The Pew Research Center reports "No Affiliation"—identification with no religious tradition—is the fastest-growing designation among people polled. Evangelicals, mainline Christians, and Catholics are all declining while the unaffiliated category is increasing significantly. The Church no longer has a primary place in the cultural dialogue, and Christian leaders are struggling with the fallout.
The situation is urgent. Of the present 43 percent unchurched, 33 percent are dechurched—formerly affiliated with church but no longer are. Ten percent are purely unchurched with no background in any church. The pressing question is, what will the declining numbers be in another ten years?
But in his book, The Resurgent Church, author Mike McDaniel says, "If we look beyond the unsettling trends, we begin to see something encouraging—churches are reinventing themselves and finding ways to survive, flourish, and break through to the unchurched and the dechurched." He shows a new paradigm of incarnational churches that have managed transition to powerfully impact their communities with the message of Jesus.
Based on a five-year examination of reinvented churches, McDaniel has discovered seven critical pathways to help your church thrive in today’s post-Christendom world—a guidebook of principles to help church leaders see into the future and reverse the direction of their fading churches.
There is so much we can’t delay doing,
but there is also so much renewed passion and exhilaration
in rediscovering how to become the church Jesus died to save.
