When Church Stops Working

When Church Stops Working
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2023-05-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493441949

What if the solution for the decline of today's church isn't more money, people, programs, innovation, or busyness? What if the answer is to stop and wait on God? In When Church Stops Working, ministry leaders Andrew Root and Blair Bertrand show how actively watching and listening for God can bring life out of death for churches in crisis today. Using clear steps and practices, they invite church leaders to stop the endless cycle of doing more and rather to simply "be" in God's presence. They tell the story of two congregations who did this--and found new life in the process. When Church Stops Working distills the core themes of Root's critically acclaimed Ministry in a Secular Age series in a more accessible form. Leaders and churchgoers who are burned out and hopeless will experience affirmation, encouragement, and empowerment as Root and Bertrand turn to the book of Acts as well as examples from contemporary congregational life to show what "active" waiting looks like and the saving grace it can hold.

The Congregation in a Secular Age

The Congregation in a Secular Age
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2021-01-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780801098482

Churches often realize they need to change. But if they're not careful, the way they change can hurt more than help. In this culmination of his well-received Ministry in a Secular Age trilogy, leading practical theologian Andrew Root offers a new paradigm for understanding the congregation in contemporary ministry. He articulates why it is so hard for congregations to change and encourages an approach that doesn't fall into the negative traps of our secular age. Living in late modernity means our lives are constantly accelerated, and calls for change in the church often support this call to speed up. Root asserts that the recent push toward innovation in churches has led to an acceleration of congregational life that strips the sacred out of time. Many congregations are simply unable to keep up, which leads to burnout and depression. When things move too fast, we feel alienated from life and the voice of a living God. This book calls congregations to reimagine what change is and how to live into this future, helping them move from relevance to resonance.

Exploding Stars, Dead Dinosaurs, and Zombies

Exploding Stars, Dead Dinosaurs, and Zombies
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2017-12-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506446752

Many things threaten the faith of youth today, but none more than science. The commitments of science and Christianity seem to be at odds—science makes truth claims based on experiments and proofs, while religion asks for belief and trust. But Andrew Root demonstrates that, in fact, the two are not incompatible. Root, a renowned expert on adolescent spirituality, shows how science overstates its claims on truth, while faith often understates its own claims. Both faith and science frame the experience and reality of teenagers, and both have something valuable to offer as adolescents develop. Drawing on a fictional account of a youth pastor and the various students he encounters, Root paints a compelling picture of how faith can flourish, even in our scientific age.

Churches and the Crisis of Decline

Churches and the Crisis of Decline
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2022
Genre: Church
ISBN: 9781540965332

"Congregations often seek to combat decline by using innovation to produce new resources. Leading practical theologian Andrew Root shows that the church's crisis is not in the loss of resources but in the loss of life-and that life can only return when we remain open to God's encountering presence"--

The End of Youth Ministry? (Theology for the Life of the World)

The End of Youth Ministry? (Theology for the Life of the World)
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493420178

What is youth ministry actually for? And does it have a future? Andrew Root, a leading scholar in youth ministry and practical theology, went on a one-year journey to answer these questions. In this book, Root weaves together an innovative first-person fictional narrative to diagnose the challenges facing the church today and to offer a new vision for youth ministry in the 21st century. Informed by interviews that Root conducted with parents, this book explores how parents' perspectives of what constitutes a good life are affecting youth ministry. In today's culture, youth ministry can't compete with sports, test prep, and the myriad other activities in which young people participate. Through a unique parable-style story, Root offers a new way to think about the purpose of youth ministry: not happiness, but joy. Joy is a sense of experiencing the good. For youth ministry to be about joy, it must move beyond the youth group model and rework the assumptions of how identity and happiness are imagined by parents in American society.

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2007-10-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780830834884

Andrew Root reviews the history of relational/incarnational youth ministry in American evangelicalism and recasts the practice as one of "place-sharing"--not so much "earning the right to be heard" as honoring the human dignity of youth and locating God in their midst.

Leaving Church

Leaving Church
Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Publisher: Canterbury Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2013-01-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1848253575

Tells how a renowned preacher left her ministry to rediscover the authentic heart of her faith. A moving reflection on keeping faith amidst the relentless demands of modern life.

The Pastor in a Secular Age

The Pastor in a Secular Age
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-06-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780801098475

Academy of Parish Clergy 2020 Top Ten Book for Parish Ministry In Faith Formation in a Secular Age, the first book in his Ministry in a Secular Age trilogy, Andrew Root offered an alternative take on the issue of youth drifting away from the church and articulated how faith can be formed in our secular age. In The Pastor in a Secular Age, Root explores how this secular age has impacted the identity and practice of the pastor, obscuring his or her core vocation: to call and assist others into the experience of ministry. Using examples of pastors throughout history--from Augustine and Jonathan Edwards to Martin Luther King Jr. and Nadia Bolz-Weber--Root shows how pastors have both perpetuated and responded to our secular age. Root turns to Old Testament texts and to the theology of Robert Jenson to explain how pastors can regain the important role of attending to people's experiences of divine action, offering a new vision for pastoral ministry today. This is the second book in Root's Ministry in a Secular Age series.

Faith Formation in a Secular Age

Faith Formation in a Secular Age
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-10-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780801098468

A Top Ten Book for Parish Ministry in 2017, Academy of Parish Clergy The loss or disaffiliation of young adults is a much-discussed topic in churches today. Many faith-formation programs focus on keeping the young, believing the youthful spirit will save the church. But do these programs have more to do with an obsession with youthfulness than with helping young people encounter the living God? Questioning the search for new or improved faith-formation programs, leading practical theologian Andrew Root offers an alternative take on the issue of youth drifting away from the church and articulates how faith can be formed in our secular age. He offers a theology of faith constructed from a rich cultural conversation, providing a deeper understanding of the phenomena of the "nones" and "moralistic therapeutic deism." Root helps readers understand why forming faith is so hard in our context and shows that what we have lost is not the ability to keep people connected to our churches but an imagination for how and where God could be present in their lives. He considers what faith is and what steps we can take to move into it, exploring a Pauline concept of faith as encounter with divine action. This is the first book in Root's Ministry in a Secular Age series.

The Relational Pastor

The Relational Pastor
Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013-03-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830841024

Practical theologian Andrew Root dissects relational ministry as we have come to understand it, calling for a new breed of "empathic minister" to take the helm in our churches. Bringing current practice in touch with incarnational theology, Root searches for a more robust understanding of the relationships that make up the body of Christ.