Additional information
by Neil Cole (Author), Francis Chan (Foreword by)
An expert practitioner answers to questions about the burgeoning organic church movement
Neil Cole's best-selling book Organic Church described the fastest growing segment of contemporary Christianity-the so-called organic church. Now in this next-step book, he answers questions about how to deal with theological and organizational issues that come up. He talks about issues such has what to do with finances, children, heresy, leader training, and rituals and ordinances. Without the top-down structure of a denomination, even people who are proponents of this small, house-church model worry that they are not doing it right.
- Offers an important resource for anyone involved with or thinking of starting an organic or house church
- Addresses practical issues of theology, rituals, doctrinal heresy, how to handle children, finances, and other important questions
- Written by an acknowledged expert who is now and has been for over twenty years an organic church planter and practitioner
- A new Leadership Network title and follow-up to Organic Church
Church 3.0 offers solid information about organic churches based on Cole's extensive experience in starting, nurturing, and mentoring in the organic church movement.
Front Jacket
When Neil Cole's best-selling book Organic Church was first published, it described one of the fastest growing and most innovative segments of contemporary Christianity.
In Church 3.0, Cole makes the argument that Christianity needs more than new programs, buildings, or worship formats. It needs a complete upgrade to a new operating system. The early church shifted to a more institutional form in 300 AD and has been stuck in the 2.0 operating system ever since. We are overdue for the next upgrade. Church 3.0 discusses issues such as how to deal with heresy, how to handle finances, what to do with children, and what to do with worship, rituals, and ordinances. Even the most enthusiastic proponents and practitioners of organic churches often wonder how to handle such matters in a faithful way.
Organic churches demand a shift from a program-driven and clergy-led institutionalized approach to one that is relational, simple, intimate, and viral in the way it spreads. Instead of seeing church as something that serves its people, church becomes people who serve God, one another, and a hurting world. Church is no longer an event to be at, but a family to be part of. Church is not a program to reach out to the world, but a people that bring God with them to the world.
Based on Cole's extensive experience in starting, nurturing, and mentoring thousands of churches, Church 3.0 offers insight and information about how to make this shift to a more organic form of church. Church 3.0 is an insider's look at the important considerations necessary to release spontaneous church multiplication movements in a Western context.
Author Biography
neil cole is an experienced and innovative church planter and pastor. He is the founder of the Awakening Chapels, which are reaching young postmodern people in urban settings, and a founder and executive director of Church Multiplication Associates. He is the author of Organic Church as well as Search and Rescue, Organic Leadership, and Cultivating a Life for God.
