Reviews for Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations

The average rating for Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-07-20 00:00:00 Carl Ford First of all, it is obvious that Bishop Schnase loves the church he has been called to lead, is worried sick about the current state of affairs in the United Methodist Church, and wants to do something to help the Church he loves get healthy again. He has identified Five practices--Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity--as the five crucial systems in the Body of Christ that need to be operating at maximum effectiveness for the body of Christ to be healthy. And I can agree with him. Secondly, I am a retired UM pastor, so he's talking about my "tribe," and I love the UMC, too. I also fear for her health and future, and rejoice when someone offers a thoughtful, provocative, challenging, and on-target approach to church leadership that has the potential of turning the ship around, getting the body off of life-support, or whatever metaphor for what ails our tribe seems best to you. That being said, I gave the book just two stars because Bishop Schnase, like so many others in the UM church these days, missed what I believe is a crucial leadership principle; and that is why nothing is changing in the UMC, and why we are just 30 years away from extinction. The leadership has abdicated their leadership role. Rather than defining the God's vision for the UMC and doing the hard work of aligning all the congregations behind that vision, they throw out a myriad of suggestions on how a congregation might get healthy, and leave it to us to choose our own direction. That is very much like the captain of a ship gathering the passengers together and saying to them, "So, where would you like to go on this voyage? I have 27 maps here. Choose whichever one you like, get into a lifeboat, and go where the Spirit leads you." That's no way to run a ship. That's no way to run a church.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-10-23 00:00:00 Lisa Swift I taught this as a small-group study at church, and the class loved it. It's full of thought-provoking ideas. I was pleased to say that a lot of suggestions we could check off as "got it," but there were still plenty of creative ideas to implement. The author is Methodist and most of his examples come from that tradition, but I am sure any Protestant church -- any church, probably -- can glean information from this book to use in its own congregational life. I found the author's Biblical examples to be a little thin, but then he wasn't writing a Bible study. I was teaching one, though, so I found a parable to illustrate each practice. I especially appreciated the way Schnase shows how each practice provides a foundation for those that come after it.