George Barna opens up his latest book, Revolution: Finding Vibrant Faith Beyond the Walls of the Sanctuary with the tale of two middle aged CEO's having a conversation about God while playing golf on a Sunday morning. Both are men with Christian roots. Both have grown frustrated and underwehlemed by life in the local church. One responds to this by leaving the local church and maintaining only a distant relationship with God. The other also leaves the local church but follows this up with a passionate, devoted lifestyle of worship through incarnational living. This latter character is the hero figure in Barna's book. A "revolutionary" who is, in Barna's view, typical of the new wave of Christians in America- living independently of the local church, with a "24/7 faith unfettered by the clutter and bureaucracy within the church walls".

Barna is much more than a story-teller. His book opening only serves to characterize the kind of situations and the kinds of people that Barna claims he runs into on a daily basis in his research as the leader of the Barna institute- a research resource firm that services a broad set of associations and organizations including: churches, para-church organizations, corporations and the US military. Barna is no novice on the "futurist" scene. He has written numerous books over the last couple of decades that serve to paint a picture of what has yet to come. Barna looks back at his 1990 book, The Frog in the Kettle, and suggests that over 90% of what he predicted in that book ended up being true in the decade after it was written.

While Barna has relied heavily on statistical evidence to lend weight to his opinions in the past, this time around the statistical support seems more than a little underwhelming. In Revolution Barna makes rather broad-sweeping generalizations about trends with the American church, while offering very few details and statistical analysis to back up his conclusions. It's almost as if Barna is saying, "Look, I've been at this thing for a very long time now and I'm asking you to trust me when I say that all the statistical evidence suggests that the local church is a dying entity that is quickly proving irrelevant".

The second thing that is surprising about Barna's approach in this book is the degree to which it leads him to a pretty broad-sweep abandonment of the local church model. It is precisely because Barna has been so identified with the Church growth movement that focused over the last two decades on catering to the "felt needs" of individuals, that people are more than a little surprised to find Barna now claiming that the local church is growing passé in the new millennium of faith. To be clear, in Revolution Barna goes well beyond identifying a human trend. He claims that the culture shift his research has identified is very much a move of God; one that he is proud to be a part of.

So what does exactly does Barna predict for the future of faith in America? Well, he claims that by the year 2025,

"the spiritual profile of the nation will be dramatically different. only about one third of the population will rely upon the local congregation as the primary or exclusive means for experiencing and expressing their faith; one third will do so through alternative forms of faith-based community; and one third will realize their faith through the media, the arts, and other cultural institutions."

In Barna's perspective the "revolutionaries", who he claims are already 20 million strong in America, are those Christians defined by seven core spiritual passions: intimate worship, faith-based conversations, intentional spiritual growth, servanthood, resource investment, spiritual friendships, and family faith. As a guidepost for life outside of congregational authority and accountability Barna seems to place a very large emphasis on the Bible as the force that will fill the gap for these individuals. He writes,

"Revolutionaries invariably turn to God's Word-the Bible-for their guidance. revolutionaries have a wholly biblical outlook on life, based on the belief that the Bible is God's perfect and reliable revelation designed to instruct and guide all people".

For someone with as much education and experience as Barna has I can't help but feel a little surprised at how naïve he appears in his broad assumption that the Church in America today finds one "biblical worldview" prescribed in Scripture. Clearly, congregational authority has historically helped and continues to help individuals interpret the meaning of Scripture. It is one thing to say that the Bible is the "true Word of God". It is something else to find a common understanding of what that Word actually prescribes for us as believers. Ironically, towards the end of the book, Barna himself outlines an experience where one particularly frustrated pastor offers him a lecture on the absolute necessity of the local Church for Christian growth and maturity - as dictated by the Bible. Where is the common ground dictated by the one biblical worldview in a situation such as this?

Please don't misunderstand me. Overall I find much of what Barna is saying to be both encouraging and believe it or not, common-sensical. While I can only offer anecdotal evidence, I would say that in the circles I operate in this ecclesial culture shift is definitely already in play. I also completely agree with Barna in his assertion that Christian life as expressed by identification with the local church body has produced less than overwhelming results in reference to lifestyles that look any different than the average non-Christian American. I agree wholeheartedly that we need to move beyond this "file in, file out" model of going to church as a model for Christian life in America.

On the other hand I think there are clear examples in this book where Barna misses the mark in his interpretation of religious reality in America today. Again, it is more than a little surprising how quickly and off-handedly Barna rejects postmodern expressions of faith and the goals of the Emerging Church, as nothing more than a more refined model of the typical 20th century local congregational model. Clearly, in this instance, Barna's research either fails him or is lacking altogether. The Emerging Church movement, which ironically embodies many of the traits that Barna champions in Revolution, is barely granted a sentence worth of ink in the entire book.

In many ways I think Barna's book would prove more influential and credible if it were written as a Christian manifesto for the 21st century, rather than as a futurist perspective based on solid statistical evidence. At 140 pages the book is not a long one by any stretch of the imagination. Barna says he deliberately wanted to make this a quick read so as to allow a maximum number of people to read and interact with its material. But considering the shortness of the book, it probably would have made more sense for Barna to quote present statistical research, or to envision a future for Christian life in America- but not both. Because Barna tackles both issues it leaves one with a feeling that he is "reaching" for far more than he should. Ultimately, this leaves Barna's Revolution feeling a little superficial- in more ways than one.