Church Planting in Post-christian Soil

In this book, Christopher James attends carefully to stories of ecclesial innovation taking place in Seattle, Washington - a city on the leading edge of trends shaping the nation as a whole. James's study of the new churches founded in "post-Christian" Seattle offers both pragmatic advice and theological reflection. After an in-depth survey- and -interview-based analysis of the different models of church-building he identifies, James identifies five threads of practical wisdom: 1) embracing local identity and mission, 2) cultivating embodied, experiential, everyday spirituality, 3) engaging community life as means of witness and formation, 4) prioritizing hospitality as a cornerstone practice, and 5) discovering ecclesial vitality in a diverse ecclesial ecology. Stimulating, encouraging, and stereotype-shattering, this book invites readers to reconsider the narrative that portrays these first decades of the twenty-first century as a time of ecclesial death and decline, and to view this instead as a hope-filled season of ecclesial renewal and rebirth.