Sustaining Grace
Innovative Ecosystems for New Faith Communities
Edited by Scott J. Hagley, Karen Rohrer and Michael Gehrling
Foreword by Nikki Collins
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
Sustaining Grace explores the dynamic between new faith communities and denominational systems through the lens of stewardship and sustainability. As a collection, these essays suggest that to facilitate ecologies for innovation in our current era, established congregations and new faith communities must model the sustaining grace of God to one another in creative ways. Thus, problems of sustainability are not for church planters to solve alone, but rather are related to the theologies of stewardship and the ecclesial system to which they belong. Issues of vision are not for denominational systems to theorize alone, but are given shape on their historic foundations in the creative and prophetic structures practiced in new faith communities.
This book speaks to a central tension in the growing movement of church planting--the mutual need of and the mutual frustration between establishment leaders and innovators, conservators and risk takers. Standing at the contact point of that tension in one of the wealthiest mainline denominations, 1001 New Worshipping Communities and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary engage the question of faithful stewardship with voices reflecting and strategizing on each side of the tension, broadening the conversation to include those beyond the Presbyterian Church, and bringing both the academy and practitioners from church judicatories, church plants, and traditional church communities to offer a theologically grounded, practical, and generative conversation.
Scott Hagley is Associate Professor of Missiology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is the author of Eat What is Set Before You: A Missiology of the Congregation in Context (2019).
Karen Rohrer is the director of the Church Planting Initiative at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Before coming to Pittsburgh, she was an organizing copastor at Beacon, a new faith community in Philadelphia.
Michael Gehrling serves the Presbyterian Church (USA) as an associate for the 1001 New Worshipping Communities initiative. Before coming to this role, he was an organizing co-pastor of the Upper Room, a new faith community in Pittsburgh.
“It takes eleven essays of lived wisdom, from a micro to macro level, from the call of a new church planter, to life in the larger ecosystem of a denomination, to bring a fuller picture of what it means to develop a posture conducive to receive sustaining grace from God and others. As you carefully read through these stories, you will find gems of engaging truth, reminding you God still opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
—JR Woodward, V3 Movement and author of Creating a Missional Culture
“Here’s a book on sustainable ministry that is not a drab why-and-how-to-fundraise manual but instead a stirring invitation to imagine the precarity of new worshiping communities as a gift to the whole church. It will prove to be a fruitful conversation starter for all who are involved and invested in seeing new worshiping communities—and not-so-new worshiping communities—flourish.
—Christopher B. James, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary
“Hurray for Scott Hagley and his team for taking on the most challenging obstacle for most new worshiping communities, how to become sustainable for longer than the first couple of years. Sustaining Grace helps us to see that starting new churches is not an optional luxury item in the expense line for thriving churches. Instead it is essential for the sustainability of God’s church in all its expressions.”
—Vera Karn White, 1001 New Worshiping Communities (Presbyterian Church [USA])
“This collection further invalidates the lie that church-starting is the activity of a singular leader. The ‘mixed economy’ of writers, writing from their various social locations, remind us of our inherent need for each other, from planter to judicatory leader, to join God in the mysterious work of ecclesial innovation.”
—Nick Warnes, Cyclical INC and Cyclical LA
“Sustaining Grace offers a prophetic word in the midst of crisis and protest, when established churches are being forced to confront foundational questions about who we are as followers of Jesus Christ in this world. Early in the book, this possibility is offered: ‘Perhaps the sudden vulnerability experienced by mainline and evangelical churches carries with it the prophetic and disruptive word of God.’ If you’re curious about seeing how the ‘prophetic and disruptive word of God’ may be at work in new worshiping communities and emerging congregations, this is the book for you!”
—Cindy Kohlmann, 223rd General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
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