Customer Reviews

Best Practices from America's Best Churches

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Wilkes has provided excellent insights into what practices are actually fruitful not in his own words, but in the words of pastors and lay leaders around the United States. It is not written as a primer on church leadership, but rather invites leaders from exemplary churches to share what they have learned about how God is working in and through their churches. It is a diverse bunch of churches and not a one-size fits all prescription. Emminently practical and based on observations of pastors and lay leaders in the trenches bringing the gospel to bear in this very challenging time.

If horizontally-focused statements like the following appeal to you ...

"The Bible is important and needs to be engaged at every possible level, but there needs to be more living in community and struggling with community."

... then this is your kind of book. If not, you're likely to perceive it as chock-full of jargon and therapy-speak.

The time-tested method for building a successful parish is what some have called "dynamic orthodoxy": (1) faithfulness to authentic Christian doctrine, (2) reverent liturgical practices, and (3) enthusiasm for Christ and His Church. So save your money; dynamic orthodoxy is an approach available to everyone -- free.

Are you looking for ways to inspire more parishoners to come to church? Ways to get them deeper into their faith? Ways to bring unchurched people in contact with Jesus? This book has a lot of answers.

The format is a series of brief (10-15 page) essays written by parish leaders of "best practice" Catholic and Protestant churches that cover a wide variety of ministry topics: evangelizing, preaching, fundraising, etc. Each topic contains two or more essays, usually with a different focus.

Since there are so many types of churches and viewpoints represented, you will probably think some ideas sound great and other ideas don't really fit. But it seems as though all these churches struggle with the same basic questions regardless of denomination. It's definitely possible you could pick out just one or two ideas here that could be implemented in your church and really change lives.