed a number of articles to Next-Wave since that first one three years ago. This summer I was praying about the next era of Next-Wave and had one of those God-inspired moments that come occasionally. The inspiration? Ask Bob Hyatt to become the editor of Next-Wave.

Bob is a practitioner who is struggling with what it means to be a church planter and a pastor in today’s culture. He has dreams of a church planting network. His first issue has generated plenty of discussion already, so that is an excellent sign. It only took an hour or so before he was being labeled a heretic by emerging church critics, also a good sign.