In his new book Negative World, Aaron Renn chronicles the changing cultural posture toward Christianity over the last 60 years. Positive World functioned from 1964-1994, such that the church was seen as a good thing for society. Neutral World existed from 1994-2014 and was characterized by a more tolerant posture. It was one of many voices in our pluralistic society and was neither good nor bad.
Negative World started in 2014 and continues into the present, ushered in during the Supreme Court’s decision about gay marriage. This saw a shift in cultural attitudes among many to see the church as a moral evil that must be opposed.
How do we pastor and lead in Negative World? Let me make five suggestions:
Get your church polity locked down
A church statement of faith coupled with a church covenant that outlines how you will treat each other is essential in this cultural moment. Why? More and more people will engage with us who do not assume the best of us. Many of these people will look for ways to intentionally hurt the church. If you have inconsistencies in what you affirm you believe or how you, for example, discipline members, this will bite you.
Go hard after young men
As Negative World has been established, younger men are struggling. As a result, there’s an openness and hunger for guidance and direction among young men today more than ever, opening the door for the gospel. The church has largely been more calibrated to women in our marketing and programming over the last 20 years. Continue to love your ladies, but gear up to reach out to guys. Simple things like changing your church logo to look more masculine can help. More than that, make sure the men you hire on your staff or who lead on your elder teams are model men. Young men are looking for mentors and guides, and they will gravitate to places that have that.
Prepare your leadership community for resistance
If you are outspoken about the truth, at some point you may be canceled. Not only must you be ready to take hard stances, you need to prepare your leadership community for the blowback that will come. What you must not have are leaders who want you to pull back from saying something hard because of the potential blowback. Be bold, but also wisely bring your leaders along. Show them examples of what other churches have walked through in being canceled and talk through how to respond.
Go all in on the Holy Spirit
We have officially reached a point where just “doing church” isn’t gonna do it. In Positive World and Neutral World, so much of church growth was shuffling the deck of Christians in a town. Most of what we were doing in those days was not so much planting a church but planting a worship service and expecting people to show up. I’m not bashing it—in many ways it worked! Healthy churches came out of this model. I believe those days are over. If we are going to see churches planted and grow, we are going to have to pray like crazy, begging God to move. Your leadership community needs to be a burning center of prayer, begging the Spirit to convict, unify, and send.
Call for response in worship
We have a spectrum of pastors in the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, some more reformed and others more revivalistic. One of the easiest ways to tell where you fall on the spectrum is by how you end your worship service. For a number of years, I was uncomfortable with a more deliberate, intentional response time because of abuses I’d seen growing up. I’m over that. I want to help people know how to become a Christian at the end of our services. I want people to have the ability to be prayed over or counseled during worship. Why? Because I believe when the Word is preached, God is speaking and today, people need help sifting what God is doing.
Positive and Neutral World people did not need as much guidance about the basics. Many of them were exposed to Christianity and just needed a nudge. We are now officially reaching people whose grandparents didn’t take them to church. They’ve got no background, and they absolutely need more deliberate, intentional opportunities to get help. A more focused response time can help.
Negative World is here. Are you ready? I hope these five things help you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Spencer Plumlee is pastor of First Baptist Mansfield, Texas, and a member of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Young Pastor Network.
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