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Product Description

The church must be like water--flexible, fluid, changeable. This book is a vision for how the church can embrace the liquid nature of culture rather than just scrambling to keep afloat while sailing over it.

Ward urges us to move away from the traditional understanding of church as a gathering of people meeting in one place at one time to a dynamic notion of church as a series of relationships and communications. In the Liquid Church, membership is determined by participation and involvement. Liquid Church is continually on the move, flowing in response to the Spirit and the gospel of Jesus, the imagination and creativity of its leaders, and the choices and experiences of its worshippers.

Pardon the pun, but Liquid Church left me thirsty for more. This book is concise, easy to understand, and enjoyable to read. It's short enough to finish in one sitting, but if you read it once, you'll probably read it again and again. Liquid Church is not a set of practical principles a la Doug Fields, nor is it a model that has been successfully implemented or even tried. Instead it's a reflection on the attitudes and convictions that drive a church that truly ministers to the needs of people over the passage of time without getting stuck in a rut. Definitely pick up Liquid Church.
--Mike Kelly, youth ministry professional

Reviews

"Pete Ward's ideas on rethinking our perceptions of 'ministry' and 'church' will leave some storming the castle with torches and others standing at the precipice of all that they've been, ready to take a first step into a very new idea of what we call 'church.'"
--Youthworker

Youth ministry professor and author Pete Ward urges us to embrace a dynamic vision of the church, flowing in response to the Spirit and addressing the genuine needs of isolated consumer-Christians.
--Youthministry

“The central feature of Ward’s future vision is that the congregation, meeting every Sunday in the same, normally specifically ‘church’ building, will be replaced by a much more fluid network of relationships and communications and encounters. The ‘liquid’ church may draw a wider group together more occasionally for specific and creative events, but in between there would be a whole range of connections made, focused on informal meetings, action for justice or the environment, the shared use of Bible study material, an Internet site, text messaging, a sports team. All this implies that there can be a real sense of belonging to a church without everyone meeting together every week. In fact, Ward’s point is precisely that church happens as much in all these fluid relationships and connections as those occasions when a larger group might meet. He draws on a phrase from Stuart Murray-Williams, that church needs to be changed from a noun to a verb. So we ‘church’ whenever and wherever Christ is shared between us. This may sound rather vague, compared to the definite patterns of church life we have probably experienced, rather fluid. That of course is the point. And Ward is careful to point out that this is dreaming rather than current reality, and also to acknowledge that as society becomes ever more multifaceted so there will be place and a need for a great variety of expressions of church. ‘Liquid’ church is not the answer to everything. . . .

“Few will agree with everything in this book, and that is good. . . . But we need to engage with this book, and others like it, for whatever form church takes in the future, it will need to be more varied and more fluid if we are to take seriously the challenge to be engaged in God’s mission.”
—Regent’s Reviews

“At last we have a consistent sociological and theological exploration of the idea that the church should not only reflect important features of early modernity, but also of late modernity. Contemporary church life is molded around an institution that places rewards on institutional participation, uniform behavior, and dedication to the club. This book imagines what the church would be like if the church conceived of itself as part of contemporary culture where people see themselves as individuals rather than members of a community, as buyers rather than producers. . . .Liquid Church presents a practical ecclesiological vision and connects its message both with the insights of contemporary sociological and theological authors. Not surprisingly, this short, accessible and provocative book raises questions. Within the course of the Christian tradition, it is fairly new to conceive of the church as something that ‘happens’ in the context of the market.”
—Religious Education

“Liquid Church is most provocative and useful in its original intent—to provide an occasion for theological imagining, for the sake of a church and world both sorely in need of such work. Certainly some will take issue for his ideas regarding the content of that imagining. But for those of us who are ministers and educators for the church in the world (and those of us who work to prepare them), it is hard to take issue with Ward’s central call for renewal and reformation. He challenges us to think intentionally and well about the relationships and practices that comprise that ministry, and whether our how, what, and where are adequate to our why. At its most basic, cultivating relationships that nurture participation in Christ and mediate the movement of the Holy Spirit should be what we are about. And, as he closes, ‘Liquid church is not a program or a mission project; it is a community rooted in the fellowship of the Holy Trinity.’ Not a bad place to begin the hard work of re-imagining.”
—Journal of Youth and Theology

“Liquid church is by its nature not a blueprint for the future of the church but an unfinished theory. It challenges the reader, as much by its questionable passages as by its compelling ones, to think and experiment, and to become involved in shaping the emerging church themselves.”
—The Expository Times

"I recommend this book as a stimulus to thought and conversation."
—The Reformed Review

“Ward urges us to move away from the traditional understanding of church as a gathering of people meeting in one place at one time to a dynamic notion of church as a series of relationships and communications. Liquid Church is continually on the move, flowing in response to the Spirit and the Gospel of Jesus.”
—Worship Leader Magazine

Pete Ward teaches at King's College, London, and is the author of Youthwork and the Mission of God, Growing Up Evangelical, Worship and Youth Culture, and Youth Culture and the Gospel. He is the co-author of Youthwork and How to Do It and the editor of The Church Today and Youth Ministry.

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