Not available to order
Publication date:
06 August 2014Length of book:
218 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781566997157
The general decline of American mainline Protestant churches today is well documented. Church redevelopment—imagining and actualizing new life for dying churches—is a productive and vital response to congregational decline, but it can be daunting. Here is guidebook for church leaders, to help them reinvigorate their churches with both practical advice and tested theory. A comprehensive case study of Beneficent Congregational Church, which successfully turned the tide and quadrupled its worship attendance, provides inspiration as well as concrete strategies for church redevelopment. The study indicates that successful and faithful church redevelopment involves a shift from a modern-patronage ministry model to a postmodern-plural ministry model.
Building on current church redevelopment literature by bringing selected Biblical and theological texts into conversation with leadership concepts, systems theory, social sciences, and congregational studies, this book creates a multidisciplinary transformative conversation. The result is both strategic proposals for growing your church and a model for doing practical theology in your own ministry context. Dedicated, trained leadership in cooperation with the power of the Spirit can create the possibility of new life in dying congregations.
Building on current church redevelopment literature by bringing selected Biblical and theological texts into conversation with leadership concepts, systems theory, social sciences, and congregational studies, this book creates a multidisciplinary transformative conversation. The result is both strategic proposals for growing your church and a model for doing practical theology in your own ministry context. Dedicated, trained leadership in cooperation with the power of the Spirit can create the possibility of new life in dying congregations.
In this powerful testimony, uncovering the long and complex history of a Rhode Island church held hostage by its past, Dr. Yonkman outlines the multifaceted approaches he, his co-pastor wife Nicole, and a willing congregation used to turn the church around. This inside story takes us into vulnerable places where we too emerge with an understanding of the postmodern plural model of ministry that has set Beneficent Church free. A must read for anyone engaged in the art of church reconstruction.