Re-emerging Church: Strategies for Reaching a Returning Generation

Many of the baby boomer generation are returning to church and rediscovering the faith that they left behind after Sunday school. Roger Standing (Tutor for Mission, Church Planting and Evangelism and Spurgeon's College, London) sets out strategies for reaching out to this prodigal generation, suggesting through a series of fictional case studies how the church might respond to the baby boomer generation. He also addresses issues of style, worship, language and pastoral care.

Roger Standing is the Regional Minister/Team Leader (Baptist "bishop") for the Southern Counties Baptist Association. With nearly thirty years of experience in Christian ministry, he has worked as an evangelist with the Methodists on Merseyside and as a local church minister in Leeds and South London. He presently leads a team that has oversight of 175 churches in southern England. He has been published in Leadership Journal (USA) and is a regular contributor to Third Way and The Baptist Times. Among other publications, he has also written * Finding the Plot: preaching in a narrative style (Paternoster, 2004) * Preaching for the Unchurched in an Entertainment Culture (Grove Books, 2002) * "Word and Image" in A Preachers Companion ed. Hunter, et al (BRF, 2004) His Grove booklet has sold 1800 to 1900 copies, while Finding the Plot sold 800 - 900 copies in its first 6 months. John Goddard comments: 'My second-hand knowledge of Paternoster would suggest that this is a good initial sell-through as a frontlist title, with the peer reviews still to come and the probability of a second sales cycle with pricepointed marketing. It is also backed up with my experience of the sales Finding the Plot generated when launched in Engage 1 - with direct sales only outstripped by our lead title. Finding the Plot was therefore selected to be carried again in Engage 3 (hitting the shelves in a couple of weeks), which should also aid sales.'