The Thriving Church Lessons from Early Christian Liturgy and Practice

The church is shrinking. What seeds must we sow for the future church and where might we find them?The end of Christendom calls for a re-examination of our understandings of the church, but even more importantly, of church practice. At the very least, the church’s relationship to society has changed profoundly in recent decades. The world around us, certainly in the Northern Hemisphere, is no longer Christian. Protestant or Catholic, Right or Left, Christians are now a minority. Will the church cease to exist in the face of this profound change even as it struggles to sustain its institutional apparatus? Even if it survives for another century, we will increasingly have to make adjustments. But according to what criteria? The Thriving Church strives to identify the fundamental characteristics of being the Church, even amidst decline, so it can re-emerge and thrive without compromising either its traditions or its contemporary significance. The book explores these seeds of the future church as they were lived out and enacted in the first three centuries of Christianity, not because older is necessarily better, but because our relationship to society is now similar to that of the first Christians.  Engaging the earliest history, theology and practice of the church, Juan Oliver sketches a path forward, arguing that the Church needs to re-embrace physicality in its rituals. This process also inevitably questions some assumptions inherited or developed over centuries about the nature of the church, its mission, evangelism, formation, membership, liturgy, leadership and outreach.