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Why did you write The Externally Focused Quest?
When we wrote The Externally Focused Church back in 2004 we were just beginning to see a few scattered churches around the nation who were thinking differently about what church should be and could be. Over the past six years, what was once rare (serving the community) has become quite commonplace for thousands of churches and we wanted to write the next chapter of what God is doing to place churches back into their communities where they can be salt, light and leaven --- agents of transformation. We not only wanted to tell new stories of the amazing things churches are doing but also we wanted to help launch more churches into their communities by giving them the framework within which they can think and plan.
Where did your ideas come from?
Many of our ideas come from interaction with leaders who are the practitioners of missional, externally |
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focused ministry. As a pastor of a local congregation Rick is both the initiator and recipient of fresh ways to carry out externally focused ministry with their 50 plus community partnerships. Eric’s work with Leadership Network puts him in contact with hundreds of churches around North America enabling him to see patterns emerge. Both of us are pretty good at extracting concept from chaos!
What is new about what you have to say in this book?
For those who have read The Externally Focused Church and/or The Externally Focused Life, this book will be fresh with concepts, stories, illustrations, and diagrams. The Externally Focused Quest will help the practitioners take the next step in their missional ministry. At the same time, for those who are new to ministry outside the walls, The Externally Focused Quest will be a great launching tool for churches of any and all sizes.
The question of our first book was, "If your church were to leave the community, would anybody notice…would anybody care?" This book answers a different question. The full title of our book is The Externally Focused Quest: Becoming the Best Church for the Community. The book is not how to become the best church in the community but how can we become the best church for the community. That one little preposition determines how we allocate our resources of people, finances, facility, time, prayer and technology.
Who is the book for and why should they read it?
It’s a book that anyone who is interested in living missionally should get a hold of. We work with Reggie McNeal’s understanding of "missional"--it is the people of God, partnering with God in his redemptive mission. . . |
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Outreach to First-Generation U.S. Immigrants |
Immigrants to the United States with greatest receptivity to the gospel are from, in order, Ecuador, Guatemala, Liberia, Honduras, El Salvador, Myanmar, Brazil, Costa Rica, Kenya and Mexico, according to a study of people from 151 different countries. The massive project, conducted mid 2009 by the North American. . .
One Fourth of American Christians Are Charismatic/Pentecostal |
A quarter of American Christians identify themselves as charismatic or Pentecostal, according to new survey results from Barna Research. Those fitting Pentecostal/charismatic criteria stated that they considered themselves to "have been filled with the Holy Spirit," and that God has given them at least one of the. . .
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