The conventional wisdom about mainline Protestantism maintains that it is a dying tradition, irrelevant to a postmodern society, unresponsive to change, and increasingly disconnected from its core faith tenets. In her provocative new book, historian and researcher Diana Butler Bass argues that there are signs that mainline Protestant churches are indeed changing, finding a new […]
Many recent books have attempted to address the “crisis” in the mainline church. Anthony Robinson here makes a significant – and in many ways unique – contribution to this discussion by bringing his personal insights as a pastor to bear on the issue of renewing congregational life. Writing from twenty-five years of experience in four […]
When Robert Chesnut became pastor in 1988, East Liberty Presbyterian Church was a declining and graying congregation. Over the next ten years, Chesnut sparked a remarkable – and often controversial – turnaround in membership, ministry, and finances. Transforming the Mainline Church gives the inside story of that renewal, and also provides valuable lessons for other […]
Many church leaders feel – at least on some level – that virtually all the old answers about what it means to be and do church don’t work anymore. Author Jeffrey D. Jones believes that if the old answers don’t work any more it is because the world in which they had worked is no […]
What is your church like today? Maybe your congregation is experiencing wonderful energy and growth. Or perhaps, like many, it was established some time ago and is now experiencing a loss of activity and vitality. In this book, E. Stanley Ott outlines twelve dynamic shifts in thinking and practice that can bring new vision and […]
At times, a congregational transition looms so large in a sermon that it becomes the lens through which scripture is interpreted, the congregation is addressed, the preacher is heard, and God is experienced. Homiletics professor and parish pastor Craig Satterlee reflects in this accessible, provocative volume about on how to integrate such significant events in […]