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January 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Fresh Expressions movement which spread internationally and denominationally from its origins in the Church of England. Graham Cray was its first National Leader. Countless new forms of church have emerged through Fresh Expressions, the Church Army, New Wine, and various pioneer network. On Mission with Jesus offers a theological understanding of the missional nature of the church, which will undergird and inform local practice and assist ministerial and pioneer training. Its central argument is that the Church’s inherited understanding of itself imprisons the imagination of local congregations and in ten chapters, Graham Cray seeks to establish a new self-understanding for local congregations: 1. Updating Default Settings 2. Sharing in the Mission of God 3. Making Disciples 4. Following the Spirit 5. Shaping the Church 6. Anticipating the Future 7. Joining the family Business 8. Being a Pilgrim People 9. Recognising Jesus in the Church 10. Becoming a Jesus on Mission-Shaped Church
Too often, the solution sought by many struggling churches is to make the homerun hire—to find the charismatic leader who will take them to the promised land of growth and vibrant ministry. While this strategy occasionally pays off, it has overwhelmingly failed as seen in the hundreds of churches across the United States that close their doors annually. Is it possible that there is another way forward for those seeking to lead local congregations into missionally vibrant ministry, especially those located in multiethnic urban areas? In Charismatic Leadership and Missional Change, one church’s journey from a struggling, primarily Anglo congregation of less than 100 members to becoming a m...
The Centre for Missional Leadership at St. Andrew’s Hall, Vancouver, has curated a dynamic collection of essays from missional thinkers in church and academy. Together, they explore both the pitfalls and possibilities of Christian witness in the post-Christendom soil of the Pacific Northwest. What does it mean to till, plant, and nurture Christian community while awaiting growth in the rocky soil of secularity, in this West Coast land better known for its hipsters, baristas, and outdoor lifestyle? Each chapter is an attempt to dust for divine fingerprints at work within the church and wider culture, giving evidence of God’s activity in our midst. Within this book you will encounter women and men who are finding hopeful ways to proclaim and live the gospel that are bearing fruit and growing hope within Christian communities and the neighborhoods they call home.
Do Something Else is meant to encourage faith communities and their leaders to reconsider "church as usual," reengage Spirit-led entrepreneurialism, and reimagine new models of ministry bubbling up in their midst. Many churches and leaders are already setting the pace. They are establishing new gatherings in old buildings and using new building to do old things. They are emphasizing diversity, welcome, and friendship. If these stories are hidden from view, they shouldn't be. These pages will uncover how new expressions get started, how they are led, how they struggle, and how they are sustained. Do Something Else will encourage candidates for ministry who see limited options, ministers who wonder about staying in ministry, clergy call-seekers trying to find hope in a desolate career landscape, and churches attempting to manage staffs with limited resources. It will also offer permission to small churches resigned to be "without a pastor," larger churches looking to do a new thing in an unorthodox way, and middle governing bodies who need promising examples of working models in order to take the risk on new opportunities.
America gets more diverse than ever before, and it is our responsibility to respect this diversity before us. Although many people claim that diversity matters, there are so many marginalized people who have not been heard yet. Korean-speaking young people are one of them. They have been marginalized not only by the main culture but also by their own community. This study illuminates this hidden population and their stories as emerging adults with socially, emotionally, and spiritually unstable status. With a practical theology approach, this study provides not only about who are the Korean-speaking young adults but also what is the current praxis and how the immigrant community can have different imaginations about their future with these young people. Including data gathered survey and in-depth interviews, Ignored is the first comprehensive study that addresses Korean-speaking young people. By sharing unheard stories, this book invites us to understand our diverse community. Furthermore, this book brings new imagination of listening others who have been ignored.
"What's the point of it all?" In the postmodern world, the meaning and direction of human existence is increasingly a question mark with few satisfying answers forthcoming. People of faith are not immune to such questions as they struggle to meaningfully connect their faith to their daily lives. In GPS: Finding Direction on Your Faith and Life Journey, Strommen makes the case that much of this existential struggle is born of an anthropocentric worldview that has banished God to the margins, leaving humans with the futile task of playing God as they attempt to create their own meaning, purpose, and identity. Drawing on core Christian understandings through a Lutheran lens, the author asserts that life-giving meaning and purpose are gifts given by God alone, who frees people from their self-justifying ways to take an inventory of their many gifts and participate in a new creation where love of neighbor is the social currency. It is the core theme of this book that God is in fact present, deeply invested and at work in the everyday world, calling everyone daily to partner with God to co-create a more trustworthy, loving, and hopeful world.
In today's dynamic cultural environment, churches have to be more than faithful--they have to be agile. That means embracing processes of trial, failure, and adaptation as they form Christian community with new neighbors. And that means a whole new way of being church. Taking one page from the Bible and another from Silicon Valley, priest and scholar Dwight Zscheile brings theological insights together with cutting-edge thinking on organizational innovation to help churches flourish in a time of profound uncertainty and spiritual opportunity. Picking up where his recent bestseller, People of the Way left off, Zscheile answers urgent and practical questions around how churches become agile and adaptive to meet cultural change. Cutting-edge leadership theory, approaches, and techniques for churches Skillfully addresses both academic and church audiences Study guide included
Why does the church engage in missions? Where in the Bible do we find support for this work? These questions have been asked and answered by many throughout the centuries, though rarely does the investigation span across the entire canon of Scripture. In this study Newkirk explores the breadth and depth of biblical teaching concerning God’s mission for his people and the church’s call to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. By beginning with creation and ending with new creation, this study reveals that rather than simply deriving from a few “missions verses,” the church’s call to missions is grounded in the full spectrum of biblical revelation.
What might God be up to amid the seismic changes the church and our culture are undergoing? What opportunities will congregations encounter if they rediscover and follow God's leading? Leading Faithful Innovation offers a practical, hands-on approach to addressing this challenge, a process that culminates in the hope that comes from following the Spirit. Dwight Zscheile, Michael Binder, and Tessa Pinkstaff build on Scripture, theology, and the latest leadership and change theories to guide church leaders on a journey toward grassroots, participatory spiritual growth. This faithful innovation begins with a three-step process: listening to God and to each other, acting so we can learn, and sha...
Defying predictions of the inevitable decline of Christianity in the US, Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil presents the untold story of new churches springing up in Seattle, one of the most post-Christian cities in the nation.