Regular readers of my site know that I have been publishing Next-Wave, an ezine about church and culture, since January 1999. Over the years, Next-Wave has been edited by Rogier Bos, David Hopkins, Jason Evans, Bob Hyatt, Scott Bane and myself. All of these years Next-Wave has been a voluntary, non-profit enterprise.
When I founded Next-Wave I was a burnt out and discouraged failed pastor. I read Willard’s Divine Conspiracy and wondered if I had ever been a follower of Jesus. I had recently closed a normal church and was involved in the beginnings of a ministry to skateboarders. The name of Next-Wave was inspired by a leadership lecture by John Wimber. John was talking about the life-cycle of movements. He was drawing these wave-like symbols on a whiteboard depicting the rise and then crest of a movement. He was talking about the stages of birth, life and death of a movement. You know, something like: Man…Movement…Machine…Monument…Memorial.
John’s audience was leaders in the Vineyard movement. John had been working on his leadership transition for a while but thought it was important the leaders of the movement know that, without constant renewal, movements die. Wimber’s encouragement in that message, pointing at the crest of the wave, “When you get here. Take the Best and Go.”
My discouragement 11 years ago was born out of my perceived judgment that the institutional church had failed to bring the message of Jesus to my generation, the baby boomers. I was not only angry, I was sad. I didn’t believe that it was the will of God that so many of his children should never hear about his unfailing love. I blamed the older generation for clinging to their traditions. I blamed them for protecting their institutions. I blamed them for hanging onto positional leadership at the expense of forward momentum.
Don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge that God had birthed a number of movements that did multiply and minister to the baby boomers, the Calvary Chapels and the Vineyards among them. However, to me, it just wasn’t enough. Having experienced the failures of my church fathers, I realized that it was highly likely that MY generation would make the same mistakes. I was pretty convinced that this was happening all around me and that another generation, the people I thought of as Gen-X, were missing out on the life that following Jesus promises.
When I approached future church planter, Rogier Bos, about starting Next-Wave I wanted to start an “e-zine” that would speak to these issues. About six months into the project Next-Wave launched in January 1999 and it was full of articles about postmodernism. I hadn’t even heard of postmodernism! The words “emerging” and “church” had not yet been juxtaposed. Emergent had not been founded. That came later along with terms like ancient-future worship, neo-monastic communities, transformational, incarnational, organic and missional.
As we near the end of the 11th year of Next-Wave we are making some changes. Over the years we have accumulated a number of web addresses: next-wave.org, the-next-wave.org, the-next-wave-ezine.info, the-next-wave.info. We have also used 5 content management systems. As you can imagine this has left our “long tail” of archives in an interesting and chaotic mess.
We have also used the format of a “legacy” monthly magazine, with issues and publication dates once a month. Regular followers and readers have noticed that we have missed a couple of months recently. Editor Scott Bane and I have decided to take a different approach. Once a month (and hopefully early in the month) we will publish a “cover” story. This will be an article that we consider to be of some significance. We will then publish articles during the course of the month on various topics, “tagged” with the month of publication. Click on the tag for that month and you get the list of article for that month.
For those interested in the conversation over the last ten years, the archives are available in the Past Issues page, Next-Wave Articles page and Next-Wave issues page. There is a period of one year in 2003-2004 that is not well archived except on the various web caches available for avid researchers.
What will be the aftermath of these changes? For one thing, links all over the internet will land folks on a this file is not available page. However, ultimately, all of the Next-Wave stuff that readers have enjoyed over the years will be available at http://the-next-wave.info .
I renew my prayer published at the beginning of this year: “Father, may we be faithful to your call on our lives, to love you with all of our hearts and to love others and one another, as we love ourselves. Out of that love, Father, I pray that we may be winsome messengers of the good news of your grace and mercy for humanity. Empower us with your spirit, in the name of your son, Jesus, let it be.”
