Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations

by Robert Schnase

People are searching for a church shaped and sustained by Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-Taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity. These fundamental practices are critical to the success of congregations. Their presence and strength demonstrate congregational health, vitality, and fruitfulness. By repeating and improving these practices, churches fulfill their mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Genres: Religion, Church, Nonfiction, Discipleship, Christian, Christianity, Faith

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2007

About the author

Bishop Robert C. Schnase

Reviews

[Kristen Stieffel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I taught this as a small-group study at church, and the class loved it. It's full of thought-provoking ideas. I was pleased to say that a lot of suggestions we could check off as "got it," but there were still plenty of creative ideas to implement.

The author is Methodist and most of his examples come from that tradition, but I am sure any Protestant church -- any church, probably -- can glean information from this book to use in its own congregational life.

I found the author's Biblical examples to be a little thin, but then he wasn't writing a Bible study. I was teaching one, though, so I found a parable to illustrate each practice.

I especially appreciated the way Schnase shows how each practice provides a foundation for those that come after it.

[Steven Bullmer · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all, it is obvious that Bishop Schnase loves the church he has been called to lead, is worried sick about the current state of affairs in the United Methodist Church, and wants to do something to help the Church he loves get healthy again. He has identified Five practices--Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity--as the five crucial systems in the Body of Christ that need to be operating at maximum effectiveness for the body of Christ to be healthy. And I can agree with him.
Secondly, I am a retired UM pastor, so he's talking about my "tribe," and I love the UMC, too. I also fear for her health and future, and rejoice when someone offers a thoughtful, provocative, challenging, and on-target approach to church leadership that has the potential of turning the ship around, getting the body off of life-support, or whatever metaphor for what ails our tribe seems best to you.
That being said, I gave the book just two stars because Bishop Schnase, like so many others in the UM church these days, missed what I believe is a crucial leadership principle; and that is why nothing is changing in the UMC, and why we are just 30 years away from extinction. The leadership has abdicated their leadership role. Rather than defining the God's vision for the UMC and doing the hard work of aligning all the congregations behind that vision, they throw out a myriad of suggestions on how a congregation might get healthy, and leave it to us to choose our own direction. That is very much like the captain of a ship gathering the passengers together and saying to them, "So, where would you like to go on this voyage? I have 27 maps here. Choose whichever one you like, get into a lifeboat, and go where the Spirit leads you." That's no way to run a ship. That's no way to run a church.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great text to get your church thinking about how they can fulfill their mission through radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity. It is filled with great stories and inspiration to make your church vibrant, growing, and fruitful.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are leading a dead church, this book is for you. A GREAT introduction to changing from a museum of dying Christians to a community of Jesus' disciples that reach out to people and have an impact on their world through their community. Really great. Super wordy. Font was terrible. Structure not overly appealing. Could have said the same thing better. Comes from a more "legalistic" protestant background. But still... I also disagree with him about a few things. For instance, church growth shouldn't necessarily cause more programs. Sometimes it's not the amount of programs but the quality of programs and how well they benefit the goals of the church. Sunday school is another example; he is obviously into it, that's fine, but it has definitely run its course and become a more or less irrelevant program. It doesn't work anymore. Sunday school is church before church that only Christians go to. That's fine, if that's what you want, but surely the church could come up with a more relevant and successful ministry that would meet a greater need. Just because we've done it like that for the last 100 years doesn't mean we have to do that like that until Jesus came back. Methods change, the message doesn't. Recommended.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some great things to consider. However, the author was overly wordy (sssooooo many sentences were lists strung together) and repetitive. It became tedious to read after a certain point.

[Chris Waks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each of his topics were great, made a lot of sense, and covered the range of church life. However, his examples seemed to lack the imagination of his proposals. Still a worthwhile read.

[Katelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Will Waller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was enjoined to read this book as a part of a study the pastors at Andrew Chapel UMC in Vienna, VA were doing. It's written by a Missouri Conference Bishop and is extremely well done. If you read my reviews of other books of a religious nature, I rarely give anything here than a 3. Religious books are fairly cookie-cutter and the writing leaves something much to be desired. Still, this book was apowerful one for me.
It's written in the design of the Rick Warren Purpose Driven Life. Yet, Schnase has a style that is extremely informal but real. It's the type of book that a grandmother and a teenager could read. Scripture is lacking in this book and when he does cite it, he uses the Message instead. Schnase's progression from God first loving us, to our acceptance of it, to intentional faith practices all the way to when we invite others to share in Christ is a way of grace that many travel on. It's extremely relevant of a book; Most especially, his final chapter on invitation is superb-Invitation is the bane of the existence of the mainstream church and the bishop does a fine job describing why this havs been such a dificult thing for our churches.

Well done!

So other ideas from this:

Accept that you are accepted
* grace conquers sin
* "our work is in God's grace"
* open the doors of the heart that God is knowkcing

All things become new so say yees to Him.
God loves you. Period. --22

There are things that separte us:
* fast forward living.
* name one person who impresses you for all that is consumed
* What is needed is serious soul work
* easy to close the door to God's grace.
* earning vs. accepting it

You must be involved in a discipline when you say yes to God.

