Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations
Reviewed by the Rev. Tom Berlin

How can churches today be as vital as the early Christian communities described in the Book of Acts? How can we reclaim the fruitful piety of the early Methodists? Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, a new book by United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase, describes five foundational practices to help congregations be fruitful in ministry to their members and in service to the world.

The book’s goal is to help congregational leaders examine their ministries and assess church practices. But it is much more than detached ministry evaluation. Schnase invites readers to consider what life is like to those entering church for the first time – a challenge to those of us who cut our teeth as infants on the back pew of the church. He helps us see the church through the eye of the visitor or new member, pushing us to remember what life was like before we first felt the comfortable embrace of the church.

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A Leading Ideas Interview with Bishop Robert Schnase, author of Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations

What led you to write this book?

For me, the book helps answer the question, "How do United Methodist churches make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?"  We do it through faith communities that are strong and healthy.  We offer the embracing gracious welcome of Christ that creates a sense of belonging, relationship, and connection.  We offer worship through which God changes people’s hearts and minds.  We provide the means by which people grow in faith over the years through learning in community, Bible study, giving and receiving love.  With the change in our interior lives, we sense the call of God to offer ourselves more fully to active service to make a positive difference in the lives of people.  And we grow in generosity so that the church thrives and others receive what we have known.  Through five, ten, twenty, forty years in a congregation, God works on us and forms us by the Spirit as we grow in Christ’s likeness.  The book takes the mission of the church and makes it sensible, practical, memorable, and doable.

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Leaders do not need answers.
Leaders must have the right questions.

Developing sermon series that begin with congregant needs and questions is often effective for reaching both longtime Christians and new believers. A question that might be used to elicit the topics for such a series is suggested in another context by Martha Grace Reese in Unbinding the Gospel (Chalice, 2006).

“If you had one question you could ask God
and knew you’d get an answer, what would the question be?”

Editors:  Lovett H. Weems, Jr. and Ann A. Michel
Production and distribution:  Joe Arnold

Copyright © 2007 by the G. Douglass Lewis Center for Church Leadership. Leading Ideas material may be freely distributed with attribution (exclusive of material protected by separate copyright).