Rise!! Church! Rise!!

Rise: Bold Strategies to Transform your Church, by Cally Parkinson, through the REVEAL Group, has written a very good book to read.  Most books like this focus on how to grow the church and give you a number of good well meaning plans to help in that endeavor.  This book is a little unique in that it has as it’s main focus the area of the spiritual well being and power of a church.

For the past 10 years the authors were researching various churches throughout the United States. The goal was to help church leaders better understand ways in which churches can achieve and maintain spiritual growth.  Over 2,000 churches were involved in this study.

The conclusion is that the more activities a church has, does not correlate to greater spiritual growth.  That is really nothing new in the church leadership world.   With this in mind, the question becomes, how do you enable a church to grow spiritually without the addition of more programs and meetings. 

The authors believe every church falls into one of eight patterns of spiritual growth, whether they are effective or not.  They identify 8 various archetypes of church health, believing every church fits in one of these categories. 

They are ~
• The Troubled Church
• The Complacent Church
• The Extroverted Church
• The Average Church
• The Introverted Church
• The Self-Motivated Church
• The Energized Church
• The Vibrant Church

Each chapter includes a case study of one church and how they addressed their issues to move forward.  This helps the reader if their church is in this situation to see some form of application.  Of course, not all situations will work for each church, but this book is helpful in giving the leader a better understanding of their church and how to move forward.

I received this book free from the publisher through the Tyndale Blog Network in exchange for an honest review.