An exciting new project
Monday, November 08, 2010
In April of next year, Abingdon Press is going to publish a book I've edited, entitled, Generation Rising: A Future With Hope For The United Methodist Church. The book cover can be seen at right.
Generation Rising will be the fruit of a project that has been in the works since last year. I think it will be a good resource for personal reading and reflection. But even more than that, it is geared for congregational and small group use.
The premise of the book is basically this: 12 authors from the Generation X cohort who present a vision for the Wesleyan future of the United Methodist Church. This is not a book about 'fixing' a denomination. It is, instead, a vision for how the Wesleyan mission of Methodism can live in the present through a deeply committed form of faith grounded in the means of grace.
The contributors represent a diverse cross-section of young leadership in the church. They come from north, south, east, and west, and their experience ranges from pastoral ministry in local congregations, to youth & young adult ministries, to overseas missions, to seminary teaching.
Chapters are geared toward pastors and laity in the local church. The material the chapters contain is rich in terms of looking at where we've come from, who we are, and who we can be by the grace of God. Each chapter also contains a set of questions designed to help facilitate reflection and conversation by individual readers and in small groups.
As a bit of a preview, here's the Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 - "Discipleship: Christian Life and the Means of Grace" (by Andrew C. Thompson)
Chapter 2 - "Holy Communion: Take and Eat, Taste and See" (by Timothy Reinhold Eberhart)
Chapter 3 - "Preaching: Telling the Story in a Sound-Bite Culture" (by Joy Jittaun Moore)
Chapter 4 - "Evangelism: Leaning Toward both God and the World" (by Jeffrey Conklin-Miller)
Chapter 5 - "Small Groups: Bearing One Another's Burdens" (by Kevin M. Watson)
Chapter 6 - "Missions: Letting the Gospel Translate Us" (by Arnold Oh)
Chapter 7 - "Race: Grace and Unity in the Post-Civil Rights Era (by F. Douglas Powe, Jr.)
Chapter 8 - "Ecology: Salvation In, Through, and For All Creation" (by Presian Burroughs)
Chapter 9 - "Youth Ministry: Reclaiming the Art of Confirmation" (by Sarah Arthur)
Chapter 10 - "Young Adults: Members of the Body" (by Julie O'Neal)
Chapter 11 - "Ordination: Calling(s) to Ministry in a Postmodern Church" (by Eric Van Meter)
Chapter 12 - "Internet Ministry: Delivering the Message in Cyberspace" (by Shane Raynor)
I'll plan to blog more about the book in the coming months. If you think it looks like a good resource for your small group, Sunday school class, or congregation, I hope you'll consider using it when it comes out next spring.
I think the experience of the writing team - and the perspectives they offer - make this one of the more interesting projects on the possibilities for Wesleyan renewal in the UMC that I've seen. The generational perspective helps a lot too, in that it represents a rising group of leaders in the church whose voices need to be heard.
This is a hopeful book, written by twelve Generation X Christians in the UMC who believe that God is not done with the People called Methodists yet. Not by a long shot, in fact. "For surely I know the plans I have for you," God tells us through the prophet Jeremiah, "Plans for your welfare and not for harm..."
"... to give you a future with hope!"
Labels: Book Reviews, Generation Rising book, Generation X
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 6:51 AM
2 Comments:
Exciting stuff, Andrew. Maybe one day there will be a "Volume II" from Millennial United Methodists!
Indeed! I also think you'll be pleased with the degree to which a lot of the material in the book is relevant to Millennials' experience of faith. In fact, some of the contributors specifically include Millennials in their chapters in a way that integrates Generation X and the Millennial Generation in the project as a whole.
I also wouldn't want to suggest that the material isn't relevant for older readers either, in fact. One of the book's strengths is that it presents the views of younger adult pastors and laity in the church, diagnosing what they see as some of Methodism's chief challenges and offering specific practices of the faith as a way to move forward. But the perspective presented will look familiar to folk in the church both young and old. We've also included a set of "Questions for Discussion" at the end of each chapter in the hopes that it will be seen a resource for small groups, Sunday school classes, and whole congregations to use.
I really see Generation Rising as a tool for local churches of all sizes and stripes to engage concretely with the reality of life in the present and to think prayerfully about how Christian discipleship can be formed in a robust way by drawing on the rich heritage of the Wesleyan tradition. I hope that's an approach we can all get excited about!
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