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Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Please try again.Please try again.Please try again. Please try your request again later. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Show details Hide details Choose items to buy together.Penwell not only effects that welcome shift adroitly, but he also does so by means of hard facts, keen observations, and experienced insight. This is a pilgrimage worth making. --Phyllis Tickle, author, Emergence ChristianityHe is the senior pastor of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky and a former lecturer at the University of Louisville in Religious Studies and Humanities. Derek has a Ph.D. in humanities from the University of Louisville, and is the author of articles ranging from church history to aesthetic theory and the tragic emotions. He is also the author of The Mainliner's Survival Guide to the Post-Denominational World, from Chalice Press, about how mainline denominations can avoid despair in an uncertain world. His newest book, Outlandish: An Unlikely Messiah, a Messy Ministry, and the Call to Mobilize (Chalice Press, 2019), focuses on understanding the political nature of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as a model for forming communities of resistance capable of challenging oppression in the pursuit of peace and justice. He is an activist and advocate on local, state, and national levels on issues of racial justice, LGBTQ fairness, interfaith engagement, and immigrant and refugee rights. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. Videos Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video. Upload video To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.
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Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Please try again later. Beau Underwood 5.0 out of 5 stars While it has serious demographic and financial components, at its core the issue is one of theology and spirituality. Do we have the courage to go in the new directions that God beckons us. Are we willing to pick up our crosses and follow Jesus whatever the costs. Can we stop fighting with each other long enough to let that Still Small Voice into the conversation. When a fire starts sensible people realize the danger and run away in fear. Others run towards the blaze, realizing the devastation won't stop without courageous, dedicated leaders willing to risk their own lives for the sake of others. Derek Penwell is one of those firefighters. He takes on the most challenging issues facing the contemporary church, believing that if we are willing to risk it all then we just might be reminded of who (and whose) we are. It is imperative that mainline congregations rediscover their mission and identity. Lacking a clear reason for existing inevitably leads to extinction. This is the conversation Penwell is urging the church to have and helping us navigate. Unless you're satisfied with the status quo and confident in the contemporary church's witness (which I'm certainly not), you NEED to read this book.Much of what he says in the book is a continuation of conversations that started way back then. What is encouraging is that Derek continues to grow in his understanding of how the mainline church can be a relevant voice in the culture mileau in which we live. He offers practical steps of how to integrate his vision at the end of every chapter in a section called 'Field Notes.
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' He argues that the vision of the unity of the church that Jesus prayed for in John 17 is the reality of the church's life, not something we have to work toward, but instead something we need to claim. Just as people argue about whether global warming is real and whether the internet is merely a fad, some folks, especially church folk, like to pretend we're not in a post-denominational world. Derek offers a vision of life for those who recognize the changing trends, different from where we've been but faithful to the core of who we're called to be.Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2014), and I sat down and read it today (186 pages). Here’s my take. So much has been written about the decline of mainline Protestantism (the so-called 7 sisters) in the last several decades that I almost hesitated to read it. Having personally grown up in a mainline Protestant tradition and having made a brief departure from it into the world of fundamentalism before returning with a renewed sense of belonging, I knew I had to read the book. Penwell, in addition to being the senior minister at Douglas Blvd. Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Louisville, KY, has considerable experience in teaching and dialoging with millennials in church and university settings. His book draws on highly credible finding from the Barna Group and from the Pew Research Forum on Religion along with many illustrative personal stories. This man knows how to make church history talk to the current state of American religion. He does this with grace, humor, and at times a bit of grit that would appeal to millennials meeting at Starbucks for coffee or a microbrewery for a glass of locally brewed beer.
