Mainline Christianity has been in a free fall decline since the mid 1960s. Some want to blame it on a changing culture; others say it’s the way all organizations go sooner or later; while others just throw up their hands and give up the ghost.
The truth is, we don’t believe any of these excuses hold water. We think Mainline Christianity is dying because it isn’t living up to its God-given potential. That simply shouldn’t be happening and we want to change that.
The last three years I’ve been privileged to be associated with the leaders of a growing movement that has the potential to turn around this decline not just for Mainline but all of Christianity. Instead of focusing on survival or even growth by addition, this movement is focused on unleashing the power of God into a movement of multiplication.
Just think for a moment – What would happen if everything important in your ministry was multiplied over and over. Would that turn your decline around? You bet it would. Would that expand the Kingdom. You bet your bippie it would.
So, we wrote a book for Exponential explaining this multiplication movement – From Scarcity to Abundance: Creating a Culture of Multiplication. Since then several other books have been written on the subject but none of them address the problem from the Mainline perspective. So, we just finished a book focused on turning Mainline Christianity decline into a multiplication movement. The book is called Dinosaurs to Rabbits: Turning Mainline Decline into a Multiplication Movement.
We think this will be our most important book to date and perhaps a watershed for Mainline Christianity and we wanted you to know about it. So, stay tuned – we expect it to hit the virtual shelves in June.
While it may not be factual, it is widely reported that Mark Twain once said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” The same could be said about the decline of the mainline churches over the last half century in the USA. While many observers have talked about mainline decline, few have offered any real thoughts on how to reverse it, that is, until now. In Dinosaurs to Rabbits: Turning Mainline Decline into a Multiplication Movement, Bill Easum offers insightful perspective on this important issue. Building on his experience as a successful pastor in North America’s largest mainline denomination, Easum adds years of fruitful ministry as a church consultant to provide a radical and doable approach for turnaround among America’s mainline churches. Believe me, it’s worth your time to read it. Even more, it’s worth your time to put his ideas into action.
—Gary L. McIntosh, D.Min., Ph.D., Professor, Writer, and Speaker. Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, CA