Growing an Engaged Church: How to Stop "Doing Church" and Start Being the Church Again

by Albert L. Winseman

Growing an Engaged Church offers unique, research-based, often counterintuitive solutions to the challenges facing churches, including declining participation, contributions and membership. Clergy and church leaders will find the evidence and answers in this book provocative, eye-opening and actionable.

What if members of your congregation were 13 times more likely to have invited someone to participate in your church in the past month? Three times as satisfied with their lives? Spent more than two hours per week serving and helping others in their community? And tripled their giving to your church?

What would your church — your parish — look like? And how would you go about creating this kind of change? One thing is Church leaders are never going to inspire more people to be actively and passionately involved in their congregations by doing the same things over and over again.

Pastors and lay leaders need something fresh. Something new. The last thing they need is “just another program” or to set up a laundry list of new activities for members.

In this compelling and insightful book, Al Winseman — who has led thriving churches, including one he built from the ground up — explores how churches and parishes can dramatically increase members’ participation, service to the community, giving and even life satisfaction. But the solutions Winseman offers are not the “magic pill” many leaders have come to expect. Rather, he shows leaders how to reach and inspire the hearts, minds and imaginations of their people.

Based on solid research by Gallup, Growing an Engaged Church will appeal to Protestant and Catholic clergy and lay leaders who are looking for a way to be the Church instead of just “doing church.”

Genres: Nonfiction, Church, Theology, Leadership, Christian Non Fiction, Christian, Faith

192 pages, Hardcover

First published March 28, 2007

Reviews

[Anthony Rewak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provided sound advice rooted in Gallup research RE: achieving that which the title suggests: growing an engaged church - have highlighted areas for future reference - a good resource for pastoral planning - one item I will note, reading the book as a Catholic it was very evident that it was written by a Protestant author, and most largely for a Protestant audience - despite this, the book bears good food for thought.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great resource for small and medium sized churches. It gets right to the point in a very practical way. These insights aren't new, but they are difficult to apply. We learned a lot about our church by looking at the questions provided on the survey. A healthy church is one in which the members are engaged. They care about the vision and leadership and they are working to serve and build up the church.

[Martin Klubeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! Lot's of useful ideas and techniques to make the parish and the parishioners more engaged. I was able to apply the concepts and principles to my own life and my parish. Well written - kept me going. The list of 12 items that "link most powerfully to the relevant outcomes of life satisfaction, inviting, serving, and giving" were especially useful. When I looked at myself in relation to the 12 items, I learned a lot about myself and others.

If you want to be more engaged in your church (regardless of religion) - Read it.
If you want to help others become more engaged - Read it.

One of things I use as a Litmus test for a book professing guidance is can I apply it to other areas? This is one of the reasons I rated this a five - the concepts and principles can be easily applied to any organization.

[Chadwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Personally, the church described in this is the one I want to attend. I think every congregation/parish can get here, but I know that not every church will approach their members/parishioners this way and continue to not understand why they aren't growing.

Must read for any minister/priest/leader/member/parishioner of a church that wants more for and from their church.

[Mary Helene · Rating 2 out of 5]

It felt like a shill for Gallup polls. That grated on me, despite the respect I have for Gallup. The premise certainly did not have to be a book; an article would have been fine. Our church community is reading this book together,though, and we are using the concepts to frame how we do church. If it works, that's great, and it just very well might, but the presentation was annoying.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learn more about this book and how to apply the principles to your life, parish, leadership team and/or church at www.StrengthsSummit.com find a Strengths and Engagement Summit near you featuring Al Winseman (author of the book) or see of Video of Al getting interviewed at www.EngagedChurches.com

[Lis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very quick, easy read but not a "wow" book. He makes some good points but I had some "come-ons" as well. He makes a good point that if a person isn't engaged at church, that significantly impacts them, and the church, on a number of levels. The stories were great.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that more people in my parish leadership wpold read this book. It gives much food for thought.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read as book study for a group directed at developing a leadership group within our parish. I would recommend it for any parish trying to build involvement.

[Don Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not "brand new" ideas, but presented well.

[Susan Kennedy]

The only question I have regarding this book, is when ten "engaged couple" Jeff and Tricia, left their church and moved to another, they did not feel "welcome" as they had in their original. Perhaps newcomers to their original church felt the same disconnect they experienced at their new church. After all, they were new too. It can be easy to connect when you have been in a group for a while. It would seem any new members might had some difficulty blending in with established groups.