The report for "Mainline Evangelism Project II" has been released. Here is the link and below is the cover letter.Dear Unbinding the Gospel Friends,
I hope your day is as gorgeous as ours is in St. Louis!
We've finished the first 15 months of our 4 year grant from the Lilly Endowment to help 1000 congregations work through the full-congregational saturation experience witih the Unbinding books. A few of you have already received a copy of this, but I will err on the side of duplicate information! Here (click on the link below) is a copy of the 10 page report I sent the Endowment a couple of weeks ago. We are extremely excited about what we're seeing in these congregations, and in what we're learning. I include many specific examples (anonymously) from congregations in the process.
The bottom line is that the books work, the coaching model is working with increasing efficiency, people are beginning to pray, to articulate their faith and to invite friends to church. (I'm hearing rather amazing reports that the term "friends" includes ex-prisoners, students, Saudis, and a few people who state of personal hygiene is not on an exact par with the typical congregant!) Staggering shifts are happening in some of these churches. i was with a Disciples of Christ pastor last Saturday who is serving a congregation whose worship attendance had increased from 90-100 to 190-195 over the course of the last 12 months. She's not a typical pastor, but we're seeing miraculous things happening in many churches.
If any of you know of churches that might be good candidates for participating in the grant process, please let me know. I would be delighted to consult with anyone interested in the exploring whether this coaching would be a good fit for them. If we determine that it is, I can help groups of churches prepare for participating in a coaching group.
Our website contains a couple of video interviews of pastors who have been part of Unbinding groups. (Courtesy of the Illinois Great Rivers United Methodists) Th report to the Lilly Endowment is also downloadable from the web site homepage (www.GraceNet.info). Let me know if I can be helpful to you.
Blessings,
Martha Grace Reese
Read the rest here.
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