What started as a desire to learn more about nearby churches morphed into a much bigger vision. At God’s prompting, I planned an unconventional faith journey, one of adventure and discovery. My goal was to learn what he would show me by visiting a different Christian church every Sunday for a year.
My wife, Candy, served as my faithful accomplice throughout the whole thing. We eventually called our sojourn “52 Churches.”
Some people thought we were crazy. We were. Others thought we were brave. We weren’t. Any courage came from our dependence on God each step of the way.
Each week I blogged about our experience. Readers wanted more.
Then I wrote a book: 52 Churches: A Yearlong Journey Encountering God, His Church, and Our Common Faith.
Readers still asked for more.
This book is the first step in providing more: more information and more insight. This workbook is a guide to discovering key truths from 52 Churches that we can apply to our local branches of Jesus’s church.
Note that 52 Churches is a narrative that celebrates the good we experienced when visiting churches, along with some recommendations for improvement. To be of maximum value, this workbook, however, focuses on the items needing correction. This isn’t to denigrate the churches we attended, but to serve as a guide to move all churches into a more effective outreach.
Use this book in whatever way benefits you the most. It might be for personal introspection, a small group or Sunday school class discussion starter, or as a guide for church leadership to reform church practices for greater kingdom impact.
As we move forward to contemplate and respond to this workbook, we can become a church that matters to our community and advances the good news of Jesus.
But whatever you do, don’t let this book collect dust. Read it, contemplate it, and apply it. Then give God the glory for the results.
Amen.
