Paul Nixon believes that God invites every church to thrive. He believes the future of mainline Protestant traditions in America are in the hands of pastors and leaders who must immediately make some critical choices, radically reframing the way they approach their ministry tasks.
The book is about six choices every church leader - clergy and laity - can make. The choices are:
- Choosing Life over Death
- Choosing Community over Isolation
- Choosing Fun over Drudgery
- Choosing Bold over Mild
- Choosing Frontier over Fortress
- Choosing Now rather than Later
On Tuesday, November 13, the Congregational Development team of our Association of UCC Churches in Southwest Ohio Northern Kentucky Association (SONKA), sponsored a workshop with Paul Nixon that was attended by 130 people from the UCC and several other denominations and seven members of First UCC.
We all came eager and curious about what words of wisdom Paul could bring to us. We were not disappointed.
Now our task is to bring this study to First Church.
During December and January, we will have two, possibly three small study groups that will study the principles that Paul has written about. I will be contacting church members in the next few days to put them into various study groups.
My former Association Minister, Nancy Nelson Elsenheimer, who is now Senior Co-Pastor of Church of the Beatitudes in Phoenix, says this about I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church - "Every church in the 21st century needs to think of itself as a new church start."
We have just finished celebrating our 150th anniversary in Troy. The quality of our upcoming years will largely be determined by embracing - or not embracing - the principles that Paul Nixon puts forth in his book.
Let's have a new church start right now and 150 more years of ministry will look fresh, exciting, and possible!
- The Frayed Alb
