Gardens in the Desert: How the Adaptive Church Can Lead a Whole New Life
Ebook
Your church can thrive in this strange new world!
Many church people and leaders feel like exiles in their own land. We are facing tremendous challenges. And, just as for those who came before us, the challenges are also opportunities. If we adapt to our new environment, as people and as the body of Christ.
Gardens in the Desert offers local and denominational church leaders a practical, inspired, scripture-rooted vision for how we can do this—how we can become God’s church now for God’s intended future.
Michael Adam Beck and Ken Carter draw from Jeremiah 29 to provide wise guidance for leaders and churches seeking to adapt and thrive. Jeremiah’s imperatives resonate deeply today, compelling us to experiment, cultivate new relationships, prioritize faith-sharing with people of all ages, interact with others in humility, to “seek the wellbeing of the other,” and to move forward with confidence.
The chapters are brief and packed with practical ideas and instruction. The authors include ideas from leaders inside and outside the Church, offering multiple ways for leaders to see and understand what it means to be an adaptive leader and how to shape an adaptive church. The book is rich with lists, diagrams, illustrations, clarifying questions, and frameworks, making the material easy to grasp. It is an excellent resource to share with leadership teams at every level of the local church and in denominational settings.
Gardens in the Desert is for laity, leaders, and clergy who have been feeling lost, immobilized, powerless—as exiles—and who are ready to do something new.
Being grounded in Scripture helps make the case for this type of change in even the most traditional churches
Gardens in the Desert offers wisdom and inspiration and will help pastors see a new and more hopeful way forward as they respond to God’s call
The book’s short chapters are full of practical ideas and instruction on how to become an adaptive leader
The style of writing is accessible for leaders at every level of experience
Beck and Carter are two highly experienced, established UM authors and well-known leadership experts
- Title: Gardens in the Desert: How the Adaptive Church Can Lead a Whole New Life
- Authors: Michael Adam Beck, Jr. Kenneth H. Carter
- Publisher: Abingdon Press
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781791033811, 9781791033804, 1791033806, 1791033814
- Resource ID: LLS:9781791033811
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-06-21T11:10:50Z
Michael Adam Beck (Author)
Michael Adam Beck is senior pastor at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Ocala, FL. He led the process introduced in this book at Wildwood United Methodist Church in Wildwood, Florida. He directs Fresh Expressions Initiatives for Discipleship Ministries, speaks and teaches at seminaries, churches, and conferences, and is the author of several books from Abingdon Press.