Atheism has been on the rise increasingly for the past few years, while this book is not about atheism, it is certainly similar to about another issue the church is facing — the rising number of the unchurched.
In this book, George Barna & David Kinnaman talks about the unchurched. These are individuals who have participated or belonged to the church in the past but have for one reason or another stopped going to church, some completely, some only return during special occasions.
The book shows using the statistics they gathered to show the readers the magnitude of the problem and also describes the profile of a typical unchurch. This was discussed in detail, Barna and Kinnaman shows the mindset of a typical unchurch, their perception of the church, their response towards church invitations, etc….
What was refreshing about this book is the way they not only showed the statistics, but they also reveal many enlightening facts about the unchurched. Some things that we might have assumed to be helpful or useful in our evangelising or outreach to the unchurch might not be as receptive as we envisioned it to be. Barna and Kinnaman also gives some suggestions to how churches can modify in way they perform their outreach and also in the way how churches can have more impact in the communities that they are in.
There are also some drawbacks, the book is at best only able to speak about the general trends, and pastors should read this thoughtfully. The book will help pastors understand some things about the unchurch and gather useful information about them from this book. The burden however still lies on the pastor to think through carefully what to do with the information they have gathered.
This book no doubt serve the american pastors the most, for international readers, perhaps this will be a good book to think critically about the unchurched in your own culture. Recommended if you want to know more about the new generation of churchless people around us.
Rating: 4 / 5
If you’re interested, you can get them here and here (free international shipping), Kindle.
Disclaimer: I was given this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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