Scattering Seeds: Cultivating Church Vitality
The religious landscape of our country today is a picture of general decline, but with pockets of vitality—dynamic congregations energized by the Holy Spirit in ways that are inspiring and instructive. They play the role the abbeys played during the Dark Ages, preserving the tradition and building upon it. Chapin Garner serves just such a faith community. There is so much we can learn from him and from the congregation he leads.(Martin B. Copenhaver, Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) and co-author, "This Odd and Wondrous Calling")Scattering Seedsdoes a great job of offering a renewed way of doing church, one of which many churches (including ours) have followed and grown spiritually and numerically as a result. It follows a simple but profound idea: listen for and follow the Holy Spirit, and watch what God can do. This book, through stories and testimonials, leads us step-by-step through a process of wonderful transformative possibility.(N. Graham Standish, Pastor, spiritual director, and counselor, Calvin Presbyterian Church, Zelienople, PA, and author, "Becoming a Blessed Church")I can hardly believe this book exists. The church growth and vitality bookcase is stuffed with offerings that permute a few common themes, inspiring delusions of grandeur among eager pastors before crushing them with despair, and promoting forms of Christianity that exchange its edgy prophetic message for smooth harmonization with cultural expectations. At last, here is a book about church vitality that is scrupulously honest, free of pastoral self-deception, sociologically realistic, and packed with reasons to be hopeful about the future of the Christian church.(Wesley J. Wildman, Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics, Boston University School of Theology)