Surviving The Church

To a person of faith, the Church is the body of Christ created to extend God's love and grace here on earth. What can seekers and believers do when life inside the Church habitually drives them to seek sanctuary in the arms of the world instead? Countless people have experienced burnout and been subject to guilt trips and methods of manipulation in the name of ministry while their relationship with God suffers the consequences. What can you do when you become disenchanted with God's people? How can the Church win back the countless souls who have walked away in a desperate act of self-preservation? Is there a way to restore hope to your faith? Believers, seekers, pastors, leaders, the burned-out and the passionate are all invited to join the discussion. If you have not suffered the soul-crushing blows to your faith that can happen within the Church then chances are you know someone who has. It is a life-altering experience with eternal consequences. Together we can learn to recognize the pitfalls that subtly creep into our congregations enabling us to intervene BEFORE it%u2019s too late. Those who have already left the Church will see that all is not lost when their hope is in Jesus Christ. As the disenchanted endeavor to rebuild their faith, God will reveal a path to restoration and reconciliation. Inside this book you will find, among other things, topics like: -Personal, real-life stories about faith changing experiences -Insight about the descent into the cycle of burnout -Exposure of common pitfalls within the Church such as guilt trips and manipulation tactics -Biblical and practical steps the Church can take to help stem the tide of believers leaving the church over neglect, abuse, and offense -Realistic suggestions for the disenchanted believer for moving forward in healing and restoration -How the Church can recapture the hearts of the disenchanted

Banished is an eye-opening, deeply personal account of life inside the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance. You've likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps you've seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of the recent Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti- practically everything and everyone. And they aren't going anywhere: in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC's right to picket funerals. Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later. Lauren spent her early years enjoying a normal life with her family in Florida. But when her formerly liberal and secular father set out to produce a documentary about the WBC, his detached interest gradually evolved into fascination, and he moved the entire family to Kansas to join the church and live on their compound. Over the next seven years, Lauren fully assimilated their extreme beliefs, and became a member of the church and an active and vocal picketer. But as she matured and began to challenge some of the church's tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out from the church and permanently cut off from her family and from everyone else she knew and loved. Banished is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.

One of America's leading Christian thinkers interweaves the story of his own struggle to reclaim his beliefs with inspiring portraits of people who have succeeded in the pursuit of an authentic faith. In Soul Survivor, Philip Yancey charts his spiritual pilgrimage through the influence of key individuals: "These are the people who ushered me into the Kingdom. In many ways, they are why I remain a Christian today, and I want to introduce them to other spiritual seekers." Yancey interweaves his own journey with fascinating stories of those who modeled for him a life-enhancing rather than a life-constricting faith: Dr. Paul Brand, G. K. Chesterton, Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner, C. Everett Koop, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henri Nouwen, John Donne, Mahatma Gandi, Shusaku Endo, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert COles. Readers will find these inspiring portraits both nurture and challenge for their own understanding of authentic faith. Yancey fans will devour these new glimpses of how he has held onto faith while acknowledging with utter honesty its inherent difficulties. New Yancey readers will be drawn in by the theme of faith versus religion and drawn along a compelling narrative of signposts on a spiritual journey. Soul Survivor offers illuminating and critically important insights into true Christianity, which will enrich the lives of veteran believers and cautious seekers alike.

This sociological portrait presents how Chinese Christians have coped with life under a hostile regime over a span of different historical periods, and how Christian churches as collective entities have been reshaped by ripples of social change. China's change from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, or from an agrarian society to an urbanizing society, are admittedly significant phenomena worthy of scholarly attention, but real changes are about values and beliefs that give rise to social structures over time. The growth of Christianity has become interwoven with the disintegration or emergence of Chinese cultural beliefs, political ideologies, and commercial values. Relying mainly on an oral history method for data collection, the authors allow the narratives of Chinese Christians to speak for themselves. Identifying the formative cultural elements, a sociohistorical analysis also helps to lay out a coherent understanding of the complexity of religious experiences for Christians in the Chinese world. This book also serves to bring back scholarly discussions on the habits of the heart as the condition that helps form identities and nurture social morality, whether individuals engage in private or public affairs. ""Li Ma and Jin Li have written an unusually valuable book on the recent history of Christianity in China. Unlike too many others (often speculative or ill-informed), they support their general narrative with extensive ethnographic research. The individuals they have interviewed provide fascinating insights into conversions in prison, the Christian 'harvest' from the Tiannamen Square massacres, effective evangelism at McDonald's and Starbucks, the emergence of Christian NGOs, ongoing tensions between believers and the Chinese Communist Party, the surprising emergence of self-conscious Chinese Calvinist theology, and much more. The result is extraordinary insight concerning perhaps the most important scene of Christian development in the world today."" --Mark Noll, Professor at the University of Notre Dame ""Ma and Li have given us an invaluable set of voices from China's Christian world. Through patient combing of printed texts and many hours of interviews with people today, they allow Chinese Christians to speak for themselves and let us understand how Christianity has become China's fastest-growing--and one of its most influential--religions. Understanding China requires understandings its faiths and beliefs, and especially those of its youngest but most dynamic faith: Christianity."" --Ian Johnson, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, Author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao ""Readers in the West and the East alike are keen to know more about life in China, both today and in the recent past. For Christian readers, this eager curiosity extends to the churches of China, the majority of which remain officially illegal and are often hidden. What does it mean to be a Christian in China today? How do today's Chinese Christians remember the past? Why have they come to faith? What difference does Christianity make in their lives? Sociologist Li Ma and her husband, theologian Jin Li, have interviewed over 100 Chinese Christians from various parts of the nation. Their voices, so seldom heard, come through with amazing force. This book reveals the hearts and minds of Chinese Christians as never before."" --Joel Carpenter, Director, Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity at Calvin College ""Surviving the State, Remaking the Church is a truly illuminating book. Based on interviews with Chinese Christians, it provides valuable glimpses into the remarkable stories of how the Chinese churches survived during the era of the most severe repression. It also provides vivid and thoughtful accounts of the many contemporary challenges facing Chinese Christians even as their churches continue to flourish."" --George Marsden, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Notre Dame Li

