M. Rex Miller

www.millenniummatrix.com

Review
This ambitious, Protestant-oriented manual for church growth sweeps across two thousand years of Western cultural evolution. Miller, an active Christian church leader, businessman, and theologian, relates concepts of oral, print, broadcast, and digital communications to Christian spirituality, tracing these trends and their influence on evangelism since the time of Christ. In a nonacademic manner, similar to Jim Collin’s in Good to Great and other recent best sellers, Miller seeks to make the modern church more relevant to America’s online culture. His presentation is slick, but it will appeal to busy lay leaders who seek a quick read and a few ideas to recharge apathetic congregations. Easy-to-grasp charts provide useful summaries of the text. Footnotes are extensive and helpful. Recommended for thoughtful, informed Christian readers active in their church. – Joyce W. Smothers, Princeton Theological Seminary, NJ (Library Journal , November 15, 2004)

"What happens when a mature Christian with a truly brilliant, active, fertile mind also has deep experience and broad knowledge of theology, philosophy, business, art, history, technology, spirituality, the local church, and future studies? You have the makings of a masterpiece . . . Rex Miller’s book will afflict the comfortable and stimulate, prod, challenge, and inspire innovators.”--Brian McLaren, pastor, author (anewkindofchristian.com), and fellow with Emergent (emergentvillage.com)

“In the tradition of Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman, Rex Miller shows how the Christian church, born in an oral culture, adapted first to print and then to broadcasting. . . . (then to) today’s emerging digital culture. The Millennium Matrix offers clarity and hope for our rapidly changing world.” --John P. Ferre, professor of communication, University of Louisville

“The Millennium Matrix is not the kind of book you will read and put on the shelf. You will want to study it and come back to it again and again because it is a book that clarifies where the church has been, where it is now, and where it is headed. . . . It is a great read . . . an indispensable tool for ministry in these times of rapidly changing cultural patterns.” --Robert Webber, Myers professor of ministry, Northern Seminary

“The ideas that Miller is sharing in The Millennium Matrix will help leaders quickly synthesize a large body of history and prepare them as we move into an uncharted future. We need new models for our organizations, we need practical guides, and we need a conceptual context for understanding our current times. The Millennium Matrix provides these and will become an important reference manual to anyone serious in engaging the emerging culture.” --Mike Coleman, founder, president, and CEO, Integrity Communications

“It was Leadership Network’s privilege to publish Rex Miller’s ground-breaking millennium matrix diagram some years ago. The buzz, conversation, and questions that created have now been addressed in this eye-opening work.” --Bob Buford, founding chairman, Leadership Network, and author, Halftime: Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance

“The Millennium Matrix is a book for those who aren’t satisfied with surface answers but want to rethink how culture impacts life and church.” --Dan Kimball, author, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations, and pastor, Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz, California

“The Millennium Matrix is a fascinating approach to understanding the impacts of communications media on social interaction and institutions throughout history. Congratulations on a fine contribution to futurist thinking.”--Cynthia G. Wagner, managing editor, THE FUTURIST magazine

“It is rare when clarity accompanies profound insight and deep thought. Rex Miller has accomplished this feat as he lays out for the reader an engaging review of our past, present, and future, primarily associated with the storage and distribution of information and how these various communication eras (oral, print, broadcast, and now digital) have transformed and are transforming our lives and our exercise of faith. Every serious believer should read this book as we begin to engage the digital age.” --William L. Thrasher Jr., general manager and associate publisher, Moody Publishers

“The uncharted path is more fearsome when you don’t know enough about it to choose the right vehicle. Rex Miller does an amazing job of tracing history, revealing current culture, and sharing his view of the future so that the reader is ready to confront the growing world of postmodernism, pluralism, and globalism with a new sense of understanding and courage.” --Brad Smith, president, Bakke Graduate University

“Today more than ever we need leadership from people who are gifted to see beyond the present. Rex Miller blends technology savvy, business sense, and prophetic spiritual insight to create a unique manifesto that can help us chart our course in the twenty-first century. Leaders who want to break out of status-quo thinking must read this book.” --J. Lee Grady, editor, Charisma magazine

“Our nation is undergoing a profound cultural shift. The people we are reaching for Christ today are not the same people we need to prepare to reach tomorrow. The next generation is growing up immersed in digital communication. Their language, their tastes, and even their world view will challenge our paradigms and our current ideas about church and community. Leaders will have to change the way they think if they hope to speak to the emerging culture. I believe that The Millennium Matrix provides a mandatory survival guide for pastors and leaders.” --Tom Mullins, senior pastor, Christ Fellowship, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

“The Millennium Matrix gives Rex Miller’s unique insight into where our culture is, where is it going. Church leaders as well as thoughtful business leaders will benefit from reading and understanding the insights contained in this book.” --Pat Sullivan, founder, ACT Software and SalesLogix, and board member for the ministry Leaders That Last

“The changes in mediums of communication have each reformed the culture of the time. These reformations have brought new values to society including the Church. Rex Miller has presented and traced those changes well through the oral, print, electronic, and digital periods. New paradigms are needed to navigate through the new culture and new leadership style is required not only to be relevant and effective leaders but to help people understand what is going on. This book is a must for any person who leads others, whether parents or pastors, and those that want to know what is going on with their peers. I highly recommend this insightful and practical book.” --LaMar Boschman, author, The Rebirthing of Music and Future Worship, and academic dean, WorshipInstitute.com

