This article presents a great point on how leaders need to adapt to the postmodern culture around them. The gospel message reaches all generations, and leaders need to give up the old forms of leadership to give way to postmodern leadership. In this culture, we need to, " re-evaluate, re-imagine, and re-tell our Story in ways that our listeners can understand and embrace." Those who have embraced a postmodern style of leadership, perhaps joining the communal search for truth alongside this generation, have had success in discovering what it means to be a leader in this culture. Leaders can no longer be looking for personal advancement. People are looking for a self-sacrificing leader (ironically, they are searching for a leader that resembles Jesus Christ). I know this article may be a little too obvi0us in that we are now years into this postmodern society, but I do not think that Christian leadership has always stayed up to date with what reaches the lost most effectively. I think that we have an amazing opportunity as Christian leaders in a postmodern society that was not available in the modern generation. Modernity was a time when Jesus was distrusted and made to look a fraud, the era of the Jesus seminar. Postmodernity is a time where people are extremely interested in Jesus and want to know as much about him as they can, but are suspect when it comes to the established church. I think it is much better for people to distrust the church but love Jesus than the other way around.
David Miller has made some excellent observations about the current culture. There are several books on the market that portray the lack of confidence in the church and christianity (as it is observed by those outside the church) in favor of Jesus himself. Dan Kimball wrote the book, "I Like Jesus, But Not the Church: insights from emerging generations." Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz wrote "I'm Fine with God...It's Christians I Can't Stand: Getting Past the Religious Garbage in the Search for Spiritual Truth." Kimball's book notes that people in the church live in a bubble from the outside world and the longer a person is a Christian the less they know people far from Christ. Yet, Jesus mission was to seek and save the lost. Many churches care more about their traditions rather than reaching the lost. Kimball records interviews with people far from Christ and what they think of Christians. Bickel and Jantz book talk about Christians that impose their morality on others, that are paranoid, who think they are right and everyone else is wrong, that think science is the enemy, that make lousy movies, that don't know what they believe, and give Christ a bad name. Listen Church!
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