Renew 52 Update
A little over a month ago, I told you about Luther’s free e-book on congregational renew called, appropriately enough, Renew 52: 50+ Ideas to Revitalize Your Congregation from Leaders under 50. The book is available in formats for iPad, Nook, and Kindle and, more recently, as a pdf file which means that anyone with a computer can download and read it. The response thus far has been terrific, and I’m eager to relay the exciting news that at this point we’ve had 5000 downloads. Many folks have shared how engaging they’ve found it. Several congregations are now using it as discussion starters for their church council meetings, and others are planning to use it as a congregation-wide study.
One pastor shared the following, which I thought was just fantastic:
A council member took up my invitation to download the book to her Kindle and she couldn’t put it down. Today after worship she helped me download it to my desktop as a PDF document. I’d dearly like to e-mail it to members a chapter at a time to invite them into on-line discussion and a midweek or Sunday school discussion group.
If you’ve had a chance to download it, I hope it’s been helpful and encouraging for you as well. And if you haven’t, please do. More than that, please share this post and link (www.luthersem.edu/renew52) with others, as we hope this free resource reaches as many people as possible.
And if you’re interested in reading just a sample, the good folks at Duke Divinity School’s excellent website Faith & Leadership have posted my article from the collection on re-imagining the role of pastors, and you can read that here.
Blessings to you as, together, we figure out how best to respond to God’s call to be the church at this time and place.
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