Leonard Sweet - Soultsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture

This book just made my top ten list for congregations. It sets a new standard by which all church leaders will be measured.

Bill Easum
President, 21st Century Strategies, Inc.

Leonard Sweet gives hope in a world being shaken at its roots. Rather than running and hiding from it or yelling and raging against it, he shows us how to ride the wave of change to make the gospel relevant and powerful to a lost world. He challenges the church and its people to learn to breathe in a postmodern atmosphereto stop grumbling about it and start living the life of Christ in it. SoulTsunami is refreshing and practicalnot a must read, but a must do to help us thrive in times of massive cultural and societal shifts. This book will make you uncomfortable, but it will also give you hope.

Dr. Jerry White
President, The Navigators

A mind awake! Sweet moves beyond prediction to creative intervention. Rather than cursing the darkness, he lights a candle in our pre-Christian culture. The Hot church is timeless and progressive. How? By worshiping Jesus. And by loving actual people in a virtual world. The Gospel is the most real reality, the truest truth, in the universe. Dont skip a page!

Kelly Monroe
Founder, Harvard Veritas Forum, and
chaplain for the Harvard-Radcliffe United Ministry

SoulTsunami is more than just another trend book that spoon-feeds Christian leaders so they can appear to be relevant and state-of-the-art. It has the same potential to transform the church as Joel Barkers Paradigm Shift changed the business world in the early 90s. SoulTsunami is the Y2K and 21-C compliant manual for Christian leaders.

Frank Breeden, President
The Gospel Music Association

Like dust motes in sunlight, Leonard Sweet illumines the invisible obvious and asks us bluntly, Do you see it? and What are you doing to do about it? This is not a book to help the church feel good, but to be goodnot a book to help folk learn about God, but to experience God.

Dan E. Solomon
Bishop, The United Methodist Church

This book will challenge every church to examine its past, take an honest look at its present, and change all its plans for the futureif it has any plans in the first place.

Louis Dorn, Editor, Helps for Translators
United Bible Societies

We live in a pluralistic age of sophistry. With a fine poetic pen, Leonard Sweet portrays the myriad confusions of our age and gives us some pointed insights into how the timeless gospel of Jesus Christ can speak to us anew.

Dr. Ted Baehr
Chairman, The Christian Film and Television Commission

Its been said that no church leader understands how to navigate the seas of the 21st century like Dr. Leonard Sweet. Hes been called a modern-day prophet who sees things the rest of us do not see, and dreams possibilities that are beyond most of our imagining. Vital Ministry magazine calls on Dr. Sweet twice each year to serve as a lookout from the crows nest on the ship we call the church. His words are meant to warn us of potential disasters and to steer us toward bountiful ports of call. Listen here as he shouts down words of warning for the church, as well as for times when he calls, All is well.

Vital Ministry magazine

BOOKS BY LEONARD SWEET

11 Genetic Gateways to Spiritual Awakening

AquaChurch

Communication and Change in American Religious History

A Cup of Coffee at the SoulCafe

FaithQuakes

Health and Medicine in the Evangelical Tradition

The Jesus Prescription for a Healthy Life

Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic

SoulTsunami

Strong in the Broken Places: A Theological Reverie on
the Ministry of George Everett Ross

Learn about these books at http://www.leonardsweet.com

ZONDERVAN

soulTsunami : SINK OR SWIM IN NEW MILLENNIUM CULTURE
Copyright 1999 by Leonard I. Sweet

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition August 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-86553-7

See the Web site www.soultsunami.com

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sweet, Leonard I.
SoulTsunami : sink or swim in new millennium culture / Leonard Sweet.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-24312-0
1. Christianity and culture United States. 2. Twenty-first century Forecasts.
3. Christianity Forecasting. 4. Church renewal. I. Title. II. Title: Soul tsunami.
BR526.S943 1999
261 dc21

98-32034

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9

To Elizabeth

My confederate in calling out an educated third.

My life partner and companion in creating
mountain, sea, and desert third places.

contents

Introduction
Get With It

Life Ring #10
Get Into ItA Pre-Christian Society

Life Ring #9
Get ChaordicChaordic Churches and Chaordic Leaders

Life Ring #8
Get GlocalThe Global Renaissance

Life Ring #7
Get DechurchedDe-Everything

Life Ring #6
Get EPICHOT (Hands-On Truth) Churches for a HOT
(High-Online Technology) Culture

Life Ring #5
Get BionomicThe Loss of Genetic Innocence

Life Ring #4
Get DeidolizedThe Godlet Phenomenon

Life Ring #3
Get GreenSeven Heads: One Body

Life Ring #2
Get MorphedThe Multiverse

Life Ring #1
Get Souled OutThe God Rush

Appendix 2: Selected Bibliography on Church-based
Urban Ministry

One of the greatest poets of the last century, Philip Larkin (19221985), wrote a poem on Church Going in which he speaks of stepping inside a church and feeling

a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
brewed God knows how long.

He continues to go to church, but sees fewer and fewer like him who will endure the brewed mustiness, which leads him

wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show.

Larkin also confesses to speculating who

Will be the last, the very last, to seek