I have been catching up on my summer reading list. One of the books I just finished reading is titled - In Dying We Are Born: The Challenge and the Hope for Congregations by Peter Bush, a pastor serving a congregation in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Alban Institute, 2008). At first, Bush's book seems to be just one of the many congregational transformation/revitalization how-to books published every year. But Bush's starting point focuses on the need for the congregation to experience a spiritual rebirth before it engages in a transformation program. He critiques other congregational transformation/revitalization strategies and says that these strategies might contribute to a congregation's continual decline by encouraging these congregations to believe that if they could find the right strategy, that they could stave off death - "Readers will know of congregations whose leaders went to every workshop trumpeting yet another system that would lead to congregational turnaround. The congregation implemented program after program and technique after technique, but the decline did not end. In the end the congregation's epitaph reads, 'The solutions attempted were a complete success, but unfortunately, the patient died' (pg. 14-15)."
Burn's main point is that churches must learn to die first before they can fully experience the power of God's resurrection/transformation power. "Congregations do not want to die, do not want to be told that the only way to live is to die, and do not want to acknowledge that they, too, will one day die (pg.27)." "A dead congregation learns to pray with Jesus. Congregations that know they are going to die will move from seeking their own survival to seeking God's reign. Dead congregations have had a change in their outlook; no longer is it all about them; rather it is all about the expansion of the reign of God and the advance of God's church (pg. 19)."
This book is worth your read.
