Book Reviews of Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil: Theology and Practice by Christopher James

Nothing makes an author more grateful than to have his or her work read and engaged critically. So it is a real honor that Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil has been reviewed by a dozen different journals. Check out what these reviewers had to say!  

 

International Bulletin of Mission Research | Volume 42 no 1 178-9

"One of the top ten outstanding books of 2017 for mission studies."

Ecclesiology: The Journal for Ministry, Mission and Unity | Volume 14 no 3 2018, p 352-354.

"Those applauding the book are themselves leading lights in the field of practical ecclesiology, and we know that we can therefore expect a study that is theologically astute, as well as empirically grounded. James’ book does not disappoint." --Martyn Percy

 

Englewood Review of Books | May 2018

"The strength of his work lies in his synthesis of work across different fields. He writes, “Church is a diverse, complex, and simultaneously sociocultural and theological reality. Expressing this reality can be done only by exceeding genre boundaries and integrating them as a spectrum of multidiscplinary perspectives” (11). That insight enables him to actively engage with actual church communities in a variety of ways while applying ecclesiological thinking to his data." --Justin Cober-Lake

 

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society | Volume 61 no 2 Jun 2018, p 423-427

"...an exempla­ry case study in the performance and application of practical ecclesiology." --D. Alan Blanc

Homiletic: The Journal of the Academy of Homiletics | Volume 43 no 2 2018, p 54-55.

"Overall, this book is well-conceived and executed. It deserves careful attention for classrooms, churches, and theological libraries." --Nelson Cowan

 

Missiology: An International Review | Volume 47 no 1 Jan 2019, p 89

"Engagingly written and well researched, this volume is an important contribution to the literature on church planting in the West. What makes it stand apart from most texts on church planting is its solid grounding in empirical research...
Church planters serving in the Global North, as well as those involved in their preparation, training, and oversight, should carefully study this book. It would make an excellent resource for a church-planting community of practice or for an advanced class on church planting in the West. The author’s weaving together of sociological and ecclesiological insights to describe and evaluate current models and offer proposals for church planting in a post-Christian context is exemplary." --Richard Hibbert

 

Dialog: A Journal of Theology | Volume 59 no 1 Spring 2020, p 43-45

"The book offers both practical wisdom for church planters in various contexts and methodological guidance for theologians working at the intersection of theology and social science...James’s careful social science work in service of a practical ecclesiology adds weight and nuance to such conversations. For denominational decision-makers, scholars of mission and church planting, pastors, and church planters in cities like Seattle, James’s research and conclusions will be valuable and generative." --Scott Hagley 

 

Theological Studies: A Journal of Academic Theology | Volume 80 no 2 Jun 2019, p 475-477

"...important contributions to several academic fields, including ethnography, sociology of religion, congregational studies, missiology, evangelism, ecclesiology, and practical theology. This book should appeal not only to academics but to all who are concerned with the health and vitality of the Church in a changing North America.

 Witness: Journal of the Association for Evangelism in Theological Education | Volume 33 (2019)

"Church planters, as well as ecclesial leaders responsible for nurturing church planting movements, who believe that engaging an increasingly post-Christian U.S. is vital to missional faithfulness will find this book incredibly insightful and informative." --Jack Johnson

Istina | Volume 64 no 3 Jul - Sep 2019, p 411-412 (in French) 

I don't read French -- so I have no idea what they said about my book. :)

Practical Theology | Volume 13 no 1 - no 2 Mar 2020, p 185-187

"breaks new ground...a great book, not just a good one." --Nigel Rooms

Ecclesial Futures | Volume 1 Issue 2 

"James's chapter on missional theological assessment was particular engaging, exploring the nature of the church itself starting with an overview of missional theology and its implications for each of the four models." --Kristine Stache

 

You can pick up a copy here.

