Each week, the Flourish team would like to recommend resources that will help you on your journey of Church Renewal. While we don’t endorse every single idea from every single resource we are attempting to cultivate a useful resource list for you.
Resource: The Tangible Kingdom, by Matt Smay and Hugh Halter Background: Matt Smay and Hugh Halter are entrepreneurs who together planted Adullam in Denver, CO and out of their experience wrote The Tangible Kingdom. As you can read in their linked biographies, they also founded a publishing house and then both moved onto other Kingdom works in years hence. Their book published in the Leadership Network series brought “incarnational” thinking into the mainstream for many traditional evangelicals who hadn’t yet engaged with the conversation on needed shifts in American Christian praxis in light of the changing world in which we live. Take-aways: Be forewarned that if you read this book many of your conceptions of typical Christianity will be tested. Read our disclaimer above again if needed! The reason this book (and the linked videos below) are so helpful is that Smay and Halter pointedly alert snoozing American church leaders that our context has radically changed. We have entered what Halter calls a “pure missionary context”. For me (Matt), this realization helped me early in a revitalization work set the tone for why so much had to change at our church. You won’t likely agree with everything written by Smay and Halter. But you’ll be challenged in ways that perhaps you haven’t before and that’s good. Missionaries — and that is what we are friends — do a lot of thinking so we can become Greeks to reach Greeks (1 Cor 9:19-23). Source: You can purchase the book in print or Kindle versions. Bonus content: If after watching the introductory videos (Training Videos #’s 1-4) for The Tangible Kingdom, you might consider purchasing the Tangible Kingdom Primer which will help you start to put feet to your learning.
