Alive Again: Recession and Recovery in the Churches

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., and a lecturer in
the Anglican Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver.

Reginald Stackhouse, a former principal of Wycliffe College (an Anglican
seminary in the University of Toronto), has written a book about growing
congregations and what makes churches grow. He introduces the reader to
a variety of parishes (mostly from the mainline denominations) and in
nontechnical language outlines what they are doing that makes them
“growth churches” and thus examples of hope for denominations that
have seemed condemned to the gloom of institutional death.

While many clergy will learn from this book, its greatest value is as a
text for laity. A few churches are sketched in each chapter, which ends
with a brief summary of the church growth principles incarnated in the
congregations described. The summaries alone are sufficient to be used
as a study guide for parish councils seeking growth in their own
congregations or to empower lay persons to push for change in their home
church.