A new friend asked for a bibliography from me recently. What did you read to help you figure out what to do in Galileo Church? Great question. Heres the email I sent back, eventually. Friend -- Please accept my apology for sending this so much later than promised. I’m kind of a one-person show over here — which is not really an excuse, but a weak attempt to gain your sympathy. [smile] But I have been thinking about you and your project of investigating “next church”. So here’s a list of some books that have been important to me along the way, some of which I read before I really got started with Galileo Church, and some of which I’ve added as I’ve encountered questions in need of answers, or at least directionality for further thought. Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin — this is the granddaddy of emergent church thought, describing what he could see happening in small emergent faith communities in post-Christian Europe. After the Baby Boomers and Christianity in the 21st Century by Robert Wuthnow. Wuthnow is the pre-eminent sociologist of North American, mainline Protestant church life. He’s been studying us for decades, and he started telling us 30 years ago that things were about to change in a big way. UnChristian and You Lost Me by David Kinnaman. Kinnaman digested the data from a huge Barna Group study regarding Millennials and why they’re not in (traditional) church. The Barna Group is evangelical, rightward-leaning compared to Disciples, but the data is solid. Church in the Inventive Age (and Community in the Inventive Age, Evangelism in the Inventive Age, Preaching in the Inventive Age) by Doug Pagitt. Pagitt has formed the JoPa group with his friend Tony Jones (also a prolific author) to press the conversation about alt-church formation in the U.S. The JoPa Group also does conferences once a year or so; find them on Facebook and pay attention to what they’re presenting next for clues about what to read. Simple Church by Rainier & Geiger; Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller; The New Parish by Sparks & Soerens; Slow Church by Smith & Pattison. These are all books about new (but really old) forms of church, urging us forward (and backward) to ways of institutional authenticity for a new age. Community by Peter Block; Radical Welcome by Stephanie Spellers; Wellbeing by Rath & Harter; I Come Away Stronger by Wuthnow; Making Room by Christine Pohl. These are books that try to describe people’s hunger for relationship, for connection, for belonging, for the “peopling” of their world with beloveds they can trust and who will care for them. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. There’s a fantastic chapter about how many people it takes to form ideal-size groups for certain levels of caring and connection. It’s a really good case against Big Church and for Small Church with Micro-Groups. Brim, by Andra Moran and Suzanne Castle, which describes and illustrates with concrete examples a way of worship that is beautiful and has integrity — not a show for an audience of bored people, not a break with tradition for the sake of novelty, but rather worship as an invitation to engagement with the Deity with our whole selves. Kind of an exercise in the practical implications of David Bentley Hart’s The Beauty of the Infinite. Pretty much anything by Brian McLaren. You can start anywhere with him. Hes so popular one might be tempted to think hes not good. One would be wrong. I was wrong. There are more, many more. But these stand out as the ones that helped me figure out some important stuff. Let me know what you would add to the list as you go along, and happy reading! peace — KH
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 17:05:19 +0000
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