April 9, 2008
I was looking up some stuff on the EPIC model Leonard Sweet advocates for ministry. Below is someone else’s writing (with quotes) about what the EPIC model for ministry is.
“[Leonard] Sweet outlines a four-step transformation process he calls EPIC to enable the B.C. generation to communicate with A.C. natives. First, he says older adults must move beyond rational thinking about faith to focus on a relationship with Christ….
This culture is not looking for something to believe in. Their hunger is for the experience of a relationship with God.”
“The second step of EPIC, Sweet says, requires older adults to move from a performance-based mode of thinking and doing to a participatory, interactive model.…
“Third, Sweet says, natives respond to the gospel when it is presented in images rather than words. “How exciting to present Jesus, who is the image of God, to an image-based culture,” he says. “… We must give them the right image through which to prepare for eternity.”
“Finally, Sweet says older adults must move from an individual to a connective approach to reach younger generations. “The essence of connectivity is, ‘I can’t be me without we,’” he says. … Sweet, a former college president, says he experienced a major turnaround in 1987 when he moved from being a learned academic talking to other academics to become a learner. “Stop being learned people and become learners together,” he urges.”
-http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/Church/post-modern/leonard-sweet.htm
Anyone have any thoughts? Is the EPIC model for ministry a good one?
April 9, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Two things- what are “BC” and “AC”? And it seems like the “older generation” is doing most of the accomodating. I think the younger people would lose out, here, on some of the things the older ones have to teach.
I really like the image part, though. So many people are visual learners, and faith is a hard thing to visualize.
April 10, 2008 at 6:10 am
BC and AC are “before computers” and “After computers.” The advent of the computer, Sweet believes, is responsible for a dramatic cultural shift.
April 25, 2008 at 10:45 pm
i like the epic model as a good check on things i do. it isn’t the end all be all.
i was at willow creek student ministries confernce a few weeks ago and they were all about epic model, though they didn’t reference epic model. all their “new ways” of doing ministry pointed towards epic. that and youth leadership and participation..