How to Be a Christian without Going to Church: The Unofficial Guide to Alternative Forms of Christian Community
God is moving. And just might be somewhere you haven't looked . . . yet.What happens when the church no longer nurtures, feeds, or challenges you? What do you do when the thought of leaving breaks your heart--but staying hurts more?Kelly Bean has been there. For anyone seeking genuine Christian community, she offers both heartfelt encouragement and practical suggestions for finding or creating a community of faith that honors God and offers rest, love, and communion with other believers. With true stories of those who have faced these questions and found a way forward, this book shows you how to be faithful in a place where you will truly flourish."Kelly's book is a significant gift, gathering into one place the real-world brilliance and experience of fellow travelers who are asking the question of church."--WmPaul Young, author of theNew York TimesbestsellerThe Shack"Bean speaks with both the integrity and authenticity of one who has suffered in the course of arriving at her summations and conclusions. I could wish that every Christian today would read this one."--Phyllis Tickle, author ofThe Age of the SpiritandThe Great Emergence"Kelly Bean is a wise, whimsical, and revolutionary iconoclast. This book will call some to leave what is really not church, and it will call others to reengage the meaning of being a redemptive church."--Dan B. Allender, PhD, professor of counseling psychology and founding president of The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology"For those who struggle with church as they know it, this book can awaken imagination for all that Christian community can be. Kelly Bean writes with a wise, gentle, honest, and persuasive voice that we should pay attention to."--Mark Scandrette, author ofFree,Practicing the Way of Jesus, andSoul Graffiti"Despite her provocative title, Kelly Bean loves the church. This book will help those struggling to remain in institutional churches, and those who've left, to understand the challenge we all face today and to set some markers for the road ahead."--Michael Frost, author ofExilesandThe Road to MissionalKelly Beanserved as pastor/cultivator of Third Saturday Organic Community, which gathered in her living room for twenty-four years. She is coplanter of Urban Abbey, an egalitarian intergenerational intentional community in north Portland, Oregon.