A challenging and encouraging manual for day-to-day life in ministry written specifically for couples who want to do more than survive the process of church planting and leadership—who want to actually thrive and grow in faith together as a family. Though we may feel like we can't show it, every aspect of planting a church is personal. Church planters and those in ministry leadership roles give so much to starting and growing healthy, thriving churches that when some people inevitably criticize the church, or leave altogether, it's hard not to take it personally. Brian and Amy Bloye know firsthand the emotional and relational toll that planting churches can take. In It's Personal—part of the Exponential series, inspiring and equipping next-generation church planters—the Bloye's get personal about finding the right balance of family and ministry. Planting a church is more than a ministry—it's a calling that touches every aspect of your life in very personal ways. With intimacy and wisdom, Brian and Amy discuss topics like: How to protect your marriage while planting a church. How to respond to growth and change. How to lead well while still maintaining space and time for family. How to know when it’s becoming too personal. With a forward by Andy Stanley, It's Personal will challenge and encourage you to avoid some of the pitfalls of planting a church and be equipped to build both strong and prevailing ministries, and healthy marriages and families. Each chapter includes interviews with church-planting couples who share their personal joys and struggles, giving you authentic insight into the issues families face when planting a church.

"I can't imagine a college student—skeptic, doubter, Christian, struggler—who wouldn't benefit from this book." —Kevin DeYoung For many young adults, the college years are an exciting period of selfdiscovery full of new relationships, new independence, and new experiences. Yet college can also be a time of personal testing and intense questioning— especially for Christian students confronted with various challenges to Christianity and the Bible for the first time. Drawing on years of experience as a biblical scholar, Michael Kruger addresses common objections to the Christian faith—the exclusivity of Christianity, Christian intolerance, homosexuality, hell, the problem of evil, science, miracles, and the reliability of the Bible. If you're a student dealing with doubt or wrestling with objections to Christianity from fellow students and professors alike, this book will equip you to engage secular challenges with intellectual honesty, compassion, and confidence—and ultimately graduate college with your faith intact.

In this disturbing and compelling new book, Stephen Parsons uses real-life stories to highlight the dangers that exist ijn the modern Church, and sounds the alarm for any church or individual who may be susceptible to perpetrating or falling victim to abusive practices or behavior. These harrowing stories include a vulnerable couple persuaded to part with their life savings for a church; a woman raped by her minister, who then had to face denial and rejection; a woman demonized for resisting a church’s obsession with demons; a homosexual whose integrity as an individual was attacked; and a woman damaged by inappropriate "healing." Parsons ends his bold analysis by affirming the potential for abuse-free Christianity and healthy church life.

Being a pastor has its rewards and pleasures. But churches can be unsafe places. They are filled with broken, imperfect people. Many ministers of the gospel walk into a church naive about the potential hazards of their vocation. They are vulnerable to difficult people, unresolved conflict, incompatible visions, hidden agendas, mission drift, and sin--their own and that of others. Other pastors feel trapped in a ministry hurricane and don't know what to do. They feel like failures. They're thinking about leaving the ministry. They are looking for help and hope--not from an "expert" detached from the real world of ministry--but from someone who has suffered through church hurricanes and lived to share the story. Moreover, they need to know they are not alone. Surviving Ministry: How to Weather the Storms of Church Leadership includes the author's own story as well as true stories from other pastors who have been in the eye of the hurricane. Discouraged ministers looking for biblical, practical, gospel-centered advice for storm proofing their churches, homes, and hearts have found a friend. Surviving Ministry will equip them to stay resilient before, during, and after seasons of difficulty.