The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation For a New Mission Frontier

Mead takes a broad look at past and present changes in the church, and postulates a future to which those changes are calling us. Denominations, once structured to deliver resources to far-off lands of foreign mission, now encounter the mission field in the layperson’s workplace and the community surrounding the local congregation. In a post-Christendom era, the old assumptions don't work, and our institutions are breaking down. Thus, the church needs to be—and in fact is becoming—reinvented for the new mission. But the new era is not yet clear. What do we do in the meantime? Mead provides a fascinating look at where we may be headed and how some of us are already working to get there.

A study guide is included at the end of the book.