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Easum Has Some Advice
One of today’s most influential analysts of church vitality and contemporary culture is William Easum. Easum’s background is Methodist, but his analyses and examples, while reflecting mainline Protestant culture, are essentially nondenominational.
Easum has formed a church consulting group with his colleague Thomas Bandy. You can find out more about their consulting services and seminars and receive some free resources at www.easumbandy.com. I want to highlight three of Easum’s books that are particularly thought provoking. Each book addresses different challenges church leaders face today.
First, as churches face the challenge of a rapidly changing culture, a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christianity, they would benefit from the analysis in the book Dancing with Dinosaurs: Ministry in a Hostile and Hurting World. Easum does not believe the church needs to alter its essential message, but thinks it needs to alter its strategies and some of its processes.
Chapter 2 is a strong articulation of the seismic societal shifts we are facing. Examples are the shift from joining to belonging and the shift from obligation and duty to compassion and empathy.
Leadership is another pressing issue. Do ministers need to lead in the same way as the secular leader fulfills his function? Is there a distinctly Christian model for leadership? Leadership on the Other Side deals with some of the same concerns as the previous recommendation, but applies more directly to the individual church leader. Easum admits we are in a rather fluid situation when he says he is not giving us rules, but only clues. You will not agree with all of Easum’s recommendations, but he will force you to think about how to reach a post-Christian culture.
Chapter 2, "Entering the Wormhole," which borrows its metaphor from theoretical physics, is especially strong. It stresses the importance of imagination and childlike curiosity.
A third significant issue concerns how to build stronger churches in our consumer-oriented and casual age. Easum collaborated with Bandy to give suggestions on Growing Spiritual Redwoods. They use the tree-growth metaphor throughout the book. The redwoods are not individual Christians, but healthy churches. The redwood image is not an indication of church attendance or membership roll, but the producing of "spiritual giants." The authors even go back to New Testament churches to illustrate what a redwood is like.
The authors encourage us to move from a "post-Christian era" into a new "pre-Christian era." Some of the advice includes "Spiritual redwoods love people more than committees or procedures."
Readers of CHRISTIAN STANDARD will give a hearty "amen" to some of Easum’s ideas and want to debate him on others. There are other books by Easum you might enjoy, including Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers and his classic, How to Reach Baby Boomers.
Mike Shannon is dean at Cincinnati (Ohio) Bible Seminary.
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