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    Revolution
    Revolution
    Revolution
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Revolution

    By George Barna

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    About this ebook

    This groundbreaking book shows that a revolution is already taking place within the church—one that will affect every believer in America. Committed, born-again Christians are exiting the established church in massive numbers. Why are they leaving? Where are they going? And what does this mean for the future of the church?

    Drawing upon extensive data, renowned researcher and author George Barna predicts how this revolution will affect the organized church, how Christ's body of believers should react, and how individuals who are considering leaving (or those who have already left) can respond. For leaders working for positive change in the church, and for believers struggling to find a spiritual community and worship experience that resonates . . . get ready, because a revolution is here.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTyndale House Publishers
    Release dateOct 1, 2012
    ISBN9781414383279
    Author

    George Barna

    George Barna earned two master’s degrees from Rutger’s University and a doctorate degree from Dallas Baptist University after graduating summa cum laude from Boston College. He is the founder and director of the Barna Research Group Ltd., the nation’s leading marketing research firm focused on the intersection of faith and culture. A native New Yorker, George Barna has filled executive roles in politics, marketing, advertising, media, research and ministry. He is an award-winning author of more than 41 books, including Boiling Point and Leaders on Leadership among others. He lives with his wife, Nancy, and their three daughters in southern California.

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    Reviews for Revolution

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    • 4/5
      In Barna's mind, he has finally seen the light pertaining to the local church. His findings of his research over the past decades has drawn him to a conclusion...that God is very much at work outside of the local church and this seems to be the route many followers of Christ are taking. Though this work will be rejected by most orthodox Christians and pastors, Barna is a voice worth listening to and his point is not "Leave the church", but rather, "God can use you inside and outside of the local church, do whatever works best for you". This book is prophetic to bible belt Christians who thing the local church is a four-walled structure with a professional senior pastor, choir, deacons, and fellowship hall. Read and listen to what Barna has to say, don't discredit it based on his findings!
    • 2/5
      I have consulted the various survey reports released by The Barna Group over the past few years, so when a friend recommended this book to me, I was initially excited. In the end, I was disappointed with Barna's argument. On the surface, Barna plays much too fast-and-loose with the notion that the local church is no longer a viable entity for supporting a vibrant Christian life. In the end, Barna asserts that such is not, in fact, his position, but throughout most of the book, he apparently wants readers to believe this is his position. Perhaps this "bait-and-switch" tactic is a marketing ploy. Perhaps it is simply bad writing. Not being Barna, I can't say. The real problem is this: regardless of how one views the local church, one must come to grips with the reality that an understanding of truth is generated in community. Left to ourselves, we find it too easy to view the world and our place within it in a way that simply confirms our beliefs or causes the fewest headaches. This community doesn't have to be the local church, but some such community is vitally important. Barna's book basically abandons any emphasis on community in order to pursue a Romantic, radically individualized approach to faith. While he asserts that one's faith must be in alignment with God's revelation through the Bible and the life of Christ, he simply fails to acknowledge the necessity of community in initiating and maintaining such alignment.
    • 1/5
      Barna gives some good factual information (as usual), but goes too far to negate the Biblical mandate for a local church. He ignores all the work of the Apostle Paul in establishing local churches and the Bibles clear guidance on church leadership (Pastors, deacons, etc.). I understand and am also of the opinion that we have deviated from our first-century example and have gone too far down the road of institutionalism and building projects, but that does not afford us the right to disassemble what God has established. In Barna's Revolution, "churches" would exist as Bible studies or small groups of people that get together every so often for fellowship. While these are good, biblical things, they are not a church. A church will have indiviuals called to be pastors, deacons, overseers, or elders as to execute and lead the functions of the church.Overall, some good research and statistics, but severely lacking in a Biblical church backbone.
    • 4/5
      In "Revolution," Barna investigates the growing reality that more and more people are seeking alternative ways to grow deeper in Christ. Not content to stick with the traditional model of the local church service on Sunday mornings, these "revolutionaries," as Barna calls them, are turning to house-church, cyber-church, and family-church strategies.As with any revolution, Barna's book is bound to meet with controversy. The very fact that he named his book by this title shows he is expecting it. A revolution is never peaceful since it involves the tension between a younger generation seeking a new and fresh alternative to the traditions that an older generation tries vehemently to protect.Barna's book is, by my account, a good one. He is not, as one writer to Charisma magazine put it, trying to tell people to leave the local church. In fact, Barna writes "The Revolution is not about eliminating, dismissing, or disparaging the local church. It is about building relationships, commitments, processes, and tools that enable us to be the God-lovers we were intended to be from the beginning of creation." Nor is Barna going contrary to the biblical call for Christ-followers to regularly assemble for mutual edification and worship to God. He is simply showing that there is more than one way to fulfill this command than the local brick-and-mortar building model we associate with the word "church." In his words, it is time we stop GOING TO church and start BEING the church.
    • 2/5
      Here, it would seem, is Barna’s self-styled magnum opus against the local church: the church is – in general – a dead institution, ineffective in creating fully devoted followers of Christ. Based on his national polling, Barna is proclaiming a shift in what it means to be a follower of Christ: the revolutionary Christian is one who finds his/her primary spiritual growth outside of the structures and programs of a local church (be it a service club, independent bible study, or other niche group). Barna offers some valuable insights into the shifting culture, but his conclusions regarding the local church seem sociologically premature and theologically myopic. C-
    • 2/5
      Barna usually offers objective, statistically-sound research, but this book is filled with conjecture and leaps of logic. To his credit, he does document the drift away from church institutions, but his analysis of why this is occurring is speculative, at best. Unfortunately, his knowledge of the New Testament is not as strong as his knowledge of survey techniques, because he also launches into a novel (and unbiblical) redefinition of Christian fellowship (consisting of playing golf with golf buddies, for example). In short, Mr. Barna presents significant statistical information which he proceeds to bury under a mountain of conjecture in this book. For example, he thinks all "20 million" Christian dropouts are "Revolutionaries" of some kind, but with so many "Revolutionaries" afoot, wouldn't we see a commensurate "disturbance in the force" of some kind? It is a worthwhile read, however, if for no other reason than to become familiar with this much-discussed book.
    • 2/5
      Not the best book out there on this subject, but it's okay.In my opinion, the author doesn't sound like he had passed through the cynical phase when this book was written. But if you can filter that effectively, or if you are cynical enough yourself, then this may be the book for you. It is a mostly deconstructive book, so if you read it and especially if you are going through the deconstructive phase, then remember that you will eventually need to go through a constructive phase. At that time, look for another book on this. Maybe "So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore" by Jake Colsen, "The Naked Church" by Wayne Jacobsen, "Reimagining Church" by Frank Viola, or even "The Present Future" by Reggie McNeal.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Revolution - George Barna

