Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Alban Books
Pages: 101
Trim: 5½ x 8½
978-1-56699-433-0 • Paperback • November 2012 • $29.00 • (£19.99)
978-1-56699-555-9 • eBook • November 2012 • $27.50 • (£19.99)
Steve Willis has pastored small churches in rural, town, and urban settings for the last nineteen years and now writes about the sustainability of small church life. As a Presbyterian (USA) minister he has served Presbyterian and United Church of Christ congregations in Washington state, Cincinnati, and the southeast, where he is now pastor of the Virginia Presbyterian Church in the Appalachian Mountains in Buchanan, Virginia.
Foreword by Tony G. Pappas
Preface
Chapter 1: Periphery
Chapter 2: Simplicity
Chapter 3: Limits
Chapter 4: Creation
Chapter 5: Belonging
Chapter 6: Bills
Chapter 7: Imagination
Notes
Practical, prophetic, and personal, Imagining the Small Church will spark the creativity of church leaders in pulpits, pews, and board rooms. Willis delivers a hopeful call for mainline churches dealing with anxieties over declining membership rolls, decreasing finances, and more limited social influence. The rich and inspiring stories Willis tells from his ministry make this book an excellent resource for preachers and teachers and will be shared again and again in churches large and small.
— Lee Hinson-Hasty, Coordinator for Theological Education, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Are you weary of books aimed at ‘fixing’ the small church? Read this book instead. With deep respect, Steve Willis shows how healthy small churches simply and lovingly embody God’s upside-down wisdom. Long experience at the periphery gives us much to teach the larger church that now finds itself pushed to the sidelines of culture. Read, imagine—and hope!
— Mary Harris Todd, Small Church Pastor, Keeper of "The Mustard Seed Journal"