Dr. Eddie Gibbs is a regular contributor to this blog alongside Kurt Fredrickson. Eddie is the Director of the Institute for the Study of Emerging Churches at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. He also serves as a senior professor in the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.
During the past four decades of ministry, Eddie served in England, Chile, and since 1984, in the United State. For the past seven years, Eddie has focused his studies on the challenges facing the churches in the North and West as they have seen the collapse of Christendom.
This study has resulted in the publication of three books so far: ChurchNext, LeadershipNext, and Emerging Churches (co-authored with Ryan Bolger).
ChurchNext: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry
A 2001 Christianity Today Book of the Year! What will the church be next? CHANGE IS NOW. Competition from nontraditional and Eastern religions join with the pressures of both modernism and postmodernism to squeeze Christianity. While new church models have sprung up to meet these challenges, they each have strengths and limitations. Eddie Gibbs, a well-known church strategist and practitioner, candidly analyzes these models while proposing nine areas in which the church will need to transform to be biblically true to its message and its mission to the world.
LeadershipNext: Changing Leaders in a Changing Culture
Voted “Best Outreach Leadership Training Finalist” in the Third Annual Year’s Best Outreach Resources for 2005! Our culture is constantly changing, often faster than we can adapt to it. Christian leaders struggle not only to acquire new skills and insights but also to unlearn what they already know. As both the church and the world change, so too must Christian leaders and their very notions of leadership.Veteran church growth expert Eddie Gibbs maps out how Christian leadership must change in light of new global realities. Styles of leadership are changing, from hierarchies to networks and from compartmentalization to connectivity. Gibbs assesses the dynamics of leadership teams, identifies healthy leadership traits, and looks to how new leaders are identified and developed. This incisive analysis is a comprehensive resource for current and emerging leaders serving in churches, parachurch organizations and beyond.
Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures
The “emerging church” movement is perhaps the most significant church trend of our day. The emerging church offers and encourages a new way of doing and being the church. While it largely resonates with an eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old audience–the first fully postmodern generation–it is also gaining popularity with older Christians and encompasses a broad array of traditional and contemporary churches. Emerging Churches explores this movement and provides insight into its success. Filled with the latest research and interesting, anecdotal testimonies from those on the cutting edge of ministry, this book provides pastors, church leaders, and interested readers with an insightful glimpse into the thriving churches of today–and tomorrow.
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Cosmin Pascu
Dr. Gibbs,
Earlier in the summer i asked if i can have an interview with with, and you accepted. However, i did sent the questions by email, and it looks they have not reach to you.
Interview with Dr. Gibbs
Becoming Biblically effective, while changing for the common good
1. How can the indigenous pastor (and church) remain true to the Scriptures, but at the same time, true and effective within major cultural changing? (Specifically on the Eastern European countries)
2. How can a church become mission focus, when the leaders, does not grasp the need to become relevant to the 21 Century mission both at local and institutional level? What are the dangers of this reality, and how can one escape such territory?
3. In the Romanian culture elitism among the evangelical leaders plays a critical role. Does this attitude affect missionary perspectives of the local church? (And how?)
4. What is the best method to educate a local church for mission and in what format? Discuss structure, content and biblical perspective.
5. How would the Emergent Church leaders answer the question of cultural adaptation from the non-western church leaders?
6. What would be the missiological approach of the Emergent Church in planting churches out side the Western map? What methods will they employ?
7. In the dynamic of the globalization process how does the Emergent Church build on the past and offers durable solutions to the world wide Church for the future?
With a thankful heart in Christ Jesus, Cosmin Pascu, Romania
Oct 25th, 2007
Thomas Scarborough
Who is Eddie? He’s one of the people I critique in my final M.Th. thesis (I began this as an M.A. at Fuller). I’ve been looking for Eddie’s e-mail address in case he might be interested in taking a look before the thesis goes to the examiners.
Dec 31st, 2008
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