My Book: Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil: Theology and Practice

National headlines regularly herald the decline of Christianity in the United States, citing historically low levels of confidence in organized religion, drops in church attendance, church closures, and the dramatic rise of the "Nones." Scarcely heard are stories from the thousands of new churches and new forms of church that are springing up each year across the country. In this book, Christopher James attends carefully to stories of ecclesial innovation taking place in Seattle, Washington-a city on the leading edge of trends shaping the nation as a whole. James's study of the new churches founded in this "post-Christian" city offers both theological reflection and pragmatic advice. After an in-depth survey- and -interview-based analysis of the different models of church-planting he encountered, James identifies five threads of practical wisdom: 1) embracing local identity and mission, 2) cultivating embodied, experiential, everyday spirituality, 3) engaging community life as means of witness and formation, 4) prioritizing hospitality as a cornerstone practice, and 5) discovering ecclesial vitality in a diverse ecclesial ecology. Stimulating, encouraging, and stereotype-shattering, this book invites readers to reconsider the narrative that portrays these first decades of the twenty-first century as a period of ecclesial death and decline, and to view our time instead as a hope-filled season of ecclesial renewal and rebirth.

Available here and here.

Interview on the RePlacing Church Podcast

While I was out in Seattle, I had a chance to sit down with Ben Katt, host of the RePlacing Church Podcast.  We talked about my research on new churches in Seattle with a special focus on neighborhood expressions of church.

How do we practice the core conviction that God is here?

If you can’t find out what God is doing on your block, what makes you think you’re going to figure out what God is doing in the city?

Enjoy!

'Some Fell on Good Soil': Church Planting in Religious Ecologies

In the midst of the decline of mainline denominations and the rise of the “nones” in the U.S. something surprising is happening.[i] Church planting is booming.  According to Ed Stetzer and Dave Travis, the number of new churches started annually jumped from approximately 1500 in the late 1900s to 4000 by 2006.[ii]  Such a spike is not only the greatest surge in church planting in the last century but Warren Bird claims it has yielded such a flurry of planting that the number of churches opened annually has outpaced church closures—a much more discussed and visible reality.[iii]  This rising phenomenon calls for sociological study, not only to describe and explain its occurrence, but also to understand the factors influencing the vitality of these new congregations.

I have contributed to this needed area of study by seeking to bring insights from organizational and religious ecology perspectives to understanding the influences upon the vitality of new congregations and their networks.  An organizational ecology approach “focuses on the influences of the characteristics of organizations and of the demography and ecology of the populations in which they operate.” [iv]  Thus it explores not only the impact of internal factors such as the church’s attributes, but also of external ones, such as the existence and characteristics of other churches.  Animating this study, then, is the question: What are the most relevant ecological factors impacting the vitality of new congregations and church planting initiatives in the U.S.? 

In the final section, I employ the most relevant theories toward an analysis of Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO), a new church planting initiative on the West Coast of the United States.  Based on the factors identified as pertinent to new congregations generally, I highlight some of the features of C4SO that promise to be either liabilities or assets.


My article, originally published in Witness: Journal of the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education, v. 27 is available in its entirety here.

________________________________

[i] Mark Chaves, “All Creatures Great and Small: Megachurches in Context,” Review of Religious Research, 47(4) (2006), 329-346; Michael Hout and Claude Fischer, “Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Politics and Generations,” American Sociological Review, 67(2)(2002), 165-190.
[ii] Ed Stetzer and Dave Travis, “Who Starts New Churches?: State of Church Planting USA” (Leadership Network, 2011), 2.
[iii] Warren Bird, Warren, “More Churches Opened Than Closed in 2006,” Rev Magazine (August 2007), 68.
[iv] Michael Hannan, “Ecologies of Organizations: Diversity and Identity,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(1) (2005), 54.

Third Places and/as Sacred Spaces: Innovation among Neighborhood-rooted New Seattle Churches

Seattle is home to a number of new churches that are embodying their belief that the gospel is good news to neighborhoods. Seeking to incarnate the Kingdom of God, they fashion themselves as a tangible assets to their community.  Several do this by providing a "third place"-- a space that is open to all and fosters community and advances the well-being of the neighborhood. Here are some of the church-connected third spaces in Seattle.

Aurora Commons 
This 'neighborhood living room' includes a public kitchen and lending library, as well as various programs. It was started by Awake Church along one of the city's most troubled streets, Aurora Avenue.









The Collaboratory

Billing itself as an 'incubator for social change' this space includes a co-working office, a learning kitchen, an events venue, and a community park and garden. It was started by Valley & Mountain in collaboration with Community Arts Create.

Pilgrim Coffeehouse 
Still seeking funding, this coffee shop along Aurora is an initiative of Epic Life Church.

