This text is based on research with those who have left churches but are nethertheless pursuing a journey of faith. Most of the church leavers interviewed for this text had been in their churches for over 15 years; most had held key leadership positions, and 40 per cent had been in full time theological study of church work. The text outlines how churches can help leavers and suggests a conversion between post-church groups and churches.

For anyone who is concerned about Church decline, the contents of this book offer an essential blueprint for building God’s whole community in the coming years. This unique set of resources offers practical help and insight for all who want to grow, enrich and develop their congregational life. The Church of Scotland has drawn on the findings of extensive new research that it has commissioned in order to put together this set of carefully crafted and informed resources aimed at helping every congregation to understand why people leave the Church, how to avoid unnecessary departures and, above all, to develop an enriching, vital Christian fellowship with the large numbers of Churchless Christians in every community across the country. This ground-breaking book, illustrated by Dave Walker, offers information, hope, insight, prayerful reflection and practical ideas for bringing together in fellowship all Christians, whether they are members of an institutional Church or not.

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.

The purpose of this book is to describe a fact and reflect upon it theologically. The fact is, there are thousands of people who believe solely in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior but who have no plans to be baptized or to join the local church. Churchless Christianity is based on research from the early 1980s among non-baptized believers in Christ in Tamil Nadu, India. This revised edition includes all the original text plus five additional chapters and a new foreword.

Duncan offers a collection of "churchless sermons," stories, memoir, and conversations with the affirmation that the way of life preached and embodied by Jesus is apolitical.

A compelling history of atheism in American public life A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to the entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists, Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. He rebuilds the history of American secularism from the ground up, giving flesh and blood to these outspoken infidels. Village Atheists demonstrates that the secularist vision for the United States proved to be anything but triumphant in a country where faith and citizenship were—and still are—closely interwoven.

"Why mess around with Catholicism when you can have your own customized religion?" Fed up with his parents' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god -- the town's water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible, and the explosive Henry schemes to make the new faith even more exciting -- and dangerous. When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.

“Every pastor should read this. . . . Every believer who has ever despaired of church, been tempted to quit, or struggled with guilt over leaving should, too” (Rod Dreher). Americans still believe in God, but they are leaving the church in record numbers. Why are the faithful fleeing? Julia Duin, a veteran journalist and a Christian, has collected the research and added insights from interviews with disillusioned followers, as well as from her own story. In this engrossing account of churches in decline, Duin visits numerous churches and explores a number of factors underlying the social shift away from church: irrelevant teaching, the neglect of singles, the marginalization of women, and a lack of authentic spiritual power. She also journeys into house churches and emergent congregations. Duin’s careful analysis is sure to help church leaders and churchgoers examine how they might better serve their communities and create inviting spiritual homes for people of all kinds. “Engaging . . . as religion editor for the Washington Times, [Duin] is in her element marshaling statistics, interviewing authors and clergy, and commenting on the trend of faithful evangelicals who increasingly vote with their feet by leaving their churches.” —Publishers Weekly

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Does your church make you uncomfortable? It’s easy to dream about the “perfect” church—a church that sings just the right songs set to just the right music before the pastor preaches just the right sermon to a room filled with just the right mix of people who happen to agree with you on just about everything. Chances are your church doesn’t quite look like that. But what if instead of searching for a church that makes us comfortable, we learned to love our church, even when it’s challenging? What if some of the discomfort that we often experience is actually good for us? This book is a call to embrace the uncomfortable aspects of Christian community, whether that means believing difficult truths, pursuing difficult holiness, or loving difficult people—all for the sake of the gospel, God’s glory, and our joy.