Passion Church| The parallel-church planting of a postmodern campus church

Abstract

<p>This is a case study of Passion Church, a postmodern campus church on UCLA's campus. The Central Research Issue: to analyze, using postmodern indicators, the development and implementation of Passon Church, a New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) church planted from HRock Church (HRC). My research studies how one modernist NAR church, HRC (Che Ahn, Pastor), creatively ministered to postmodernist collegians: they planted a parallel-church on campus, Passion Church (PC; Jaeson Ma, Church Planter). Each church was similar in vision and mission, but differed in their cultural values and methodology. A local community church extended its ministry onto a campus through Parallel-Church Campus Ministry. </p><p> Assuming HRC was rooted in Modernism, I answer the question: To what measure did a modernist NAR church <i>plant</i> a postmodernist NAR campus church to minister to never-churched postmodernist collegians, satisfying selected postmodern indicators? Three postmodern indictors were suggested by Murphy's theory of Anglo-American Postmodernism: 1) organic community; 2) discourse as the source of meaning; 3) epistemological holism. Per these indicators, the data reveals that PC was an Anglo-American Postmodernist campus church which was birthed out from the modernist HRC. </p><p> I develop a composite beta model of HRC's parallel-church planting methods, formulated initially by Ma. I conclude with an amended model: the Alpha Parallel-Church Planting Model to be used to plant postmodernist parallel-churches on campuses to evangelize never-churched postmodernist collegians. </p><p> The data comes from a single case study of PC, triangulated via other methodologies: active interview; participant observation; direct observation; and document and archival studies. Findings answer three research questions which address two research variables: (1) the development of HRC's parallel-church planting methods; and (2) the implementation of HRC's parallel-church planting methods. </p>