Tim Suttle - Shrink: Faithful Ministry in a Church-Growth Culture

The megachurch is an attempt to free vulnerability through size is just one of the astute judgments that informs this book. Church growth strategies are the death gurgle of a church that has lost its way. Suttle helps us see how God in our time is making us leaner and meaner. I hope this book will be widely read.

Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Emeritus Professor of Divinity and Law, Duke University

Tim Suttle has written a powerful, passionate, honest word to the church. He critiques a church too much seduced by American can-do culture. His gospel alternative is straightforward:

faithfulness, not success

story, not strategy

virtue, not technique

cooperation, not competition

The book is directed toward evangelicals who lust after megachurches. But I hope his book will spill over into the world of progressive Christians where I live. It is a good word, one that the entire church needs to hear. It draws us back to the truth enacted by Jesus.

Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary

It takes courage to write a book like this. It also takes courage to read a book like this. Tim Suttle calls for a major shift in how we think about church growth. This conversation is challenging and empowering; unsettling and comforting; convicting and, ultimately, inspiring. That tension embodies the gospel itself, as does this refreshing perspective on congregational leadership. If youre ready to explore ministry that is rooted in faithfulness and fruitfulness rather than culturally derived models of success, this is the book youve been waiting for. Shrink is full of life-giving good news for those who want to abandon the hamster wheel of western church culture and lead in the way of Jesus.

Rev. Erin Wathen, Irreverin, Senior Pastor, Saint Andrew Christian Church, Kansas City

In the tradition of the biblical prophets, Tim Suttle boldly but gently calls us out of our American obsession with bigness and greatness toward a vision of church life rooted in faithfulness. Shrink is one of the wisest and most significant evangelical books that Ive read in the last decade; it is essential reading for every pastor and church leader!

C. Christopher Smith, co-author Slow Church and founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books

From the heart of a pastor, the mind of a theologian, and the soul of a prophet comes a word to Christians in North America: shrink. Be freed from ambition. Find Gods reign again in the daily faithfulness of living together in his kingdom. Few people could deliver this message with the same depth and piercing insight Tim Suttle has shown. In Shrink, he helps us face what weve been hiding from. He plows the scorched soil of the American church so we can take roots again and live.

David Fitch, BR Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology, Northern Seminary, author Prodigal Christianity

ZONDERVAN

Shrink

Copyright 2014 by Timothy Suttle

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Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ePub ISBN : 978-0-310-51513-5 Copyright July 2014

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Scripture quotations marked MSG are from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

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To the pastors of small churches wherever you are...