Catch the Wind

by Charles R. Ringma

Most agree the church needs to change, but how can this be brought about? Innovations and openness to new ideas are all around us, but in the church there seems to be a way of thinking and behaving that has written change out of the agenda. As a result, many have left the church, or as Charles Ringma says, go to church "out of habit or guilt, but are frustrated, alienated and don't participate in its life." In Catch the Wind, Charles Ringma answers questions such as: . How can people be empowered for change? . Can they become responsible for their own spiritual growth? . What is the shape of the church of the future? . How can churches be organized as if people mattered? . How can our experience of church be a family one? Catch the Wind doesn't offer a single "model" for the church. But it does make a case for a more dynamic, less structured and risk-taking approach to our life together that builds people up and equips them for mission in the world. Charles R. Ringma is Professor of Missions and Evangelism at Regent College. He has previously done mission work among the Aborigines in Australia, was the founder and director of the Good News Centre which worked with alcoholics in Brisbane, and was Australian founder and executive director of Teen Challenge, also in Brisbane. He has taught at the Asian Theological Seminary in Manila and is the author of Gadamer's Dialogical Hermeneutic, Cry Liberation: With Voices from the Developing World, and Seek the Silences: With Thomas Merton.

Genres: Church

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Merv Budd · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Catch the Wind" paints an alternative vision for what the church ought to be while not advocating for a particular mode. Ringma strongly focuses upon process rather than forms of change and challenges the corporate leadership mentality of institutional top down leadership structures of church.

While I agreed with much of Ringma's writing I found him a little harsh, and perhaps unimaginative with regard to the potential role and contribution that could still be made by the institutional church. Nevertheless, his emphasis on empowered laity who take greater responsibility for their own spiritual growth and greater ownership of the church's direction had a ring of truth that was refreshing even while it was hard to hear. Like a slap across the face, it is a wake up call to a sleeping, overly institutionalized church.