ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 16, 1996 TAG: 9611190065
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: B-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID BRIGGS ASSOCIATED PRESS
The names that have defined evangelicalism for a generation - Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Bill Bright and Charles Colson - are entering the twilight of their careers.
What they do not leave behind is a similar coterie of middle-aged leaders to take their place at the forefront of the religious movement.
Fortunately, however, emerging is a new generation of evangelical leaders, age 40 and under, with the same urgency felt by the post-World War II group, according to the flagship evangelical magazine, Christianity Today.
In its latest issue, the magazine profiles 50 up-and-coming evangelical leaders selected through a survey of nearly 1,000 Christian leaders.
The evangelicals to watch include such personalities as Ralph Reed, executive director of the politically powerful Christian Coalition, and Lisa C. Barnes, who founded the Bethesda, Md.-based Neighbors Who Care, an organization that aids crime victims.
Also making the diverse list are singers such as Rebecca St. James and the Christian rap group D.C. Talk; and prominent athletes such as A.C. Green of basketball's Phoenix Suns, and Reggie White, the Green Bay Packers' defensive star who became a national spokesman calling for the church and nation to confront racism as church burnings in the South revived old fears.
On a more grass-roots level, the evangelical up-and-comers also include the Harambee Group and the husband-and-wife teams of Kafi and Rudy Carrasco, and Karryn Farrar-Perkins and Derek Perkins, who are involved in urban ministry in Pasadena, Calif.
In general, the group is hard to characterize, but some church observers say that together they represent a new generation of creative evangelical leaders following in the footsteps of Graham, Robertson and the others.
After World War II, there was a tremendous entrepreneurial period in evangelical ministry, with Graham at the center but a number of other prominent individuals such as Roberts and Robertson also building great institutions, said David Neff, executive editor of Christianity Today.
The next generation of people in their 40s and 50s became managerial leaders of many of those institutions, largely through necessity.
However, Neff said, the cycle is now returning to the creative ministry spirit of the older generation.
With the exception of individuals such as Reed, however, the new leaders are more likely to concentrate on grass-roots efforts. Like their Baby Buster brethren, they are suspicious of large institutions.
``Most of these folks are going to try to make changes in local communities,'' Neff said.
They are people like Michael Teague of the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles and Alvin C. Bibbs Sr., urban ministries director of Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago.
To the Rev. Leighton Ford, Graham's brother-in-law and the head of a ministry organization devoted to working with young leaders, the future looks good.
The 65-year-old head of Leighton Ford Ministries said these new leaders take the Bible seriously and are deeply interested in spiritual growth and in developing their own characters.
In many ways, they face a tougher task than did his generation because the hopefulness of the post-World War II generation has been replaced by attitudes of greater confusion and despair in a world where there are cultural wars and religious conflicts within and among nations, according to Ford.
But the spiritual energy and devotion of this new group of evangelical leaders is promising for the future of evangelicalism, he said.
``It fills me with great hope,'' Ford said, ``because they're living in a world with not a lot of hope.''
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: David Neff, executive editor of Christianity Today.by CNB