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Building Up a New World | Congregational Organizing for Transformative Impact

Building Up a New World | Congregational Organizing for Transformative Impact

Community Organizing from the Pews

The church is an organizing body. No matter how big or small the membership roll, no matter a rural or urban location, churches around the world and across generations organize people:

  • to educate in Sunday school or at public lectures;
  • to feed at potluck luncheons and soup kitchens;
  • to comfort through funerals, visitation, and refugee resettlement;
  • to uplift with worship, public witness, and policy advocacy.

There's not a congregation that doesn't organize! 

But how to organize—effectively and justly for the transformation of the world—remains a frequently asked question. Audre Lorde wrote, "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," therefore community-organizing tools from diverse and marginalized groups are essential for the work of liberation.

Congregations will be invaluably equipped through the stories, practical wisdom, and diverse perspectives of Building Up a New World, with chapters such as:

  • Organizing Congregations for Impact
  • Building a Just Economy
  • Resisting White Nationalism
  • From Potluck to Policy Reform
  • and many more.

Praise for Building Up a New World

"If we really want to build a new world, this book is a map through which we will ... journey toward transformational justice for the new world we must embrace.” 
—Patricia E. de Jong, Chair, Board of Directors, Church World Service 
“Invitation, instigation, and inspiration are beautifully woven together … to engage congregations in a movement that will settle for nothing less than a radically transformed world.” 
—Joshua Baird, Team Leader for Global H.O.P.E. 
“Building Up a New World offers the best thinking of proven movement builders who have forged new tools to build without the crucible of pain.” 
—Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister, United Church of Christ 

About the Editors/Writers

Anne Dunlap is the Faith Organizing Coordinator for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a UCC minister, and the founder of FierceRev Remedies.

Vahisha Hasan, the Executive Director of Movement in Faith, is deeply invested in ways activist and faith communities further healing and collective liberation.

Contributors include: Brittany Caine-Conley, Margaret Ernst, Cathy Carrillo, Noel Anderson, Nichola Torbett, Logan Rimel, Chris Davies, Tracy Howe, Sandra Summers, Teresa Mateus, Vahisha Hasan, Sekinah Hamlin, Sky Roosevelt Mooris, Jade Perry, Erica Williams, Ayanna Johnson Watkins, Lucy Waechter Webb, Marilyn Pagán-Banks, and Anne Dunlap. Foreword by Velda Love.

Paperback: 240 pages
ISBN 978-0-8298-0042-5
2023

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