The Green Bean Coffeehouse
This coffee shop in Greenwood--now in its third (re)location--was started by Sanctuary. 












 Fremont Arts Abbey
Officially a (reduced-rate) tenant of Church of the Apostles, Fremont Arts Abbey curates and offers creative performances and fulfills a portion of COTA's mission to serve the community.

Kakao and 415 Westlake
Kakao is a chocolate and coffee shop is located in the heart of South Lake Union. In the same building houses 415 Westlake, a venue for cultural and fundraising events.  Both were started by Union Church.



The Maple Leaf Living Room

Launched as Lux Coffee Co, but rebuffed by zoning issues, this space was started Lux Communities in a church building in the Maple Leaf neighborhood.

Port & Anchor
A community center and cafe inside the large church building serves as an art co-op and source for counseling services started by Emmanuel Church in Phinney Ridge.
















Q Cafe

A coffee shop and event venue located in Interbay and started by Quest.  (Unlike the other churches on this list, Quest's identity is less neighborhood-rooted and more strongly linked to their multi-ethnic composition.)


If you know of other third places/sacred spaces in the city of Seattle, please comment!

Check out the links below to learn more and catch some of my interviews about my research among new Seattle churches. 

Here's the King 5 News coverage of my research and several churches included in the study here.
Here's my interview with Marcie Sillman, of Seattle's NPR affiliate, KUOW, here.  
You can listen to the Rose City Forum interview here. 

New Seattle Churches Mapped

At least 105 new churches have taken root in Seattle, WA since 2001. Explore the churches on this map I created which lists websites, Facebook and Twitter pages, denominational identity, and founding date.
To learn more about the New Seattle Churches Project, follow me on Twitter for study findings @newSEAchurches.
Tweets by @newSEAchurches
See King 5 News Coverage of New Seattle churches here.
Hear NPR's KUOW interview with me here.
You can listen to the Rose City Forum interview here.  
You can read the feature article in Seattle Met Magazine here. 

Practices for a Missional Church Planting Order

What practices can sustain missional practice and spiritual vitality among church planters? Taking cues from Ignatius of Loyola, who gains authority by virtue of the missionary order he founded, as well as contemporary missional practitioners, this article proposes a rule of life for a church planting order that addresses the need for a foundational vision of God’s love and invitation to mission, structures life-giving fellowship with others and regards further spiritual practices and particular missional activities as best determined in community and targeted to the growth needs of the individual and the character of the ministry context.

Find this article online at the Journal for Missional Practice, an exciting new peer-reviewed journal for academics and practioners.  

Ecclesial Pioneers in the Pacific Northwest

If you're a church planter or doing ministry in Seattle or Portland, you should check out "Ecclesial Pioneers in the Pacific Northwest," which I wrote as a contributing editor for Christ & Cascadia, a new online collaborative journal thinking about God in Pacific Northwest culture.  The piece is based on my ongoing research on new Seattle churches (church plants, emerging churches, multisite churches, etc).  It explores why the Pacific Northwest is a uniquely fertile environment for religious innovation, points to some new churches in Seattle breaking the mold.

Theologies of Church Planting: Comparing Malphurs and Murray

Two frequently recommended texts in the burgeoning church planting literature are Aubrey Malphurs’ Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century:  A Comprehensive Guide for New Churches and Those Desiring Renewal and Stuart Murray’s Church Planting: Laying Foundations.  This essay seeks to engage with the theological proposals evident in these two books by identifying the foundational theological ideas and assumptions in each, contrasting them, and offering fresh critical reflection.  

Mission-Shaped Church 2: Book Review

This is part two of my engagement with Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions in a Changing Context.  This post offers a critical assessment of the incarnational principle found in Mission-Shaped Church. Find my summary of the book here.

With the previous post's summary in view, this post will consider one of the most central missiological challenges with which the report grapples: contextualization.  Bishop Graham Cray, chair of the committee that authored the report, captures the challenge of contextualization when he says in the introduction: “The gospel has to be heard within the culture of the day, but it always has to be heard as a call to appropriate repentance.”[1]  Thus, mission modeled after the incarnation is not simply a matter of accommodating the forms of the church to those resonant with contemporary life, but also to ensure proper dissonance between the church and wider society.  Citing Newbigin, the report acknowledges “In the attempt to be “relevant” one may fall into syncretism, and in the effort to avoid syncretism one may become irrelevant.”[2]   Mission-Shaped Church seeks to walk this fine line, but settles for too-easy distinctions and a resolution that is perilously close to cultural accommodation.

