Publisher's Synopsis
"This book is a road-map for a church to find new vibrancy, new life, new joy. I heartily recommend it."
-Tod Bolsinger, VP and Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Seminary, author of Canoeing the Mountains: Leading into Uncharted Territory
Beyond Thingification will help you get clear on your church's mission and help your church do ministry that really matters.
Leading churches is so much harder than it used to be. You used to be able to grow a church simply by starting one. Or by improving the preaching or the music or the children's ministry. That's just not the case anymore. We try to attract people to our churches with new programs. Occasionally it works. Most of the time it doesn't.
That's frustrating! And it makes us feel like failures.
Eventually, most of us realize that getting our churches to be bigger and better is not God's top priority. We begin to understand that what God really wants is to heal the world. And we want that, too. We want to help our churches bless our communities and restore shalom in the world.
The problem is...it's so hard to know how to do that today.
In Beyond Thingification: Helping Your Church Engage in God's Mission, Markus Watson:
-Describes the historical background that got us to where we are...
-Explores the mission to which all of us have been called, and...
-Presents a practical way to discern how God is calling your particular church to participate in the healing of the world.
As you and your church read Beyond Thingification and implement what Markus Watson terms "Vocational Connection Groups," you will:
-Help your church meaningfully engage in God's mission.
-Escape the hamster wheel of doing the same old-but now ineffective-ministry programs.
Beyond Thingification will help you move:
-From confused about the church's purpose...to clear about the church's mission.
-From frustrated about your church's ineffectiveness...to excited about what God is doing through your people.
-From distracted by meaningless measures of success...to focused on faithfulness as the true measure of success.
If you're ready to get clear on how God is calling your church to engage in the mission of God in your unique context, Beyond Thingification will help you do just that.
