Cracking Your Congregation's Code: Mapping Your Spiritual DNA to Create Your Future - Softcover

"Finally . . . an honest look at why organized religion is losing members and why it needs to use twenty-first century marketing to make church relevant and attractive. Southern and Norton have written a primer that is must reading for not only pastors but for those who want to fill a spiritual void. It is obvious to me, a general assignment reporter who has covered religious issues, that the two authors truly have their fingers on the pulse of what's needed to bring people back to church. A thought provoking and uplifting book." —Vic Lee, reporter, KRON TV, San Francisco

"Seminaries, denominational leaders, and ministers have a sacred charge to grow the membership of the church. Norton and Southern provide an outstanding-and proven-strategy for teaching both clergy and lay people to accomplish this mission." —The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey, trustee of the General Theological Seminary, New York, New York

"Norton and Southern offer real help to mainline churches seeking health and growth." —Bishop Warner H. Brown, Jr., Denver Area— The United Methodist Church, Rocky Mountain Annual Conference, Yellowstone Annual Conference

"If your congregation seeks to grow in spiritual depth and vital ministry this book is an invaluable resource, at once visionary and practical, deeply challenging and empowering. Let it help you transform your congregation, and your congregation will grow." —The Rev. Canon Charles P. Gibbs, executive director, United Religions Initiative

"Southern and Norton are a reliable source for innovative ideas about the changing nature of the contemporary church, and they have a deep understanding of the role congregations play in American society." —Eva Spiegel, ACFnewsource project manager, American Communications Foundation

How can a congregation renew itself so it can fully realize God's noble vision of transformation, maintain health, grow, and keep pace with challenging and uncertain times?
In Cracking Your Congregation's Code, church consultants Richard Southern and Robert Norton offer proven processes that allow clergy, lay leaders, and other church leaders to do just that. Using their field-tested approach, Southern and Norton guide a congregation through specific processes of discovering (or revisiting) its "spiritual DNA," which is found in its core values, mission, and vision. When a congregation is true to its DNA, current members are energized, and new members are drawn to it. Once a congregation has a clear sense of what it stands for, why it exists, and what God is calling it to do in the future, it can then create a strategic map that will guide it into that future even as conditions and circumstances change.
Cracking Your Congregation's Code is a strategic guidebook that not only assists a congregation in discovering its spiritual DNA and takes it to the next level by showing how this DNA is delivered throughout the body of the congregation using four key WelNES (welness) systems— Welcoming, Nurturing, Empowering, and Serving. The authors also provide surveys to assess each system's current state of well-being. A congregation can facilitate its growth by making strategic decisions regarding these systems. It can design and monitor the necessary changes that will strengthen and maintain the health of the system.
Finally, this book carefully leads the congregation through an eight- step process that will help it create its own strategic map to serve as a navigational tool as the congregation moves in faith into the future.