AquaChurch 2.0: Piloting Your Church in Today's Fluid Culture

by Leonard Sweet

We live in a fast-paced, fluid world. A postmodern place where people are drifting, making mid-course corrections in every aspect of life, from careers, to relationships, to beliefs.

As church leaders, we must continually reshape our ministries to reach a society adrift. We must move from being adaptive to being proactive, remaining flexible while delivering a uncompromising message.

AquaChurch 2.0 is a guide for developing responsive and relevant church leadership. Fusing Biblical wisdom and modern-day insights, acclaimed author Leonard Sweet explores the essentials of leadership arts, including vision, creativity, and teamwork. This updated and revised edition will enable your ministry to navigate today's cultural currents, provide a beacon to your community, and connect with a postmodern world.

Genres: Church, Leadership, Theology, Christian, Nonfiction, Ebooks, Christianity

384 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2008

About the author

Leonard I. Sweet is an author, preacher, scholar, and ordained United Methodist clergyman currently serving as the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School, in Madison, New Jersey; and a Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

[Logan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had an extremely difficult time reading this (so much so that I simply could not finish). Sweet just doesn't make much sense and quotes people throughout history rather than Scripture. That's fine but if you're going to write a book about the need for the church to adapt to the constantly changing culture, you need to back it up with Scripture. Sweet also tries really hard to carry the theme of "aqua" throughout the entire book and the Bible verses he does use are all water-themed. It came off as a bit overboard (oh no...now I'm making sea puns) and felt like I was reading something from this past summer's VBS (which had more Biblical support). I also found some of his arguments to be flawed and inconsistent. Sweet makes the argument early on that maps are flawed and we won't get anywhere using them only to then say that he would make a map for churches to follow in the next several pages. I scratched my head at this because of the inconsistency but he then also states maps are flawed but GPS systems are better. But, GPS systems are based off maps. *sigh*

I tried to like this book and gain some helpful insights but I just couldn't stand the poor argumentation, over-use of sea puns, lack of Scripture, and just all over the place writing style. I'd recommend Thom Rainer's "Autopsy of a Deceased Church" instead.

[Luís Branco · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book holds some very good insights and I was able to grab good points on postmodern kind of church. However, I think that the book is biblically weak. The author goes around and round on the word "aqua" and fishes many scriptures that contains the word water, sea, sea, river and alike to base his point, but most of them used out of context and hermeneutically unappropriated. Withal, it can be an interesting reading.

[Keith Sellers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye-opening and Encouraging

Generally a good summons for the Western Church to wake up and take off its old sweaty modernity pajamas and get to work reaching people of a new paradigm. Sometimes he strays off on tangents or pushes too much or too far, but churches need this challenge. Missiologically speaking he addresses the topic of contextualization to postmodern people. The book should show how we still live with elements of both modernity and postmodernity, or what Z. Bauman calls "liquid modernity."