    Chapter One

    The Changing Landscape

    RAPID CHANGE IS PERHAPS the chief characteristic of our day and age. No dimension of our lives has been left untouched by the irrepressible urge to keep pushing the boundaries. In my travels around the world, and through research conducted in the United States, evidence of these changes is inescapable. Some of that change is for the good; some is not. Some of the changes are neither bad nor good—they’ve simply made things different. But change, undeniably, is everywhere, even in the realm of our faith experience and expression.

    The Church with No Name

    In a living room in Philadelphia, nearly two dozen people are packed into the brightly lit space, Bibles in hand. They gather like this every week, sometimes more than once, to experience the presence of God and express their love and desires to Him. They sing. They read Scriptures to each other. They pray, sometimes with hands lifted, other times lying prostrate on the floor in a posture of submission to God. They take turns joyfully describing what the Lord has done in their lives recently. They place their hands on those in need of healing or encouragement. They share a Communion meal. They discuss the next service project they will undertake together—this one scheduled for just a few days later. Sometimes they spontaneously dig money out of their pockets to help another attender through a tough financial stretch or unforeseen emergency. Other times they will take an offering to give to someone in the community who needs help. Anyone entering the living room while the group is together would inevitably conclude that these people seriously love God and each other.

    There is no name for this gathering. They do not have an office, a 501(c)(3) designation from the government, a paid pastor, or a building fund. They do not consider themselves Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or of any other denominational affiliation. When they gather, they do not have an order of service; they do not even consider their assembly a service. They have been labeled an organic community, a house church, cell group, or simple church. People they have known for years, many of them friends from past church experiences, have called them renegades, unchurched, cult members, disobedient, independent, defiant of spiritual authority, and worse. Yet, when they meet together in each other’s homes, they are the Church.

