Publisher: David C. Cook Author: Kling, Fritz ISBN-10: 1434764842 | ISBN-13: 9781434764843 Binding: Paperback
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Product Description: The Meeting of the Waters identifies seven trends having a major impact on the Church around the world—and on every Christian at home in every country.
The global community of Christians is stunning in its scope and spiritual impact. But what is happening to the Church as new technology, marketing, and generational shifts make their unavoidable mark? And what difference does it make for Christians in day-to-day life?
Equal parts travelogue, character study, and global documentary, The Meeting of the Waters interlaces stories and instruction in the tradition of Freakonomics, The World is Flat, and The Tipping Point. This breakthrough book is for any Christian eager to make a difference in a changing world.
From the Back Cover
A young Christian from Ireland moves to India—not to evangelize but to help girls escape prostitution. A retiring missionary in Brazil who long ago left all remnants of home encounters a thirty-year-old, laptop-carrying family man who rarely stops texting friends in the States. A Kenyan pastor struggles to connect with a congregation that watches a mega church pastor on the Internet every Sunday morning.
The community of Christians around the world—also known as the Global Church—is stunning in its scope and spiritual impact. But what is happening to the Church as technology, generational transitions, and cultural shifts make their mark?
In The Meeting of the Waters, Fritz Kling identifies seven trends—such as migration, machines, and the growing Mercy Generation—having an impact on today's Global Church. Equal parts travelogue, character study, and global documentary, this breakthrough book is for anyone eager to make a difference in a changing world.
240 Pages
Published March 2010
About the Author: Fritz Kling has spent the past decade in the heart of the global Church, traveling through villages and cities in every corner of the world. As a foundation executive, he has worked alongside both high-level leaders and grass-roots workers, and has an insider's story to tell.
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"Fritz Kling is well-qualified to assess contemporary trends of churches in global missions as he has had his finger on the pulse of God’s work around the world for years. We live in a changing world but tend to miss the implications of these changes due to the limited perspective of our western provincialism. Based on extensive research and interviews with national mission leaders, The Meeting of the Waters effectively communicates the issues that will shape mission strategies in the future. This is a book that should be read by church leaders, mission strategists, and anyone committed to fulfilling the Great Commission as we move further into the 21st century." - Jerry Rankin, President, International Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention
"The twenty-first century world is changing at a dizzying pace. Increasingly, for the Church to remain vital and relevant, new paradigms must be developed which address a wider-than-ever range of issues: poverty, human rights, ecology, justice, conflict, equality, reconciliation, and global events. In The Meeting of the Waters, Fritz Kling effectively identifies seven important trends that are leading the global Church into new and un-charted waters. The very relevance of the Church and its impact in the world will depend on whether and how it reacts to these emerging trends. This book is a must-read for Christians who want to stay relevant and effective while serving others and sharing the Gospel." - Richard Stearns, President, World Vision U.S., and author of The Hole in Our Gospel
"This is an astonishing book. Kling's survey of the changing world of missions reads like a fine novel. His truths are profound, his insights forged from years of hands-on work. For anyone who has a heart for missions, this book is a must-read. Kling grants remarkable insight into how today's church-missions vision needs to grow to fit tomorrow's challenges. Highly recommended." - Davis Bunn, bestselling author of Gold Of Kings
"I'm glad that we have [Fritz] as a guide as we pioneer the next era of answering the Lord's call to each of us: to do justive, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him." - Gary Haugen, president and CEO of International Justice Mission
"Fritz Kling's book is both refreshing and powerful.... You do not have to agree with all of his reflections, assertions, and conclusion, but you must face squarely the questions Fritz raises, questions imbedded in rich stories accessible to any reader concerned with the global church." - The Right Reverend Doctor D. Zac Niringiye, assistant bishop of the Kampala Diocese, the Church of Uganda
"In The Meeting of the Waters, Fritz Kling offers a highly relevant response to one of the central questions of the twenty-first century: Is religion going to be a barrier of division, a bomb of destruction, or a bridge of cooperation? By connecting Sundays to the rest of the week—the institution of the church to the world of diversity—Fritz Kling is showing us how to build a bridge." - Dr. Eboo Patel, executive director of Interfaith Youth Core
"The Meeting of the Waters is the most significant book on internation mission I have come across in a long tima nd one that echoes my own observations. Fritz Kling has the skinny on the movements that are impacting the changing landscape of Christian mission. This book is the result of thorough research in a broad sweep of mission situations, and the results are both enlightening and challenging. I highly recommend this book for those who want to know what mission in the real world actually looks like." - Andrew Jones, director of the Boaz Project
"Fritz Kling ... helps the reader access the parallel streams of our unidirectional past and the globalized, multidirectional future. Meet Fritz's friends, colleagues, and acquaintances around the globe, who guide the reader into a through the all-bets-are-off global environment." - Rodoplpho Carrasco, U.S. urban ministry veteran, Alumni Hall of Fame member of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Christian Vision Project contributor, and board member of World Vision U.S.
