Learning How to Be a Minority Church

I’m a big-picture thinker – well, I just love to think about big things. So in my work as a pastor I am often thinking about where we are and where we’re headed, at least as the Church in America. Obviously, I can only offer what I see, not make some definitive statement.

Among pastors, seminary professors, and other church insiders, there’s been quite a lot of talk over the past, let’s say, twenty years about the decline of church attendance and religious affiliation. To even bring up the subject makes me and most pastors I know sigh audibly and wonder when this conversation will be over. But if you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll recommend a couple books:

Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America – Darrell Guder, et.al.

The Great Emergence – Phyllis Tickle

Both books chronicle the epoch-level…