Review: Churchless: Understanding Today’s Unchurched and How to Connect with Them from the Barna Group; George Barna and David Kinnaman, General Editors

Review: Churchless: Understanding Today’s Unchurched and How to Connect with Them

Barna Group; George Barna and David Kinnaman, General Editors

Tyndale Momentum

2014

This books validates the trends in declining church attendance in a way that I think is helpful. How so? They spent years investigating the people that make up the unchurched and dechurched groups. The findings are revealed in this book in simple narratives and graph formats with each chapter concluded with a few questions for the reader to consider.

Probably the most surprising finding for me was that 1 in 6 unchurched Americans is a born again Christian. Yes, they do give the definition of born again and it is precisely what most believe it to be. So what is going on? Why the disconnect? No spoilers here, but they do explore those questions and reveal some interesting information. The book also discusses other groups too like the skeptics and the atheists.

Does this book just recite the numbers or does it offer some information and advice that could be helpful to reverse the trends that have developed over the years? Happily it does, and it also mentions what hasn’t been effective and why too. That for me is the value of this book.

The insights and suggestions are not formulas that are plug and play. No magic bullets, but plenty of suggestions and food for thought.

I do recommend this book. A quick read for the gist and if you want to go deeper reread it and give closer attention to the areas that speak to you.

I received this book from the publishers in return for a review.

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