Reader Recommendation: When Church Stops Working: A Future for your Congregation beyond More Money, Programs, and Innovation, by Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand

Recommended by: Proclamation Project’s Preacher Book Club

When Church Stops Working was a Preacher Book Club selection in February 2025.

From the publisher:

What if the solution for the decline of today’s church isn’t to be found in better programs, more money, or innovative new strategies? Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand argue that the church’s crisis is not primarily managerial but theological — and that the path forward requires recovering a sense of what the church is actually for. The book offers a vision of congregational life that is centered not on growth or survival but on encounter with the living God.

For Disciples preachers, this book speaks directly to the anxiety many feel about declining attendance, shrinking budgets, and the question of whether the work they give their lives to still matters. Root and Bertrand do not offer easy answers — they invite a deeper reckoning with what faithful ministry looks like in a post-Christendom moment. The Preacher Book Club selected this book because its questions are unavoidable for anyone who preaches in a congregation today.

Check it out

You might also find helpful:

• Church Anew — A theological blog connecting word and world for preachers navigating the challenges facing the church today.
• The Bible in the Ashes of Social Chaos — A Preacher Book Club selection on engaging difficult biblical texts in a fractured social moment.
• Recovering the Soul of Preaching Through Rest — A reflection on sustaining the preacher’s own wellbeing for the long haul of ministry.

Reader Recommendations are submitted by Disciples preachers and are not created or fully reviewed by the Proclamation Project.