A New Kind of Church

Malphurs, Aubrey. A New Kind of Church: Understanding Models of Ministry for the 21st Century. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007. $15.99

In this book, Malphurs has 2 goals: to address criticism of new-model churches (seeker, emerging, small-group driven, etc.) and to promote biblical understanding of church, culture, and change that help churches undergo the necessary changes so that they can remain active, or renew activity, in the great overall mission of the church - making disciples.

Malphurs does an excellent job of educating the reader about the fundamental issues involved in this debate. This is to be expected from a well-respected seminary professor. He is very critical of those who have been arguing vociferously against changes in church models. He criticizes their ungodly, angry way of expressing themselves as well as the simple fact that large parts of their argument are either not biblically founded or actually violate biblical teaching.

Malphurs is ultimately in favor of these new models, though he does offer some caution to them. I suppose I should clarify - he is in favor of necessary changes in the way church is done in order to reach a culture that has changed enough that large segments of it hold no affinity at all for the majority of churches. New model churches are trying to effect those changes, so he supports them.

The last chapter of the book contains a simple explanation of how churches can and should go about changing for the better. This is good, but it is essentially an advertisement for another of Malphurs' books, Advanced Strategic Planning. I guess I'll need to read that one, too.

Being in the younger generation on this issue, I was not strongly challenged by this book, though I could see how it could work wonders for hardened anti-change elements within the church. However, I seriously doubt they will read this or, if they do, give it a fair reading. Even so, I learned a great deal about leadership through this sort of model change.