THE SKY IS FALLING - ALAN J. ROXBURGH

Endorsements

This is more than a book, it is a manifesto, a proposal for a new way of imagining a common life together as the pilgrim people of God seeking to fulfill God’s purposes for the world in our time. If we need new kinds of churches, we cannot develop them with old kinds of leaders. We ourselves need to become those new kinds of leaders, even as we all look to the next generations to help them be formed in new apprenticeships in the kinds of skills this book describes.

Alan Roxburgh’s most radical and powerful insight: having new kinds of churches with new kinds of leaders is not the point. In the end, even though we in the church talk and talk (and write and write) about church, church, church, church … it’s not about the church.

The church exists for something bigger than itself. Understanding that one thing alone will be worth your expense, time, and effort in turning this page and reading on–with an open mind and an open heart.

—Taken from foreword and endorsements by Brian McLaren & Tim Keel

Leadership always functions in a given situation or context. How do we lead today—in our current cultural situation? Finally…here is the conceptual framework every leader needs to navigate “stuck-ness” between a past to which we cannot return and a future yet to emerge.

—Todd Hunter, President, Alpha USA Former President, Vineyard Churches USA

If you’re looking for a model of risky practices for your emergent church ... if you want the most effective strategies for reviving a traditional church ... if you seek dependable and reassuring methods ... forget Roxburgh. But if you believe, as I do, that churches today have encountered profound cultural shifts, that leaders need conversations across tribal boundaries, and that we need our imaginations to be immersed in biblical narratives, then this book is what we need to deepen and guide our discourse.

—Rev. Mark Lau Branson, Ed.D., Homer L. Goddard Associate Professor Ministry of the Laity, Fuller Theological Seminary

The church in North America is in a crisis precipitated by a revolution in culture. Alan Roxburgh provides a realistic analysis of this crisis and warns us not to look for easy answers or quick solutions—the time of transition will be with us longer than we like. So he does not provide the latest “how-to” manual for successful church leadership—we have enough of those already! But neither does he get stuck in “analysis paralysis.” Instead he suggests a way that we might work together long-term to develop a more faithful engagement of the church with the mission of God. The Sky Is Falling should stimulate important conversations and provoke (I hope) some courageous experiments.

—David G. Dunbar, President, Biblical Theological Seminary