We no longer live under Christendom.
The time has passed in which Christianity is the major formational force of society. Neither is the state at the helm of culture's ship. Largely, we identify ourselves in subcultures - vocational fields, sports teams, sexualities, causes, food preferences, etc. Christianity has become just another subculture, and we so often seek to pull people out of their subculture and adhere to ours. That's not what Jesus did. That's not the incarnation.
The post-Christendom church must embrace the way of the early church, not out of nostalgia, but out of a realization that the world we live in is ideologically much like the early church's world. Christianity isn't in power anymore. We need to:
1. Let go of our infatuation with buildings as churches.
2. Embrace five-fold church leadership (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers)
3. Become grassroots movements without centralized leadership.
4. Re-sacramentalize the sacraments (baptism and communion)
5. Admit we are on the margins, and embrace our situation.
6. Be incarnational in our culture.
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