Mission-Shaped Church 1: Summary

Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions in a Changing Context is a rare example of a denominational report written by a committee that actually has gained a wider audience and affected considerable change.  First published in 2004, this report was written to address the challenges facing the Church of England in a changing context.  This post reconstructs the report’s the major argument in the terms of a practical theological project, and a follow up engages critically with a central theme with significant implications: what the report dubs “the incarnational principle.”

Neil Cole's Organic Church: Summary & Review

Neil Cole believes “that church should happen wherever life happens” (24).  As founder of the Awakening Chapels network and Church Multiplication Associates which claims 700 churches in 32 states and 23 nations, Cole is a leader in what is most-often referred to as the house church movement.  He dislikes the “house church” designation—citing the fact that many of the churches in his movement meet in parking lots and bars not houses and the connotations “house church” carries of disillusioned and disgruntled defectors from the mainstream church—preferring instead to call them “organic churches” (22).  This brief essay will explore some of the key theoretical and methodological proposals found in Cole’s most widely read book, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens (2005) and offer a critical insights.

As the title suggests, Organic Church is as much about ecclesiology as church planting methodology.  Cole finds the list of characteristics

Ed Stetzer's Planting Missional Churches: Summary & Review

As an updated and renamed version of Stetzer’s 2003 text, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age, Planting Missional Churches seeks to ride the wave of enthusiasm among evangelicals for all things “missional” and seemingly targets an audience of young conservative (male) would-be church planters.  As a result, the writing style is down-to-earth, pastoral and practical rather than deeply theological or academicly sophisticated.  With twenty nine chapters, there are few, if any, aspects of starting a new church that Stetzer doesn’t treat.  Given that each chapter can not be addressed, this summary will focus on the five “major messages” of the book which Stetzer identifies in chapter one.  He links each with a key word: missional, incarnational, theological, ecclesiological, and spiritual (2-3).

Missional
According to Stetzer, being missional means assuming the posture of a missionary—one sent—as Jesus was—to “seek and save the lost.”  Stetzer’s opening chapter seeks to establish church planting as the most appropriate missional response to what he portrays starkly as a North American church in decline and growing ranks of non-Christian Americans.  Being missional, for Stetzer, means taking action to reverse these trends, and he presents planting new churches as the proper remedy, touting it as both the “most effective method of evangelism” and the biblical response to the church’s “decline” (14).  Chapter two is devoted to “redeveloping a missional mind-set” and invokes classic quotes from Newbigin, Bosch and Kahler to present the church as the sent agent of a sending God, and as the instrument of the missio Dei, a popular term which Stetzer invokes but leaves disappointingly unspecified.    

Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours? by Roland Allen: Summary

In my assessment, no other early 20th century missiologist is more in vogue than Roland Allen.  His books are being widely recommended and read in missional church and church planting circles, so if you care about these things, you should get acquainted.  This post offers a brief profile of Allen himself, as well as summary of one of his most celebrated books.

Allen (1868-1947) was an Anglican minister who served as a missionary in China with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel from 1895 to 1903 and later worked in East Africa.  He was born in England as the son of an Anglican minster, but orphaned early in life.  In 1895 he was sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

Viral Churches in 19th Century Missiology

In 2010, Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird published Viral Churches, sounding a call for church multiplication movements through "churches planting churches that in turn plant churches."  As trendy as the title sounds, its idea is far from original. Prominent missiologists dating back to at least the 19th century have called for the development of self-propagating churches as a key objective of mission work.  In this context, self-propagating or self-extending describes churches that after having been started by missionaries, take up their own evangelistic and mission efforts.  This brief essay will draw attention to the calls for viral churches in the work of Rufus Anderson, Henry Venn, and William Taylor.

Missional Orders for Planting Post-Christendom Churches

David Fitch's pitch for Missional Orders as THE way to plant churches in post-Christendom is very interesting, poignant and...comical. 

Dave Fitch - Cultivate Gathering - Missional Order from Missional Tribe on Vimeo.

Jesus Loves Porn Stars

Yep.  That about says it.

A Nightline report on XXX Church.