"This is a call to action we all need to read and enact." - Mark Silijander, Ph.D., former member of the U.S. Congress, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and author of A Deadly Misunderstanding
"Should be basic reading not only for all Christians involved in global missions but also for any believers trying to reach out to their own city." - Tim Keller, Senior Minister of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, NYC
"Through the lens of a world traveler seeing a constellation of sights rarely viewed by a single missionary, this book provides a summary of seven trends shaping the world – mercy, mutuality, migration, monoculture, machines, mediation, and memory. Employing a series of compelling and telling anecdotes, conversations, and reflections, Fritz Kling synthesizes these trends in a way that persuasively paints a picture of a changing world. These global factors possess both unifying and dividing components, and bear implications for the global economy, social structures, governments, and technology. Kling’s primary concern, however, is to show how these trends are shaping the world for effective missions, and he illustrates how agencies and individuals have responded and how they must continue to respond. This is not a book carelessly dismissive of theology, yet Kling never reveals all his theological cards clearly. His work is more of analysis of global convergence, rather than theological response. And to his credit, and unlike many in modern missiology, he does not elevate contextualization to a place that fully eclipses or marginalizes the unchanging voice of God’s Word.
At the same time, the book unavoidably exposes significant theological lacunae. Two most evident gaps stand forth: rigorous biblical/theological solutions for a penetrating missiology and the place of ecclesiology in missions that is more than an unstructured free-for-all. Kling implicitly affirms the postmodern church, exposing a model which promotes missions without ecclesiological foundations. Despite these pervasive weaknesses, this book should be read by any who have concern for missions and the impact of the Church of Jesus Christ around the world. In fact, discounting the insights which Kling exposes could actually jeopardize cross-cultural and kingdom effectiveness.
Indeed, the Kling thesis is largely convincing but rings an alarm theologically and missiologically. Employing a theologically anemic missiological response to world movements will produce its own destructive trends. Instead insofar as Kling properly portrays the twenty-first century world, we must address global trends with theological rigor, bringing a Reformed ecclesiology in its full biblical, theological, and practical richness to bear upon these world trajectories. In so doing, we will give kingdom traction to greater effectiveness in the work of missions – in both word and deed."- Dr. David B. Garner, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary
"The Meeting of the Waters is valuable on a number of fronts. First, the anecdotes Kling gives from his numerous travels are valuable in underscoring the changing face of Christianity in developing countries. His engaging stories open the reader to an unfamiliar world. Second, the statistics throughout the book are often staggering. More people ought to be aware of the issues concerning the number of missionaries sent out by third-world churches and the unthinkable number of unreached people in civilized countries. The descriptive element weaved throughout the book is insightful, penetrating and clear.
However, when Kling moves from the descriptive to the prescriptive his assessment is theologically vacuous from a Reformed perspective. He seems to adopt a certain postmodern liquidity, giving far too much air-time to pragmatism and global currents in his definition of what it means to be the church in the 21st century. The medium - the manner in which the gospel goes out - seems to determine the message in Kling's mind.
Even though I agree that the western church needs to be aware of the issues he describes, I see little value in his proposed answers to those issues. The way forward is certainly not to change the medium of our message. Our medium is determined by our message. Therefore, the only way forward for missions in the 21st century is not that much different than it always has been: planting churches that preach the word, administer the sacraments and exercise discipline in the way God has commanded. Perhaps some of the stories or statistics in Kling's book would inspire readers to work harder toward that end. If such is the case, it is my prayer that this book gains a wide readership despite its many shortcomings."
