How does your church measure success? For many churches, success is measured by the attendance numbers on Sunday mornings or attendance at any of the church's many programs. But this isn't a great standard of measurement because the Bible calls churches to make disciples, and attendance at a program or a worship service doesn't automatically mean that those in attendance are disciples. You can fill up a whole room full of people in a church sanctuary, and all of them could be as far away from Jesus as possible. In this case, attendance can hide the spiritual deadness of the members of the church.
Ed Stetzer and Thom Rainer suggest a different way of measuring church success in their book TRANSFORMATIONAL CHURCH. They picture measuring success in a church as a scorecard. For churches that measure success by the number of people participating in its programs, Stetzer and Rainer suggest a new scorecard. Using the Bible as their foundation, they see the church as the context in which people experience God-initiated transformation. In fact, the church is meant to be a community of people who are being transformed by their relationship with Jesus.
In true Stetzer and Rainer style, TRANSFORMATIONAL CHURCH gives statistics and many examples of churches that are transformational. The authors cover important elements of a transformational church, such as leadership, dependence on prayer, an environment of worship, and community. They offer hope of being a church that is measured by changed lives.
TRANSFORMATIONAL CHURCH says much that should be common sense by now, but it's still important. It covers much of the great ideas Stetzer and Rainer have written about in the past. Ultimately, the book is a call to be the church God had in mind.
I received this book for free from Broadman and Holman through NetGalley
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