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In one of the most intriguing moves I think I have read, he links the state of religion in the post-Revolutionary period through the Second Great Awakening with its tendency to reject authoritative pronouncements from the landed East Coast religious establishment as people were moving out onto the planes of the US with events in current American society that have lead Generation X and Y along with millennials to reject the institutions of religion. What he finds instructive is that the post-Revolutionary period was actually vital in shaping new expressions of American Christianity, and ultimately he believes that in the wake of denominational decline today that a more honest, less glitzy and less commercialized and institutional religion will develop. Everybody knows that if the church is to survive it must somehow engage the group referred to as “nones.” Rather than seeing “spiritual but not religious” as a negative, he finds a way that a reshaped and thoroughly genuine voice from mainliners can be significant for them. What he emphasizes over and over again is that millennials are not in any way interested in keeping alive the ecclesiastical structures of their parents and grandparents. If they find the gospel lived out in engagement, meaning a reaching out to the poor, the dispossessed, etc., then there is hope for connection. They want to know that the concern is for real, not show. He takes up three areas that are highly important to millennials and which churches must fully engage: 1. Social media; 2. Church as community in an unstable and changing world—even a place to have friends and make friends; 3. the unapologetic and fully inclusive message of gracious welcome to GLBT people in the life of the church through clear and discernible messages—not “closeted welcoming” that characterizes many mainline Protestant churches.
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On point 3, he notes that mainliners have been more accepting and welcoming of GLBT people, but many GLBT people paint all Christian traditions with the same brush as “haters.” That message needs to be clearer in his view. These three ideas are paramount and cannot be neglected if mainliners want to engage millennials. For those people who work most directly with college students and with the 25-39 group, his book has lots of very important ideas. Each chapter ends with “What Can You Do?” Taking on the whole concept of fear at the start, he suggests the future requires that we push beyond the fear of disappearance. No one can really say if mainline Protestantism will remain intact into the future. I do like his final paragraph as a conclusion: “I believe that mainline denominations, if they resist the urge to fall into despair, can survive the desert, can escape the vortex of doom, which threatens to suck the life out of the church. Mainline denominations, which inhabit the grace-filled, ecumenical, expansive vision of God’s work, need to find and empower those pioneers who would once again venture into unknown territories to do God’s work.” For those who are members of denominations that are very hierarchical—Episcopal, United Methodist, and Lutheran—some of the comments may make you a bit nervous or weary, but stick with him and you will find some gold. Download the FREE study guide If you learned your world was ending, how would you respond. Terror? Grief? Anger? Nostalgia? Despair? Any of these responses are understandable. That’s human nature. Consider an alternative: Embracing the liberating mindset that you’ve got nothing left to lose. The Mainliner’s Survival Guide to the Post-Denominational World considers how the declining church should live into the hope of its legacy by living out the Gospel’s radical nature with reckless abandon.
In a world where the fastest growing religious self-designation among emerging generations is “none,” the hope of the church may lie in worrying less about the survival of the church and aiming more toward living like Jesus. Now I’m a fan. He has something vitally important to say to the mainline church. His ideas will make most denominational leaders cringe. Some will look for a way to dismiss his work. Penwell challenges his readers to move their focus beyond an over-reaching desire to save the church and instead to pour their energy into doing God’s work in the world. I could have done without the church and American history lesson, harkening the church to the post-American Revolutionary days and the Second Great Awakening.. But, I doubt it was necessary for him to build his book on the premise that the mainline church has been in this situation before, and confirming God continues to do God’s work despite the climate of the church. Second, and more importantly, Derek Penwell has challenged me to dare and be as bold and prophetic. While raised in an evangelical tradition, Penwell eventually was ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and as the title suggests, he seeks to address mainline denominations such as his own in particular. This would serve as a great introduction for a church-wide study. He makes several good and salient observations of the postmodern climate and the potholes that the Church had fallen through. I share many of Derek’s concerns, and I think that the denomination we share has some important resources that might help our denomination thrive going forward. As I read the book, I liked much of what I read. I agreed with most of his analysis. At times, however, I wrestled with the tone. Part of this has to do with the style, which is informal, almost blog-like. Part of it is generational. As a late Baby Boomer, I find myself conflicted about the nature of our communities. I believe in change. I've preached change.
