Project 2011: Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations

If you're just tuning into nothing but HAT's, then you should know that Project 2011 is my crazy, boring project hatched during a long, tiring car ride home from a Sunday morning church service in which I bemoaned my fate as yet one more Methodist utterly disenchanted with and frustrated by the worship experience I just recently endured. If you want the explanation from the beginning, then click on the tag at the bottom of this post (tag: Project 2011). Or, click on the keywords found in the cloud on the left-side navigation bar.

The book I'm currently reading is Bishop Robert Schnase's Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. There is an entire website that you should browse -- and note that the book Five Practices for Fruitful Living is available, too.

Bishop Schnase writes about five essential practices that congregations exhibit, focus on, development, and implement. These practices as described by the Bishop (among other life experiences) have been the lens through which I interpret and understand my visits to various congregations in the greater STL area.

The five practices are:

1. Radical Hospitality
2. Passionate Worship
3. Intentional Faith Development
4. Risk-Taking Mission and Service
5. Extravagant Generosity

As you can expect, Bishop Schnase's website offers brief paragraph synopses of his main thoughts about each practice. However, I will also attempt to summarize, respond to, question, comment on, and deliberate over much of these chapters, and will post my thoughts periodically on this blog.

If you also have the opportunity (and inclination) to read this book, I would welcome your presence alongside my journey. Perhaps some of my readers (if only a few) might offer good insight and counsel as I trudge through Project 2011.