Front Door, Back Door: Why People Join and Leave Churches
By J. Russell Crabtree
In this groundbreaking book, Front Door Back Door, Russ Crabtree explores some of the most basic assumptions that leaders make regarding the churches they serve and what happens in the lives of members who join, stay, and leave. It’s not just another book about losses; it offers insight and suggestions for creating learning congregations and developmental trajectories for their members.
In Front Door Back Door you will learn…
- The characteristics of churches people tend to join and why there are so few of them.
- The three things that churches tend to do well in developing the people who join them whether conservative, progressive, or somewhere in between.
- The areas where people tend to coast without much growth even after years attending a typical church.
- The areas where people tend to experience deterioration over time; the longer they stay in a typical church, the less positive they feel.
On the whole, churches are not learning. Churches with more seasoned members tend to fare no better than churches with more “rookies” in attendance in dealing with conflict, achieving their mission, or engaging their members.
The author proposes a core competency model that is aligned with a church’s particular mission so that both members and congregations can be more fruitful and, in the words of Jesus, bear fruit that abides.