Church Turned Inside Out: A Guide for Designers, Refiners, and Re-Aligners - Hardcover

Bergquist, Linda; Karr, Allan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470383178 ISBN 13: 9780470383179

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2009

Synopsis

A design-thinking book for planting or redesigning churches and incubating a new generation of leaders.

Written by Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr, two experienced church planters and mentors, the book is full of wisdom, practical advice, and creative counsel. Instead of a business-model-as-usual approach, the authors challenge readers to begin with the raw materials of beliefs, values, individuals, teams, and culture, and to then move outwards to draw from a rich palette of real and potential church paradigms. This book is meant to provoke church leaders to think outside of the box and to imagine how their churches might better reflect the image and the mission of God in the world. 

• Contains a wealth of illustrative examples, charts, and other visual aides
• Offers a creative practical perspective and a multi-disciplinary approach to establishing a new church or leading an existing one
• Shows how to honor a church's purpose while embracing its unique culture
• Includes important lessons for nurturing church leadership skills

About this title

From the Back Cover:

There are no sacred models of church, no specific molds into which God pours blessings, and no special leadership styles that are holier than others. Too often, though, church leaders attempt to pattern their ministries after either tradition or the successes of a few prominent trendsetting congregations.

In Church Turned Inside Out, Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr push back on the one-size-fits-all approach. They invite leaders of all kinds of churches―new and existing, megachurches and microchurches―to walk through an inside-out design process. Instead of starting with models and methods, they insist that every sphere of church life resonates with and communicates what you really believe.

As the book unfolds, it moves from abstract concepts toward concrete suggestions. It considers the uniqueness of individual leaders, their teams, and their particular communities, cultures, and contexts while taking seriously both spiritual and practical dimensions. This process results in more potent and effectively organized churches. Perhaps more important, it helps church leaders discover ways to live and work more wholly and faithfully, according to how God created them. It really is possible for a church to be so beautifully designed that every structure, program, and relationship reflects what it intends. Sometimes this requires a whole new design, and other times it only takes re-aligning or refining what already exists. This thoughtful and systemic approach opens a wider array of possible church paradigms than most people ever imagine, but the real goal is not innovation but transformation.

Using a blend of theology, biblical imagery, and metaphors from culture and creation, Church Turned Inside Out provides respectful ways to consider adaptation and change. It offers a hopeful vision of what the church can and must become. It not only positions the church for its future mission to the twenty-first century but offers timeless principles for the church of today.

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About the Author:

LINDA BERGQUIST has been a church planter and church planting teacher for twenty-five years. She also has experience in the area of church consultations and urban ministry to the poor and assists her husband, who is a ministry center director in the Lower Haight district of San Francisco.

ALLAN KARR is currently an associate professor of missional/church planting at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and a practitioner of church planting and community development. Allan has also served for ten years as a national missionary of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0470383178
• ISBN 13: 9780470383179
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240