    The Dinner Table Congregation

    Paul and his family sit around the dinner table in their modest, suburban Indiana home. There is no meal before them, only Paul’s well-worn study Bible, open to the book of Daniel. Paul, his wife, Patty, and their three young children study a portion of the Bible together every other night for half an hour or so, before joining hands and praying. They have been doing this for several years and plan to continue for the foreseeable future. The kids used to complain about the intrusion into their free time, but they have secretly begun to enjoy the time together and have started to learn many things about their faith that they’d never heard elsewhere. It has affected how they view themselves, other people, and every aspect of life. Occasionally, the family has a special gathering during which they engage in their version of a Communion experience, complete with crackers and grape juice.

    While Paul is at work in a regional engineering firm, Patty puts in her hours at an accounting firm. Her work is tiring, but on the nights of their dinner table sessions she returns home energized by the prospect of being with God and His truth. She often builds on the nighttime Bible discussions in her conversations with the kids each day. At first, she thought Paul was expecting a bit too much of the family, but she dutifully supported his odd venture. Now, those times around the dinner table, after the dishes have been cleared and the Bible appears, have become the focal point of the family’s life and one of Patty’s most cherished experiences.

    Paul has no theological training. He is not an elder or a deacon in a local church. He has not learned to translate the Bible from the original Greek or Hebrew. Neither Paul nor Patty gets upset if for some reason the family is unable to attend services at a local church on Sundays. Paul takes seriously his role as the spiritual head of the home and has become comfortable doing things during the family faith time that he feels led to do by the Holy Spirit—things that he once would have deemed a bit strange.

    When Paul, Patty, and their children gather at the table to honor God and grow in their faith, the Church is in full session.

    The People of Timothy’s Place

    Timothy’s Place is one of thousands of homes in declining urban areas across America where multiple families and unrelated individuals live together for the purpose of intentional community and being a source of light in otherwise squalid neighborhoods. The people of Timothy’s Place have bonded in unusually deep ways as they’ve shared living space and finances while ministering in their immediate area.

    Zach, the thirtysomething founder of Timothy’s Place, also works as a public school teacher. When he first conceived of the idea for the outreach, his first hurdle was getting his wife, Liz, onboard. Though caring and compassionate, she was nevertheless a bit stunned by Zach’s radical idea. Three years ago, they committed to spend time every day praying about the needs of their community and how best to represent Christ within it. Liz eventually felt moved to embrace Zach’s plan for an intense cooperative ministry venture in a dilapidated downtown area.

    Zach and Liz continued their daily prayer vigil and began to share the idea with other families whom they felt might be open to such a radical life change—a transition they called urban missions. Eventually, they identified two other families that were willing to give up their suburban comfort for urban simplicity, sacrifice, and service. After their mutual commitment, and a lot of careful financial planning, the group bought and renovated a run-down four-story home on a seedy street inhabited by shady characters—drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps, alcoholics, and a few struggling working-class families unable to move away from such a decrepit neighborhood. Each family had one floor of private living space, and the bottom floor was a shared space devoted to neighborhood ministry.

    The inhabitants of Timothy’s Place come together every day to pray and encourage each other, to share information about neighborhood needs or progress, and to coordinate their efforts. They have dinner every night at six o’clock and have given every resident on their street a personal, open invitation to join them, with certain parameters enforced (e.g., no intoxication, no drugs on hand, appropriate behavior in front of the children). Every Sunday morning, singing and conversation can be heard ringing from the front room of the house, as the families—and anyone from the neighborhood who wants to join them—gather for a praise time that also includes teaching from the Bible and a home-cooked meal afterwards. There is always at least one service project underway on their street: cleaning up yards, repainting homes, repairing vehicles, reading to the children of the street, or grocery shopping for a sick or invalid local resident.

    None of the people living at Timothy’s Place have been sanctioned by a denomination to lead a ministry, nor have they attended a seminary or Bible college. None of the families attend a conventional church. None of the adults claim the title of pastor or elder. They do not receive any funding from a government agency or religious group of any type. Each of the residents claims to have been called to this work among the least desirable people of the city. The police appreciate what they do and what they represent, but the owners of the house do not get a break on their property taxes, as conventional churches do.

    Despite the doubts and denials of some area residents, government officials, and religious professionals, Timothy’s Place is the Church.

    The Church in the Corner of the Lunchroom

    Jan and Olga, both single women in their thirties, met at their workplace two years ago. They come from radically different backgrounds. Jan grew up in a well-to-do home with loving parents. She attended an Ivy League college, went on to earn a master’s degree, and is quickly climbing the corporate ladder. Olga is an immigrant from Russia, where she grew up in an orphanage, never knew her parents, and had minimal education. She currently works in the maintenance department of the company. She speaks passable English, if you ignore how she conjugates verbs and mixes up

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