Imagining Church

Seeing Hope in a World of Change

By Gary and Kim Shockley














Do you have a vision for what the church should be? There is a lot of controversy in our church today about what the church of the future should look like. Gary and Kim Shockley do an excellent job in this book of asking us to look to the future of the church and how we should determine what the church should look like without telling us how it should look. At first that may sound like it fails to do what we want and it some ways maybe it does. There are no recipes here, no this worked here so it will work for you, but many ideas on the process for deciding how your church can develop a plan for what God would like to see your church become.

Gary and Kim have started two churches and Gary now is the director of Path1, the United Methodist Church new church start consulting agency. While sharing their stories of both their experiences in the church and working as consultants with other churches they challenge you to be willing to look at the church in new ways. They will ask us to look at the way the church connects to the community, focuses on worship and funds its ministry in a new light.

I think you will find this will help you design a process that will allow you to lead your church into the future that God desires for you, a disciple making and growing congregation that is likely to look very different than how you have looks in the past.