The church is heading into a “perfect storm” of cultural forces. Will you sink beneath the waves, or ride the winds of the Spirit? An array of cultural forces is coming together to present the church with unprecedented challenge and unequaled opportunity. Such “category 5" realities as postmodernism, postChristendom attacks on belief in God, and the threat of global warming have coalesced to make a “perfect storm” that will leave people uncertain of their place in the world, and all they have previously believed in. Like the disciples when Jesus calmed the storm, the church can cower and cry out for relief. Or, when everything is spinning and whirling in the wind, the church can go out to meet the storm, embrace the gale, . . . and pass out kites. From the Circuit Rider review: "Like other books Sweet has written and compiled, The Church of the Perfect Storm is thought-provoking and compelling. The material flows in such a way that allows readers to grasp the gravity of the situation. However, as with most futuristic material, there is also a sense in which readers may want to know: 'Okay, now what? Where do we need to steer this ship? Are mainline and evangelical churches so off-course as to fail to weather the rising tides that are here and soon coming?' Readers of this volume may enjoy the description of a post-Christendom world, but they may also want to know more about the prescription for the days ahead. (Click here to read the entire review.) Leonard Sweet is the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School, Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University, and a chief contributor to sermons.com. He is one of the most sought after interpreters of contemporary church life and culture and the author of more than one hundred articles, 600 published sermons, and thirty books including the Greatest Story Never Told: Revive Us Again and FaithQuakes from Abingdon Press. The Church of the Perfect Storm By Leonard Sweet Abingdon Press Copyright © 2008 The United Methodist Publishing House All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-687-65089-7 Chapter One Outstorming Christianity's Perfect Storm LEONARD SWEET (United States) For I am the Lord your God, who churns up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD Almighty is his name. Isaiah 51:15 NIV There is a reason you are so tired. There is a reason your church is woozy from the worship wars. There is a reason society is pining for simpler, safer times. There is a reason people are cranky, dispirited, and suffering from an acute case of holy halitosis or unholy hypothermia. There is a reason theologians seem to be commentators on a game that no one is playing. There is a reason the Christian church has lost pride in itself or in what it does. There is a reason for the cultural dooms and glooms, all the vertigo and violence. There is a reason that every time you read the newspaper, you want to pray a prayer seemingly written just for this world of ours: "Lord, have mercy." There is a reason Armageddon is in the air. There is a reason hysteria, meanness, and boredom seem to be the prevailing Christian temper. There is a reason there are now 2,088 country music stations in the United States, more than any other single radio format. There is a reason that two recent number one country-and-western hits were Rascal Flatts's "Mayberry" and Tim McGraw's "Back When": I miss Mayberry ... Where everything is black and white and I like the old and outdated Way of life. The reason is more than the fact that the world seems out of control. Or that in my lifetime we have gone from Pride and Prejudice to The Princess Diaries , from Leave It to Beaver to Beavis and Butt-Head , from Queen for a Day to Desperate Housewives , from doo-wop to bebop to hip-hop. Or that in these dawning days of the twenty-first century the biblical story is now so unfamiliar that the leading interfaith journal can identify the phrase "be in the world but not of it," not as a quote from Jesus but as an old "Sufi saying." The reason is this: we're entering the perfect storm. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. Nahum 1:3 NIV Past storms: To be sure, this is not the first time Christians have had to pass through culturestorms that have been more than ripples on the surface of Christianity. To paraphrase Job, there is no end of storms. The church is born to storms, surely as waves crash the shore. Saint Basil once compared the church after the Council of Nicea with a naval battle in the darkness of a storm. Clipper ships like the Cutty Sark were once known as "Gothic cathedrals" at sail. Here are some examples of when and where the clipper ship of Christianity has found itself between the devil and the deep blue sea: 1. Jesus was born in the midst of a storm, a time of state-sponsored terror (the terrorist's name was Herod). 2. In the second century, Chris