A new era for Next-Wave

In the summer of 1998 I discovered the Internet as a means of communication. No, I didn’t "invent" the internet like Al Gore. Prior to that summer, I knew there was something called Compuserve and America Online, but I didn’t know how it worked, or that it could be used as a means of communication. What I did know is that I wanted to do something to encourage and support ministry to what I thought of as "Generation X."

I was raised in a denominational church. This particular group had a legalistic bent. When my first marriage failed, I began a spiritual journey that lead me to the pastorate of a Vineyard church. Along the way I became interested in church growth theory and church planting. A father of four teenagers, I also became concerned that the church was doing little to avoid the mistakes it had made with my generation.

By and large, the church missed the baby boomer generation. Permissive parenting styles, situational ethics and increased experimentation with recreational drugs created an atmosphere where no religious practice was more common than nominalism. The "don’t trust anyone over 30" generation certainly didn’t trust the church to solve their spiritual "issues." New age religion abounded in the "age of Aquarius."

When this environment was coupled with authoritarian leadership styles, traditional church liturgies, and an unwillingness to listen to the real concerns of my generation, the result, in most cases, was a massive exodus from mainline denominations and Catholicism, particularly in North America. Europe was already post-Christian. While the third-world was experiencing a pentacostal-led awakening, there were few bright spots on the North American church scene.

The Jesus People movement that spawned the Calvary Chapels and the Vineyards, while heartening, did not truly penetrate the heart of my generation. As one of those who had left the church and then returned in my late 30’s I did not see a lot being done to strategically target and communicate the gospel in a meaningful way to the next generations.

In the fall of 1998, With these thoughts in mind, I approached a friend of mine, Rogier Bos, and asked him to edit a web magazine to deal with these issues. When I first talked with Rogier, the term postmodern was not on my radar. I had seen John Wimber lecture on the cycles of a movement. As he drew 20-yr. waves on a whiteboard, it struck me that with every generation God was calling another wave of emerging leaders to reach the world with his message. I told Rogier we would call the web magazine, Next-Wave, and he took it from there. The inaugural issue of Next-Wave was published January, 1999.

I had become acquainted with Rogier Bos while he interned at a nearby church. Rogier is a native of the Netherlands. He was also a fledgling web designer and a student of the postmodern cultural shift that had already affected Europe and was beginning to be an important topic of conversation in the North American church. Rogier’s calling was to participate in God’s plans for church planting in Europe. He set the course that Next-Wave has followed for the last five years.

As he wrote in the inaugural issue: "Next-Wave is a web magazine for leaders about ministry and church in the 21st century, or postmodern era. Our goal is to connect pioneers, and to become a place to exchange insights, stories, pieces of wisdom, questions, models, experiences and strategies."

With a background in publishing a local weekly newspaper in the early 70s, I was unprepared for Next-Wave’s eventual reach. It cost me hundreds of dollars to print 3000 newspapers and deliver them to the local community on a weekly basis. Next-Wave was available to millions of readers on every continent for a cost of less than $100 per month.

Rogier received a small stipend during the months that he created and edited Next-Wave. When he and Sophie returned with their family to the Netherlands to begin their ministry with Christian Associates International, the press of family life, the move, starting a new ministry position and a new business made it impossible for him to continue editing Next-Wave. After a stint as communications director of CAI, Rogier is currently pastoring and planting a church in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Next-Wave has been created by the participation of its contributors. The first contributing editor, David Hopkins, became its most prolific author and the second editor of Next-Wave. His first article was entitled: Superman is dead: No more "hero-for-hire" clergy. David began writing for Next-Wave while he was still a student at Texas A&M. In his early 20s, David carried his responsibilities with Next-Wave while he held his first high school English teaching job, wrote his first play, became engaged and then married to his wife, Melissa. Since then David has become a famous comic book author and the proud father of Kennedy.

I became acquainted with Next-Wave’s next editor, Jason Evans, when I received his article, the Church at Matthew’s House. Jason is one of the emerging practitioners of the "simple" church movement. With his first issue in September, 2003, He created an extensive editorial team, and led Next-Wave to a new collaborative editing software environment. Today he continues to be as passionate as I am about seeing new churches planted to reach the emerging generations.

In between the editorial tenures of these three young men, I have fulfilled the publishing and editorial roles with Next-Wave. While our design has always been pretty funky, that is, until Malcolm Hawker became our web designer in June of 2005, our content has always been interesting. Searching the archives of Next-Wave is like a video clip of where what we now call the "emerging church" has been.

Now, with the October 2006 issue, I have once again stepped down from my "interim" editorial duties to Bob Hyatt. Bob’s writing first appeared in Next-Wave in August 2003 with his article, Profoundly Disturbed on the Fourth of July. That article had consequences in Bob’s life which are best explained in his own words:

"…[The] article was first published in the summer of 2003. Shortly thereafter, my church employer and I…uh…parted company. It was God’s way of getting me off my rear and into the church plant that I am now leading, but at the time it was a little scary. To their credit, the church, in letting me go took good care of my family and did their best to put a positive spin on things (both of which I am very grateful for)…"

Those who read Bob’s blog know that he is an engaging and passionate writer. He has contributed a number of articles to Next-Wave since that first one three years ago. This summer I was praying about the next era of Next-Wave and had one of those God-inspired moments that come occasionally. The inspiration? Ask Bob Hyatt to become the editor of Next-Wave.

Bob is a practitioner who is struggling with what it means to be a church planter and a pastor in today’s culture. He has dreams of a church planting network. His first issue has generated plenty of discussion already, so that is an excellent sign. It only took an hour or so before he was being labeled a heretic by emerging church critics, also a good sign.