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But I'm a bit more reticent to throw out some things that those younger than me might not see has having value. Perhaps the best way to put it is a feeling that at times Derek takes an overly argumentative tone. I realize that when it comes to tone, everything is in the eye of the beholder. There is much food for thought present in this book. All is not lost for the Mainline. In this long-overdue manual he offers mainliners sincere hope. And not just by pointing out the big picture (if you think it's rough now, check out the post-American Revolution decline), but by outlining the ways mainline denominations may be exactly what a new generation is looking for — if we can take up the challenge to articulate our convictions in new and compelling ways. But few have provided as clear a roadmap as Derek Penwell. It’s a time for letting go so that the New can arise. Come to think of it, isn’t that exactly what you would expect from followers of Jesus? — Philip Clayton, Claremont School of Theology, author of Transforming Christian Theology. Groups Discussions Quotes Ask the Author To see what your friends thought of this book,The churches that make up the Mainline reached their height of influence and numbers within a few years of my birth at the end of the 1950s. Once full churches now are either closing or live with a scattering of aging members remembering better days. There have been numerous responses to this situation. Some blame the decline on liberalism or being too tied to the culture. Others suggest that Mainline churches haven't ada The churches that make up the Mainline reached their height of influence and numbers within a few years of my birth at the end of the 1950s. Others suggest that Mainline churches haven't adapted to changing realities, failing to exchange organs and hymnals for guitars and screens. There have been some, including Diana Butler Bass who have pointed out pockets of strength, even among the liberal congregations.
Derek Penwell, a Disciples clergy colleague, who has evangelical roots, has written his own response to the plight of the Mainline. He beleives in the message of Progressive Christianity, which finds its home in the remnant of the Mainline, but he's concerned that the desire to protect the status quo endangers its ability to get the message out. He's not interested in a better marketing plan, but rather wants the church to be bold in its proclamation of this message. Derek offers us a historical perspective reminding us that there are similarities to the post-Revolutionary Age, which produced the Stone-Campbell Movement. This movement sought to make the church and its message more accessible and adaptable to the Frontier. Interestingly late in the book he questions the value of an individualistic faith, but in many ways this was the hallmark of the religious movements of the early 19th century, including our own. I've been waiting for this book for some time, in large part because I share the same denomination with Derek. I share his concerns about the denomination and its future. Like him I'm more committed to the message than the institution. But I'm a bit more reticent to throw out some things that those younger than me might see as unnecessary. Perhaps the best way to put it is a feeling that the tone is somewhat argumentative. Derek offers a biting critique, especially of churches and their leaders, who have been slow in embracing the LGBT community. I understand his impatience. I believe my congregation has gone a long way toward being open and affirming. We've made great strides and we've made it clear that all are welcome, but we've not taken the vote yet. So, maybe my conscience was pricked a bit. The question in the end concerns what can be done. The future looks daunting. I'll make it to retirement. But will the churches I've served be able to call someone to serve in the same way I've served. Derek calls for boldness.
That may be the way in which we get the message out. But I want more. I want to understand how we can take root in our communities. I want to understand how we can be inviting to younger generations, without telling older generations that they need to get out of the way. Finding that balance isn't easy. So the journey and the conversation continues. Derek gives us food for thought and resources for the conversation, even if I'm left wanting more. I will have more to say in a later blog review. Much of what he says in the book is a continuation of conversations that started way back then. He offers practical steps of how to integrate his vision at the end of every chapter in a section called 'Field Notes.' He argues that the visi Much of what he says in the book is a continuation of conversations that started way back then. Derek offers a vision of life for those who recognize the changing trends, different from where we've been but faithful to the core of who we're called to be. You need to read this book! Long on statistics and demographic studies but short on Biblical citations, Penwell argues that mainline churches should not make the mistake of thinking all they need is a better marketing strategy. Penwell's prescription. Don't be afraid of social media, but be discrete in how and when to use it. Shed the dogma and the rituals that have no Biblical authority. Learn to love the environment as God's creation as opposed to mankind's playground (What if, as N.T. Wright argues, in the biblical end times Heaven will not be up in the sky somewhere, but be right here on earth?). Learn to at least tolerate, if not openly welcome, those with lifestyles different than yours. Penwell shares a lot of good insight and proposes some excellent ideas, but in the end I have to wonder how effective this book will be.
