All Hail The Revolutionary!

I just finished George Barna's new book "Revolution."

The book identifies a growing segment of the Christian population that is earnestly pursuing a life that imitates Christ independent of a local church. I personally think this is exciting. Barna calls this group "revolutionaries" and I was expecting the kind of research and analysis that Barna's organization is famous for to help me understand the movement.

Instead I got retread statistics on the problems with the local church and Barna's in depth description of how he would like to see things change. This description frequently made mention of his years of research but very rarely offered any hard facts to hold up the picture he was painting. It was mostly filler and like some reviewers on Amazon, I had to force myself to finish it.

This revolution Barna describes is not so new. These Christians that Barna has tried to slap a label on have already been labeled by the by another popular modern church movement, the "Purpose Driven" church. I know that in the youth ministry model these Christians would be called "Committed." They are at the first level of commitment where they don't need the church. That is to say, if there were no local church they would still be committed to developing spiritual disciplines in their lives. Barna also seems to be trying to improve on the Purpose Driven model when he expands the 5 Biblical purposes into the 7 passions of a revolutionary.

The way to understand the growing number of Christians who are pursuing Christ disconnected from the local church is to read their blogs and listen to their podcasts. They've already found their voice online. They don't need Gearge Barna to tell them how to live anymore than they need the local church to do it.