Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
We’ve read all the hot books on evangelism, we’ve attended scores of seminars—and still we’re not reaching the unchurched. Eighty to ninety percent of churchless Americans will never darken our culturally relevant, seeker-sensitive doors. What are we missing?Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong people. Instead of consulting the unchurched masses, it’s time we heard what the small but important minority who have recently begun attending a church have to say. What made the difference for them? What critical factors helped spark their faith in Jesus and drew them into the community of believers?
Thom S. Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, shares the results and conclusions of his school’s groundbreaking survey of the formerly unchurched. At last, here are proven insights into what evangelistically effective churches are doing right. Flying in the face of much contemporary wisdom, the answers will surprise you.This is truly one of the most valuable resources you can own as a church leader.
Filled with charts, graphs, and other visual aids, plus an abundance of true-life accounts, this book explodes common myths about the unchurched. You’ll discover:
his eye-opening compendium of information includes reproducible appendices that can help you fine-tune or even restructure your church. From one of the nations foremost authorities on evangelism and church growth, here are insights and tools that will change the way you think of and deal with--and win--unchurched men and women who long to connect with God.
Photocopyable material includes: Unchurched-Reaching Readiness Inventory Church Health Survey
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- Focuses its study on the formerly unchurched
- Provides real life stories of those who were formerly part of the unchurched
- Displays graphs and charts to visually communicate the results of its formal research
Listening to the Formerly Unchurched
- Shattering Myths about the Unchurched
- Pastors and Preaching Are Critical
- Relationships That Click
- Impressed by First Impressions
- Why They Returned and Stayed
Leaders of Churches That Reach the Unchurched
- A Profile of the Unchurched-Reaching Leaders
- What Makes These Leaders Tick?
- Raising Leadership Issues
- An Honest Look at Their Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
- Preaching that Connects with the Unchurched
Conclusion
- To Become a Church for the Unchurched
- Appendix 1: Cluster Questions for the Formerly Unchurched
- Appendix 2: Leadership Survey
- Appendix 3: Follow-up Cluster Questions for Leaders of Effective Churches
- Appendix 4: Unchurched-Reaching Readiness Inventory
- Appendix 5: Church Health Survey
- Appendix 6: Research Design and Statistical Review
“Thom Rainer has gone through the correct source to find out what is wrong with the church—that is, those who were formerly the unchurched. As he has surveyed them, he has collected valuable data to tell us why we are not reaching the unsaved, what we must do to reach them, and how to go about doing it. Rainer provides insight that we have not previously known or heard. Reading this book will help you rethink your approach to evangelism.”
—Elmer L. Towns, Dean School of Religion, Liberty University
“Thom Rainer, one of the foremost church consultants in America, always gets to the heart of an issue, and it’s nowhere more apparent than in this book. What he says here breaks new ground in church growth research. For pastors and others aspiring to lead God’s people, this is must reading.”
—Robert E. Coleman, Director of the School of World Mission and Evangelism Trinity International University
“Thom Rainer has written a book that validates what we believed all along—God is at work building his kingdom! In that kingdom there is much diversity of method and means, but only one King. This book has Surprising Insights that remind us God works through churches,who follow the Leader—to seek and to save those who are lost.
—Nancy Grisham, Assistant Director Billy Graham Institute of Evangelism Wheaton College