Churchless


I was excited for the opportunity to read and review Churchless: Understanding Today's Unchurched and How to Connect with Them by George Barna and David Kinnaman. I belong to a large church that is active in soulwinning efforts, so books like this are great for insight on how to reach people. The book description reads:

"Churchless people are all around us: among our closest loved ones, at our workplaces, in our neighborhoods. And more and more, they are becoming the norm: The number of churchless adults in the US has grown by nearly one-third in the past decade. Yet the startling truth is that many of these people claim they are looking for a genuine, powerful encounter with God—but they just don’t find it in church. What are they (or we) missing? How can we better reach out to them? What can we say or do that would inspire them to want to join a community of faith? Containing groundbreaking new research from the Barna Group, and edited by bestselling authors George Barna (Revolution) and David Kinnaman (You Lost Me), Churchless reveals the results of a five-year study based on interviews with thousands of churchless men and women. Looking past the surface of church attendance to deeper spiritual realities, Churchless will help us understand those who choose not to be part of a church, build trust-based relationships with them, and be empowered to successfully invite them to engage."

I absolutely love how much research, time, and effort went into this book. This book is the result of extensive nationwide research that was conducted by the Barna Group. I truly feel like the research done was extremely credible and reliable, and that the whole book is based on the best information available. I was surprised at the hopeful tone of the book - a book on this subject matter could certainly be grim and gloomy, but this is full of hope and active solutions and suggestions to bring people to church. It's divided into 14 chapters with each tackling a facet of this immense topic. Chapters include Is Churchlessness a Crisis?; Our Cultural Moment; Profiling the Unchurched; Born Again and Unchurched, Disengaged and Dropping Out; The Intersection of Family and Faith; Why Churches Matter; and much, much more. This is an extremely important book for our current moment in time, and I feel it's important that every pastor, church staff member, and layperson alike read this book.

I received a copy of this book from Tyndale House in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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