Weird Church | Welcome to the Twenty-First Century (Estock and Nixon)
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Praise for Weird Church
"The coauthors have woven together a highly readable book full of powerful and rich messages for readers today and far into the future. Welcome to the launch of a new Great Awakening, one that integrates our many worlds."
—Don Edward Beck, PhD, co-author, Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change
“A bold book with a big heart, Weird Church is a refreshing, cerebral look at how the Church, often touted as a dying institution, must change along with the changing world. Weaving together theology and psychology in conversational and compelling ways, Estock and Nixon offer a hopeful look into the future of the Church, as well as a challenge to the status quo.”
—Rev. Dr. Amy Butler, Senior Minister, The Riverside Church, NYC
"Here is a book I will use not only in my seminary classes on evangelism and church planting, but in the church at large as I encourage pastors and lay leaders who are being called to launch weird churches in their own contexts."
—Elaine A. Heath, McCreless Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, and leader and co-founder of The Missional Wisdom Foundation
"Weird Church provides a helpful common language for the different worldviews that exist in the institutional church today that might prevent further blaming of each other. Finally, it gives examples of the richness of diversity in healthy, relevant faith communities.”
—Bishop Sally Dyck, Northern Illinois Annual Conference, The United Methodist Church
In the post-Christendom era, the institutional church just isn't what it used to be. But don't give up hope for the future of faith. Weird Church offers church leaders a clear vision of what’s coming next, so long as they’re willing to live into a few critical shifts. Utilizing Spiral Dynamics as a means of framing the current changes in North American culture, Nixon and Estock give a thrilling forecast of where the church is going as we race toward the mid-century.
This book is a wake-up call for those who still think church revitalization is simply a matter of doing better the things that used to come so easily. A must-read for anybody who is designing Christian ministry for the new world that is rapidly emerging around us.
About the Authors
Paul Nixon is President/CEO of The Epicenter Group. He and his Epicenter colleagues have coached or consulted with more than 1,000 churches in North America and Europe. A bestselling author of The Pilgrim Press, he wrote the bestseller I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church!; We Refused to Lead a Dying Church: Churches that Came Back Against All Odds; and Finding Jesus on the Metro: And Other Surprises Doing Ministry in a New Day.
Beth Ann Estock coaches weird churches all over the United States. She grew up in the Midwest, began her pastoral work in the Bible Belt, and then moved to the Pacific Northwest two decades ago. She is an ordained pastor in The United Methodist Church, a contemplative, cultural architect, and futurist. She and her husband, Jeff, and two daughters live in Portland, Oregon. She blogs at www.sacreddirt.com.
Paperback: 192 pages
ISBN 978-0-8298-2034-8
2016