“Rex Miller challenges us to think in a different way. He brings the scientific into the psychological. The change in thinking that he advocates will be essential to finding our way through the matrix. The digitalization of the individual is a key to facing the future successfully.” --Charles Simpson, pastor, Bible teacher, church planter, and senior editor, One-to-One magazine

“In great historical transitions, we need road signs that tell us where we’ve been and where we’re going. For too long now, the Church has missed too many turns in the road. It’s time to get back on track. Rex Miller clearly maps the way—no one will get lost here.” --Dr. Thomas Hohstadt, author, Dying to Live: The Twenty-First Century Church

“A sophisticated understanding of communications technology for today’s church at the crossroads. The Millennium Matrix unveils history and the present in a brilliant, new way for innovative ministry in the climactic days ahead.” --Clifford G. Christians, professor, Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois-Urbana

“This is a fascinating interpretation of modern society, based on the premise that the advent of our digital age has of necessity redefined how our cultures function. This is provocative reading for serious thinkers who are searching for ways the Church can fulfill its divine mandate in the midst of an ever-changing sea of technological advances. Thank you, Rex, for throwing out some markers that can help guide our paths through the complexities of this new millennium.” --Bob Sorge, author and teacher

“Our era has caught us all in a whirlwind of profound and rapid cultural change. Our parents didn’t get us and we don’t get our kids. Pastors and congregations struggle to connect across the generations. In such times, we cry out for someone to make sense of our experience and to give us some bearings. Rex Miller’s The Millennium Matrix does just that. He draws an analytic grid that sets our swirling experience in the larger context of the millennia. By doing so he helps us understand where the wind is coming from and where it might be going. Grasping his millennium matrix can help us find meaning in our experiences and direction for our individual, familial, and congregational journeys.” --Fr. Bob (Bernard R.) Bonnot, senior vice president, special programming, The Hallmark Channel

“At last -- a book about the church that doesn't come from an ecclesiastical "Beltway Insider." Thoroughly researched, well written, and digitally aimed at our time, Rex Miller's The Millennium Matrix brings clarity for us on the future of the Church like the Hubble telescope brought the universe into focus for astronomers. Tomorrow is no longer another country; Miller has seen it, and he can take you there. Read this so future church history doesn't happen while you are looking the other way!” --Gary Henley, director, International Outreach Ministries; author, The Quiet Revolution

“The Millennium Matrix is a comprehensive look at our culture and church history, and provides an insightful lens through which to view the future. I strongly encourage pastors, music ministers, and worship leaders to read and study it because it provides a framework and a strategy for the emerging church. It provides insights to help make our worship both relevant and inspiring to our congregations. It also provides answers to traditional organizations feeling the crisis of change and offers vital perspective to new organizations that are providing fresh expressions of our faith." --Don Cason, president, Word Music

"Our world is literally being remade in the digital soup we inhabit. Yet so often, the Church feels as if it's not even inside the bowl. If you're tired of feeling like you just don't "get it". . . that every new program you create is destined for the trash heap in a few short months . . . The Millennium Matrix was written for you. Beyond a manufactured, reactionary approach to change, The Millennium Matrix provides leaders with a framework for understanding both the sweep of past eras and the complex, wondrous metamorphosis in process as we speak. An indispensable read." --Sally Morgenthaler, founder, Sacramentis.com and Digital Glass Videos

“Rex Miller understands that world views change when information systems change, and his millennium matrix takes us through a rapid-fire review of the ways in which Christianity has been shaped by oral, print, broadcast, and digital communication techniques. Most importantly, he helps us to see what leadership will look like in our increasingly digital world, and how the church can become a vital community by reclaiming lost virtues, giving priority to relationships, and approaching the future with open hands.” --Henry G. Brinton, senior writer, Homiletics preaching journal, and senior pastor, Fairfax Presbyterian Church

Book Description

In this dynamic book, theologian, futurist, and communications expert M. Rex Miller presents the innovative millennium matrix, that explains the way we store and distribute information changes our worldviews. Based on the author’s extensive research, The Millennium Matix explores the major paradigm and worldview shifts over the past two thousand years and maps them into an easily accessible chart summarizing the entire history of culture and church. From the oral culture of Jesus’ time to the print world of Gutenberg’s Bible to the broadcast era of television to the emerging digital culture, readers will see the impact of communication on worship and spirituality. Even more, the book then provides practical suggestions on how Christians can successfully navigate the rapid cultural changes that are occurring and that will continue to occur over the decades to come.

The Millennium Matrix is a compelling framework that can be used to

Understand the historical church in a new way.
Recognize the root causes of many of the present conflicts that concern church leaders and use that knowledge to generate viable solutions.
Bridge old barriers within the church and find common ground.
Reclaim lost virtues that were once so vital in the expression of faith.
Understand the shaping forces within the emerging medium of digital communication and create new cultural and organizational “design criteria” that fit the new realities.

About the Author
M. Rex Miller is a successful businessman with degrees in theology and communications theory. He has spent the last twenty-five years researching social change through the lens of communications.… (altro)