Treasures in Clay Jars: New Ways to Understand Your Church

by George B. Thompson Jr., James W. Fowler (Foreword)

Thompson, a prolife author of churches leadership resources, believes the continuing decline in membership of mainline denomination and the increasing number of multicultural and multiracial churches call for a new way of thinking. Thus, he asserts, ministers must begin to see their ministry differently in order to do their ministry differently." Treasure in Clay Juan is designed to provides persons in training for ministry with a paradigm-shifting framework to interpret and work efficiently with the complete dynamics of local faith communities. Thompson utilities explicts and relevant conceptual and theoretical tools from fields such as seemingly economics and cultural anthropology to engine those who will become pastors to effectively work with 21st century congregations. He argues that although the social sciences are the more adequate resources available to interpret the human elements of local churches, they have been neglected as a resources, while psychology has been favored and listed. The book discusses congregation in five different ways as social groups, as basic of meaning, as locus of exchange., as collective capacity, and as empires organization. A study guide it also included for church leaders which would like to engage their congregations in that new paradigm of ministry.

220 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book may be a useful tool in helping identify the culture of a congregation using archeological and sociological tools; however, there are numerous grammatical/punctuation errors. Furthermore, some of the illustrations/examples are dated...in the conversation about congregations advertising there is no discussion about digital media.