Surprising Insights from the Unchurched

I'm currently at home afflicted by a viral bug of some sort, and it's been a good time to catch up with reading, so thanks Dazzur for the loan of this excellent, and for me, un-put-down-able book.

Thom Rainer was founding Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and church Growth at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the US.  He's written interesting and important books on the theme of evangelism & mission - and especially on reaching the unchurched.

This is a simple, but far from simplistic book.  It arises from a series of 353 exhaustive interviews with the recently and formerly unchurched: that is, people who have recently joined the church. Rather than asking what the currently  unchurched think, Rainer samples the opinions of those who have made a recent and successful transition into church membership.

This small methodological tweak yields big results.  So instead of reading another book that gets angry at the church for not reaching group X, Y or Z, I'm reading a book that's about what's happened so that an unchurched person has now become a Christian and committed church member.

I'm already more than half way through the book, but will post reflections as I get to them.  If you'd like to read with me, please get a copy and do so.  I'd love to hear what you think and how we can implement some of these insights in our life together at St Alfs.  (Actually, we've already started to do so through our Mission Action Plan process, but that's another story...)