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The churches he is attempting to talk to look first, in general, to the Bible and to their adopted creeds and covenants for guidance in navigating the stormy seas of history, not to demographics and statistics. And after all, the purpose of the church is not to do what the world wants it to do, but what God wants it to do.He takes seriously the landscape of Christianity in America, and does so with a pastor's heart. While raised in an evangelical tradition, Penwell eventually was ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and as the title suggests, he seeks to address mainline denominations such as his own in particular.He takes seriously the landscape of Christianity in America, and does so with a pastor's heart. Penwell develops his survey in three sections. The first is a brief historical treatment of Christianity's varying place in the United States. This is by far one of the best, most accessible surveys I've read in years. He spends quite a bit of time in the Revolutionary War era, describing a decline in church membership for a time after the war that picked up again thanks to the Second Great Awakening. He notes parallels between that era and our own, particularly around the question of authority. As was true in the 18th century, denominations and their structures can no longer assume their authority. In a postmodern context, authority has shifted from those who guard the information. These factors, as one might imagine, are important to consider when attempting to understand what speaks to younger generations. In the third section, Penwell offers some suggestions for how denominations might need to look and be in order to embody faithful discipleship for this new reality. What he's given us in The Mainliner's Survival Guide is just that -- a survival guide. It's one way the Church might envision the future of discipleship. This is a book for every church leader and for church leadership groups to study.
This book envisions a way forward into the future God means for us to have, rather than wallowing in all the bad news mainline or progressive Christianity has faced for 2 generations. It is helpful, warm, faithful, transformational, visionary, prophetic, and even a bit attitudinal, all of which is to say that it reflects Derek perfectly. Every Pastor and chur This book envisions a way forward into the future God means for us to have, rather than wallowing in all the bad news mainline or progressive Christianity has faced for 2 generations. Every Pastor and church leader who is facing the realities of how difficult it is to be the church of Jesus in the 21st Century should not only read this book but breathe it in, talk about it, digest it, and share it with as many others as possible. A game changer for us all. A superlative read that uses solid data but even more gives one a thoughtful and emotive understanding of people of faith, both older and the under 30 generation. Penwell is nothing less than brilliant in explaining it to both the lay and ordained reader. There are no discussion topics on this book yet.We've got you covered with the buzziest new releases of the day. Upload Language (EN) Scribd Perks Read for free FAQ and support Sign in Skip carousel Carousel Previous Carousel Next What is Scribd. Cancel anytime. Home Books Christianity The Mainliner's Survival Guide to the Post-Denominational World By Derek Penwell Save Save for later Create a list Download Download to app Share The Mainliner's Survival Guide to the Post-Denominational World By Derek Penwell Length: 304 pages 4 hours Publisher: Chalice Press Released: Aug 15, 2014 ISBN: 9780827223653 Format: Book Description The Mainliner's Survival Guide to the Post-Denominational World considers how the declining church should live into the hope of its legacy by living out the Gospel's radical nature with reckless abandon.
He is the senior pastor of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky and a former lecturer at the University of Louisville in Religious Studies and Humanities. He is an activist and advocate on local, state, and national levels on issues of racial justice, LGBTQ fairness, interfaith engagement, and immigrant and refugee rights. The coal industry, by the time I arrived, had experienced a serious decline. As a result, large numbers of people had migrated to other parts of the country in search of work. The cities and towns of Appalachia were beleaguered; and the city I came to was no exception. In fact, it was the poster child for the ravages of decline. Not long after I arrived, I picked up the local newspaper only to read the headline that, according to the latest census, my new city had the dubious distinction of being identified as the fastest declining city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. At the same time, there arose great handwringing in my denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), over the news that we were the fastest declining denomination in American religious life. The church I was to pastor had its own problems. A once-proud downtown mainline Protestant church, it had gotten grayer and grayer. At one point we went eighteen months without church school for anyone under the age of eighteen. Things looked dire. For a young minister fresh out of seminary, it felt like someone had handed me the wheel of the Titanic as it was sinking into the deep. I had just been on the job a few days when Lorraine came into my office and said, Preacher, you’ve come here to bury us. I hope not, Lorraine. But what I was thinking was, I can’t afford for my first church to go belly up. That won’t be a career enhancer. I felt mounting anxiety about the prospect of failure. I kept hearing variations on the same theme: We’d better get some young people in here, or we’re going to die.
