The Church of the Nazarene, like so many denominations is struggling to deal with the fact that the world has changed in the past half-century, and the truisms that applied then are no longer applicable in all situations.
This White Paper was written by a group of Nazarene pastors and theologians to help the church start to have a constructive dialogue on how to deal with the changing world around us. There have been several comments made by church leaders that are condemning of the Emerging Church. What is disturbing is that people seem to be unwilling to address the elephant in the room, which is that the ground has shifted under our feet.
If we aren't willing to realize that the people we are trying to reach have dramatically different thought processes than their predecessors, we are dooming ourselves to irrelevance, IMHO.
Take some time to read the white paper please. I'll post more on this next week.
White Paper
Here is a link to the White Paper for you.
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1 comment:
Confession: I did not read the paper.
Unfortunately, most of the Nazarene leadership, save for a few, will ignore anything that smacks of leaving the 1950s. I'm sure much more important things will be discussed at GA, such as whether "Nazarene" has to appear on the signage, letterhead, etc. of a church.
Sadly, I believe the Nazarene Church is already irrelevant, at least in the US. They keep harping on denominational distinctives, but most people could not care less about denominational affiliation. Look at the numbers. Virtually every (not all, to be sure) white church on my district has either flat lined or declined over the last 5-7 years. This is not because of church planting either.
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