Prophetic Leadership
Our second session at the Young Pastors Network gathering was on the subject of Prophetic leadership and was led by Mike Slaughter. Mike started out the session by talking a little bit about the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s which he described as “an awakening” which pointed to a future “reformation.”
In Mike’s understanding, the Jesus Movement molded itself into the modern “Church growth” movement where worship attendance has been the primary measure of success in our churches. The future reformation which the awakening of the 70’s pointed towards is the time we find ourselves in right now according to Mike.
If that’s true, the times we are currently living in right now could be as transformational for the church as the times of Martin Luther when the unity of Catholic church was forever divided into Catholics and Protestants.
During this session, Mike also talked about four general worldviews he sees present in our world today.
The Secular Worldview
The secular worldview is held by those who are totally skeptical of anything supernatural. Generally speaking those who hold this view are more likely to be over the age of 40, white and there are also a large number of individuals leading in the field of education who operate from this worldview. They could be described as humanistic and dedicated to the idea that satisfaction is directly tied to the accumulation of material wealth.
The Soft-Secular Worldview
The soft-secular worldview is held by those who believe in God, but place their trust in secular culture. They draw their meaning and security from the material world while showing a limited amount of interest in the supernatural. Soft-secular people struggle with the idea of sacrifice because of their connection to the material world and so they tend to think of their gifts as donations rather than intentional sacrifices. Those who hold to the soft-secular worldview are most interested in bringing God into their worldview. It was Mike’s opinion that our churches are filled with individuals who have a soft-secular worldview.
The Post-Secular or Post-modern Worldview
The number of individuals in our churches who hold to the post-secular worldview is growing, yet not nearly at the same rate as the number in the general population. Post-Seculars are usually under the age of 40 and show a high interest in the supernatural. Their worldview is radically shaped by the idea of Expressive Individualism which says that, “something if true if it works for me.” Also central to this worldview is the idea that the present is what really matters. A lack of attention to the past and the future means that those holding this worldview have deep struggles with the question of identity. Again, while there are fewer of these in our churches, listening to them is critical because they have the ability to understand the large number of younger individuals who are making a mass exodus from our faith communities. For more on that, Mike directed us to David Kinnamon’s book, UnChristian.
The Christian Worldview
Finally, we have the Christian worldview which says that, “it’s bigger than my life.” Those holding to this worldview believe that truth will prevail because it’s true, even if it doesn’t happen within their lifetime. Etc, Etc…
In relationship to how we view ourselves, Mike talked about two differing ideas…
The Moralist worldview says that, “I work hard to be right and to be accepted.”
The Gospel worldview says that, “I’m accepted so now I’m free to work hard at being right.”
[I wonder what your thoughts are as to the difference between those two statements.]
His closing thought for the session, which might have been one of the most profound I heard all week was this: “Your ministry will not be defined by what you achieve, but by who you develop.”
This post is from a series written following the first gathering of the Young Pastors Network at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in October of 2008. The rest of the series is available below.
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