Sunday, November 17, 2019

Review: Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again

Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again by Darrin Patrick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overall, the book is great. While there are sections I felt that too much information was provided, at the end I can conclude that it was superbly edited, with as little narration provided as necessary to allow readers to understand the unfolding journey. The story is highly engaging and I managed to read it cover to cover in about three short sittings, all within the same day. That illustrates that it provided an interesting read.

However, as many other reviewers have pointed out, the narrative/content is actually different from the title. If you can get past the misleading title, I nevertheless still would recommend this title. It is useful for a leader/pastor of a deceased/dying church, because of many principles and journey that are highly applicable to their situation, even if the desired end result is not a merger/takeover by a larger church. Quoting from the authors' desired outcome of the book:
We hope to inspire you to take risks for God's glory, to raise your gaze to what's possible, to challenge what is comfortable, so that God's plan A-the local church-advances.

My takeaway was how even if the situation was terribly bleak and the nails were in the coffin for the dying church, the steely resolve and wise leading of the interim pastor was deeply rooted in seeking God's direction, and eventually seeing the church rise from the ashes and thrive even more than it had been throughout any time of its 150 year history.

The authors also recommended a few other books that I would like to include here and will review some of these in due time:
1. Comeback Churches: How 300 Churches Turned Around and Yours Can, Too (Stetzer and Dodson)
2. Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work (Tomberlin and Bird)
3. Vital Merger: A New Church Start Approach that Joins Church Families Together (Elliot)

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