[JD Waggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not at all a fan of prescriptive books that say you can fix something in five or ten or however many easy steps, especially in things like church that are super complicated because people. Schnase has some really good and simple ideas, though, and he lays them out in such a way that you see how they each influence and support each other, which is nice. He also continually returns to the "why" of being fruitful--the Church isn't trying to grow because it makes her look good but because we are trying to share the story of Christ with all and sundry. Too often churches end up talking around God when discussing their own health and direction, and Schnase does well in avoiding that.
That said, if I had to hear about "young people" one more time, I was going to throw the book at things and/or people. I get that the young folk (twenties and thirties) are the Hot Group to Get right now, being that I'm in that group myself. But it drove me nuts to continually single that group out like we're going hunting or something, especially when Schnase says something in the hospitality section about how people don't want to be seen as what but who they are. Um, yeah--I would love for you to see me as a who rather than a person in a target age group. It was pretty obvious that Schnase had an older audience in mind when writing this, anyway--beyond the little things like explaining what a blog is, the tenor of the book felt that younger people were very much "other," which kind of drove me nuts.
This is actually 3 1/2 stars; it's a great starting point for a congregation wanting to think about where it's headed. It's very Methodist, so other denominations are going to have to put up with a lot of Wesley references, but as church books go it's not bad.

[Josh Shepherd · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe some people are searching for a church like this, but the majority of Americans aren't searching for a church at all. So Schnase's entire book based on a benign interpretation of the church's problems bringing about a set of solutions that are mostly benign as well. I guess he just needed to write a book or something, because I'm not sure how anyone can look at the church in America and surmise that suggesting 5 practices ought to do the trick.

For a LITTLE while longer, anyone who does these 5 things really well will grow numerically, and some will grow by leaps and bounds. But they won't ask questions about where the numbers are coming from, because then they'll realize they're just attracting the Christian consumers from the church down the street. Of course, some people -- the leaders of the attractive churches -- say "what's wrong with that?" And I say it's not making disciples of Jesus Christ, that's what.

[Cat. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a "One Congregation, One Book" kickoff-for-fall thing. Not bad. The keys to a healthy, growing church according to Schnase are:

-Radical Hospitality
-Passionate Worship
-Intentional Faith Development
-Risk-Taking Mission and Service
-Extravagant Generosity

Honestly, the adjectives are purely hype. The important this is that Christians together need to DO all these things out of a desire to proclaim God's word and do His work on earth, not because we are supposed to in order to get into heaven. We need to do them the same way we need to breathe. Or as George Carlin said, in a different context, we "gotta wanna" do 'em.

[Steve Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book fuels the imagination for what churches can be. The author makes the case that healthy, productive churches tend to practice radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity. In each chapter he unpacks what each of these practices means and gives several examples of what it looks like. This would make for a good church-wide study. Every church would do well to consider how it is doing in each of these five areas.

[Rachel Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for church. Our preacher gave a sermon series on it, and the congregation read a chapter a week. I liked the book's message, although it is a little dry at times. But one chapter a week made it super easy to read. And it was fun to talk about the topics in Sunday school. The book has some great ideas and helps you consider how to make your church a more inviting and engaging place.

[J. Ewbank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though not always a fan of those books which begin with five, ten, twelve etc., but particular book is good. It has idead, concepts and ways in which churces can provide radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith developoment, rick-taking mission and services and extravagant generosity. This is no easy task but it is undertaken and done well.

A good read.

J. Robert Ewbank, author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

[Shirley Freeman]

We read this for an all church book read. The Five practices outlined, radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development (small groups etc), risk-taking mission and service and extravagant generosity seem spot-on. I appreciated Schnase's examples and his passion for each practice. Parts of the book felt wordy and repetitive but I would still recommend it for folks seeking renewed discipleship and renewed vitality in their church life.

[David Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is a very "solid" book, and one that should be reviewed regularly with Church councils or those planning/evaluating Ministry. How are we doing showing "Radical Hospitality"? Are we being "passionate in our worship"?...Do we have a plan and are people engaged in "Intentional Faith development"...are we offering "Risk Taking Mission and Service" and practicing "Extravagant generosity". This book has been around a while (2007) but its my first read of it.

[Kerrfunk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthwhile read or re-read for church leaders.

Better yet, a worthwhile group read with church leaders.

You can read other reviews to get the list of the five practices. I forgot to review the book when I finished it a week ago, but one of the things I liked very much about this book was how Bishop Schnase consistently offered example after example of the principles he was putting forth. If you want ideas about how to be in ministry, there are plenty here.

Read and do.

[Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

The basic ideas in this book are solid. I have been using many of the concepts for years in ministry. However, I only gave three stars because I felt like some of the material was too long-winded and could have been presented a bit more concisely.

I will be attending a seminar with the Bishop in January and will likely revise this review slightly based on that.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

fabulous book - he was my minister for many years before becoming a bishop in the Methodist church

we used this book for group discussion, and it lends itself beautifully for this type of study

this is a profound book with great, practical steps a congregation can make to improve the life of the congregation.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could be considered a 144 page mission statement to any church that is desiring to better live into Christ's call on the church. It was helpful, practical, and only mildly daunting. I look forward to drawing from it with my session in meetings to come!

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This made a decent small group study, although it is a bit on the repetitive side, definitely geared toward the United Methodist church (using its terminology and examples), and often times seemed to be common sense. There are good discussion questions at the close of each chapter.

[Glenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some good bits here, but it is amazing how fast these non-fiction books become dated. I might have upped to 3 stars if the author had footnoted statistics ... or, who knows, that might have confirmed that some of the information is even more stale than I suspect.

[Marlene]

yet to come

[Sallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timely and useful!

[Kathy Robbins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read for sojeone wanting to learn about what we, as Christians can do to be more effective as the church.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-reading this book and several others on related subject. Check out his online blog and website, too!

[Kathy]

i am very much enjoying this book!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read and understand. It was encouraging. Bishop Schnase did a nice job giving practical application ideas for churches of all sizes.

[Brett Anningson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has good ideas. It is too simple and pie in the sky in the end. I will use his principles. But elaborate and make them more real.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives some great ideas to church leaders and lay-people alike that may be seeking to help their church produce more fruit and be a bigger blessing for all.