Ditch the Building

Sometimes going radical means getting to the root. Sometimes it means pulling something up by the roots. What is it that is keeping you from doing what God wants you to do?

There are many books about how to do church "right." There are programs for every imaginable thing you might want to improve in your church. There are at least as many measures by which you can determine whether your church is successful.

Ditch the Building ditches that approach and asks you to look at what God is calling you to do, and how ingrained church structures are keeping you from actually following that call. Nick May doesn't claim to know what you're supposed to be doing, or even what's stopping you. What he does know from the experience of growing up in church, working in a megachurch and then pastoring a church plant, is that many of you are precisely at that point. You likely have at least the glimmering of a vision of what you believe God is calling you to do. When it comes time to start doing it, however, you find things in your way. It may be things in your own life or things in your church.

Ingrained structures may be your physical building. They may be your order of worship. They may be found in your Christian education department where you are implementing innovative ideas to prepare your children and youth to live in the 90s—1890s.

We often hear that God hasn't changed. This is supposed to tell us that we don't have to change either. But people and culture do change, the challenges change. We have to find God's way of responding and building God's people.

If you want to live out your life comfortably, don't buy this book.

If you think the church today is just fine, don't buy this book.

But if you hear the call to follow wherever God leads, no matter how radical that makes you seem, then buy and read this book.

We're not telling you that this book will change your life. We're hoping that after reading it, you will be empowered to let God change your life, your ministry, your church, and our world.