Sublime

the fact remains that the Church is God’s mandated agency for world transformation.

of Christian discipleship.

But preaching the Gospel is a function of trying to reach the human heart, whether people are poor or rich or middle class. And the bad breaks and tragic mysteries of life exist in plenitude in a city parish.

Follow Jesus together. … Into the neighborhood. … Travel lightly. …

When every congregant can act as an arbiter of a church’s mission and priorities, consensus and mobilization become harder to achieve. More important, an exaggerated and unaccountable individualism is at deep odds with the lordship of Jesus Christ, the one who claimed, “I am the way” (John 14:6) and who calls his disciples to “Come, follow me” (Mat

themselves at or near the center of North American society. 2. Beginning in the mid-1960s that period came to an abrupt halt. The unraveling had begun and it produced increasing levels of anxiety. The churches engaged in more than fifty years of efforts at church growth, health, and renewal, all to get back to their normative location at the center

A hard reality we’ll need to face is that some churches can pivot and reorganize to embody belief, belonging, and behavior as we were designed to, but others cannot.

changing in us? • Are we discovering how to be church in our communities? What are we discovering?

we will likely see more consolidation of churches into medium and larger churches.