A Mainline Turnaround: Strategies for Congregations and Denominations

A proposal for ways congregations and their denominations can reinvent themselves in order to reach the generations born after 1960. The twin towers of the World Trade Center fell on September 11, 2001 because they were subjected to conditions they were never designed to bear. However unwittingly, they were designed to fail when the unexpected happened. So it is, says Lyle Schaller, with mainline Protestant congregations and denominations. Designed to meet the needs of previous generations, they were destined to fail when the needs of current generations diverged radically from those of their predecessors--as indeed they have. But it is not too late for these churches to reinvent themselves, to redesign their ministries, programs, and mission to focus on those born after 1960. With his customary insight and wide-ranging perspective, Schaller offers prescriptions for how mainline churches can respond to the needs of a new era. Lyle E. Schaller is the country's leading interpreter of congregational systems and their vitality. He is the author of dozens of books, including The Ice Cube Is Melting, also published by Abingdon Press.