Inevitably these comments came from well-meaning people who remembered a time when First Christian bustled with activity, when even the wrap-around balcony was full and You couldn’t swing a dead cat in church without hitting a child. This is one of the reasons they sought a young minister: They thought that maybe a young minister could attract some young families. Fear of death hung in the air. But while things looked grim, I began having nagging doubts about my own disquiet. Why, I wondered to myself, should we continually focus on what’s wrong with us. We didn’t make the local economy. We didn’t cause the denominational contraction. In many ways, we didn’t even have a lot of control over what happened to the drop in membership in our own congregation—young people graduated and moved away in search of jobs, and the downtown suffered as businesses relocated out on the highway. We found ourselves in a cycle of panic and diminished hope that I referred to as the vortex of doom —that situation in which negativity builds on itself, causing a downward spiral. The vortex of doom threatened to consume us. It lay as a subtext beneath every conversation, and lurked on the periphery of every meeting as an unwanted guest. Our eyes betrayed our apprehension of what, we felt certain, awaited us in the future. I knew I couldn’t join in the public rehearsal of our anxieties, but in private I was just as afraid as everyone else that the whole thing would go belly up, and that I’d be left to explain how I took a historic one-hundred-year-old congregation and ran it into the ground. So I started preaching about hope. I took every opportunity to say that we served a God of resurrection, a God used to raising the dead. I received a lot of polite smiles for my efforts. But I could tell that people were only attempting to save me from my mounting discouragement without releasing the grip on their own.
I realize now how difficult it must have been for them to try to protect me from the corrosiveness of the despair that had settled on us. Seeing a different future from the one that threatens to undo you takes a robust imagination—and the first casualty of despair is imaginative thinking. Then one day, after reading about how a cancer patient in hospice care began to take trips she thought she would never take and try things she’d never had the courage to try, it struck me: The prospect of death need not necessarily imprison us; it could, if we were able to shift our thinking, liberate us. It could free us from the burden of our own expectations about what churches are supposed to look like, and let us live whatever life we had left with holy abandon. At a particularly grim elders’ meeting, after I announced that we wouldn’t be hosting a vacation Bible school that summer because we had neither the children nor the volunteers, someone started wondering out loud again about how much longer we were going to be around. I finally got tired of all the fear and anxiety. I said, Here are a few Bibles. Look toward the back at Paul’s letters. Do you see all of those churches? Ephesus. Philippi. Colossae. Do you know what they’re up to nowadays. Heard any inspiring stories about new family life centers at First Church Philippi. Anything about new soup kitchens at First Church Colossae. Any rumors about bold new youth ministry models at First Church Ephesus? Silence. Then someone spoke up and said, I don’t even know if any of those churches are still around. Channeling acerbic theologian Stanley Hauerwas, I said, Exactly. So, let’s concede that God has killed off better churches than we’re ever going to be, and quit worrying about it. Instead of fretting over whether we’re heading for the junk heap, why don’t we just put the pedal down and see what this old thing can do. If it blows up, well, it was on its way out anyway.
If it catches life, though, just think what God could do with it. But the point is that this is God’s church, not ours. Why don’t we start concentrating on the work of faithful ministry, and let God worry about where the finish line is. I’d love to be able to say that things took a sharp turn toward the better after that elders meeting, but I wouldn’t be telling the truth. The truth is that it took a while. Handwringing is a habit that takes time and practice to cultivate. Learning to let go of anxiety is also a habit, one I fear the church has taken very little initiative to foster. And though congregations, which generally operate with a thinner margin for error, are especially prone to despondency, denominations can also find themselves fainthearted about the future. Protestant mainline denominations, in particular, have fallen on hard times over the last generation, with denominations slipping into their own vortex of doom. Are We Even Going to Be Around in Ten Years. Get together with a group of mainline ministers and sooner or later somebody is going to say, I’m not even sure our denomination is going to be here in ten years. I’m not sure why the event horizon is always a round number, nor am I sure what ecclesiastical tea leaves help generate this number, but it seems to be a mathematical constant. Ten years? Are you sure about the number. Well, you know what I mean. Sooner rather than later. Mainline denominations typically occupy the center of discussion about decline—particularly decline in church membership. For years it was argued that the trends indicated that liberal theology was to blame, driving members away. But lately, even more theologically conservative churches have experienced a decline in membership. The Southern Baptist Convention, a widely conservative denomination characterized by consistent growth during the period of the mainline membership slump, has just posted a third year of declining membership numbers. ?