Growing an Engaged Church

How to Stop "Doing Church" and Start Being the Church Again

Albert L. Winseman

• Publisher: Gallup Press
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9781595620149
• eBook ISBN:
  9781595620439
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Growing an Engaged Church offers unique, research-based, often counterintuitive solutions to the challenges facing churches today, including declining congregant participation, decreasing contributions, and slumping membership. Ministers, priests, and church boards will find the evidence and answers in this book provocative, eye-opening, and, most importantly, actionable. What if members of your congregation... • were 13 times more likely to have invited someone to participate in your church in the past month? • were three times as satisfied with their lives? • spent more than two hours per week serving and helping others in their community? • tripled their giving to your church? What would your church — your parish — look like? And how would you go about creating this kind of change? One thing is certain: Church leaders are never going to inspire more people to be actively and passionately involved in their congregations by doing the same things over and over again. Pastors and lay leaders need something fresh. Something new. The last thing they need is "just another program" or to set up a laundry list of new activities for members.Based on solid research by The Gallup Organization, Growing an Engaged Church will appeal to both Protestant and Catholic clergy and lay leaders who are looking for a way to be the Church instead of just "doing church."

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction: A Heart Attack Waiting to Happen
• Chapter One: Jeff and Tricia’s Search for a Church
• Chapter Two: What Really Counts
• Chapter Three: Spiritual Commitment by the Numbers
• Chapter Four: The Engagement Imperative
• Chapter Five: Measuring Engagement: “What Do I Get?” and “What Do I Give?”
• Chapter Six: Measuring Engagement: “Do I Belong?” and “How Can We Grow?”
• Chapter Seven: Inside an Engaged Congregation
• Chapter Eight: Strategies for Improving Engagement
• Chapter Nine: The Dynamics of Engagement
• Chapter Ten: Preparing the Soil
• Learn More
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright