In this Book
- Wide Welcome: How the Unsettling Presence of Newcomers Can Save the Church
- Book
- 2013
- Published by: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
- Series: Prisms
summary
While most churches offer 'new member classes' and genuinely seek to welcome visitors, too often the end result is a rush to assimilate the newcomer into formal membership and all of the invitations to participation in committees, choirs, or fellowship groups that go along with it.In Wide Welcome, Jessicah Krey Duckworth presents the stark differences between the established congregation, which cares for current members and congregational identity, and the disestablished one, intentionally equipped to facilitate the encounter between new and established members. By intentionally extending the time of newcomer inquiry and allowing their questions, insights, and experiences to reverberate through the entire congregation both they and the church are changed. Wide Welcome does far more than point out the faults and weaknesses in current practice. Duckworth intentionally lays out possible designs for newcomer welcome that are local and particular.At a time when only nine percent of North American Mainline congregations actively and intentionally facilitate newcomer faith formation, Wide Welcome is an essential and timely book.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. 1-4
- Acknowledgments
- pp. vii-viii
- Introduction
- pp. 1-14
- 1. Deliberate Disestablishment
- pp. 15-34
- 2. Intersections of Inquiry
- pp. 35-58
- 4. Designing Disestablishment
- pp. 79-100
- 5. The Task of the Ecclesia Crucis
- pp. 101-112
- Appendix: Research Methodology
- pp. 113-118
- Bibliography
- pp. 119-124
Additional Information
ISBN
9781451426250
Related ISBN(s)
9780800699390
MARC Record
OCLC
845258965
Pages
144
Launched on MUSE
2013-12-13
Language
English
Open Access
No