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Comparing Frost And Hirsch's The Shaping Of Things To Come

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According to Frost & Hirsch the authors of the book “The Shaping of Things to Come” both believe “the church must change…the church is not trend driven, is God’s family and lives by other rules.” (Frost & Hirsch, p. 22). This statement is important to note, because the mission of the church is facing changes that is negatively impacting the community of engaging God’s people. And the postmodern church is facing challenges, in which the church is under pressure to provide a creative measure, to address its missional statement as well its missional church thinking. The fact of the matter, is that the postmodern churches is not meeting the expectations and needs of the community. And it is lacking the outreach strategies and resources for sustainability, …show more content…

According to Frost & Hirsch they note “The missional church, by its very nature will be anticlone of the existing traditional model…It will leave its own religious zones and live comfortably with non-church goers, seeping into the host culture like salt and light…It will be an infiltrating transformational community.” (Frost & Hirsch, p.30). cultural sensitivity and cultural humility are the two paradigms in which to apply to the new missional church, because it not only provides the essence of the missional thinking and understanding but embracing and engaging the postmodern era of the church’s mission. Livermore notes in missional culture understanding culture and cultural values, as we become more mindful and aware of what is going on internally and externally in our cross cultural encounters, and as we learn to emphasize with the Other, we then need to focus on developing new hypothesis options, cues, and goals in cross cultural encounters…This is cultural strategic thinking. In a multicultural world it is important to understand the nuances that are often expressed and exchange within groups of people, because this approach provides the cultural intelligence as a means and measure to evaluate the environment. Flemings’ asserts “Peter discovers that God accepts people as they are within their own context.” (Flemming, p. 37). In the New Testament we observe Jesus applying his love for all people and cultures in which he exemplifies his greatest love for all people when he died on the cross. According to Gibbs & Bolger “Religious behaviors are rooted in personal experience rather than in community identity or loyalty to historic institutions…In American history religion, is chosen rather than received …Instead, institutions are required to serve the individual and not the other way around.”

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