Endorsements for “The Emerging Church” by Dan Kimball

This book will challenge you to do some hard thinking and rethinking about how your church can engage with the emerging culture in your unique setting, with you and your team as unique individuals, in the unique moment in which you are living … whether you’re ministering in an established church rich in tradition, or in a new church-plant wide-open with freedom. No book can make your ministry easy, but a good book like this can help you rise to the challenge.

Brian McLaren
Author of A New Kind of Christian
Pastor, Cedar Ridge Community Church (crcc.org)
Senior Fellow, Emergent (emergentvillage.com)

Once in a while, a book comes along that oh-so simply and effortlessly describes reality. In the world of ministry, this is one of those books.

Sally Morgenthaler
Founder, Sacramentis.com and author of Worship Evangelism

This book is a wonderful, detailed example of what a purpose-driven church can look like in a post-modern world. My friend, Dan Kimball, writes passionately from his heart, with a deep desire to reach emerging generations and culture. While my book, The Purpose-Driven Church, explained what the church is called to do, Dan’s book explains how to do it with the cultural-creatives who think and feel in post-modern terms. You need to pay attention to him because times are changing.

Rick Warren
Saddleback Church, author of Purpose-Driven Church and Purpose-Driven Life

It is rare for a church leader to bring both clarity of thought and passionate emotion to the needs of the future church. Dan Kimball does both, and he speaks as somebody who actually lives in the trenches. I’m grateful for his wisdom.

John Ortberg
Teaching Pastor at Willowcreek Community Church and author of The Life You’ve Always Wanted and If you Want to Walk on the Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat

In his research and ministry to post-seeker sensitive emerging generations, Dan Kimball is emulating the apostle Paul: “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel.”

Luis Palau
Luis Palau Evangelistic Association

I am inspired and thrilled whenever I see a church leader wrestle with how the church can more effectively reach a generation in a shifting culture. Dan Kimball’s ministry and learnings will stretch and challenge all of us who long to lead the bride of Christ to its greatest potential.

Nancy Beach
Director of Programming, Willowcreek Community Church

Being tested in the laboratory of his own effective ministry, Dan continues to learn and to model a passion for the unreached souls of emerging generations. He deserves honest and thorough evaluation. Read this book at your own risk. To many it may look threatening, but it may open your eyes to reality and to a refreshing hope for our children and grandchildren.

Howard G. Hendricks
Dallas Theological Seminary, author of Living by the Book, Teaching to Change Lives

Dan Kimball shines a spotlight (or, more precisely, lights a bank of candles), illuminating the mystery-laden “post-seeker” world. Churches dare not ignore the perspectives and preferences of the emerging generation as they take the gospel into the future.

Marshall Shelley
Editor, Leadership Journal
www.leadershipjournal.net

Cool hair, bright mind, passionate heart – Dan Kimball belongs to the tribe of men and women who creatively advance the cause of Christ. His commitment to mission and context lays an important foundation for any conversation about style and innovation.

Erwin Raphael McManus
Cultural Architect, Mosaic
Los Angeles, CA

The future of the church in North America hinges on innovators like Dan Kimball and the ideas presented in The Emerging Church. Vintage Christianity can be applied to new and existing congregations to help reach the next generation.

Bob Buford
The Buford Foundation, Founder of Leadership Network, and author of Halftime

Dan Kimball has given followers of Christ and those who care about the future of His Church a wonderful gift with his book, The Emerging Church. Grounded in missional theology and shaped by the hands-on practice of ministry, his book is an essential field guide for leaders seeking to understand the transition now underway from an old to a new world and the emergence of a new church. Read it, learn from it, and share it with others.

Carol Childress
Leadership Network

Dan Kimball has advice for the church that all of us need to hear. It is time to return to Vintage Christianity.

Chris Seay
Author of The Gospel According to Tony Soprano, Pastor of Ecclesia in Houston, Senior Fellow at Emergent

We constantly come into contact with youth workers, pastors and church leaders who want to understand the postmodern shift and its implications for their churches, but are intimidated by most of what’s written on the subject. Dan’s book distills complex ideas into bite-sized chunks that are understandable without being simplistic. And he doesn’t stop there: he offers practical discussion of real-life implications for their ministries.

Tic Long
President, Youth Specialties Events

I'll never forget the first time I heard Dan Kimball communicate at his church in Santa Cruz. His words just hung and hovered in the room as they were so present and timely. And here in this book, his words fall off the pages into your life to inspire and hang in your mind and heart, provoking thought and feeling long after your first encounter.

David Crowder
David Crowder Band - Sparrow Records
Music and Arts pastor University Baptist Church, Waco Texas

What I appreciate about Dan’s writing throughout this book, is that what you are reading is coming from a practitioner. I have had the privilege of working with him for many years, and I have seen him live out and learn and put into practice what he writes about in this book. He isn’t just a theorist.

Chip Ingram
President of Walk Thru the Bible, author of I am with You Always and former senior
pastor of Santa Cruz Bible Church

Dan does a wonderful job of contrasting the Modern-Christian and Post-Christian worlds, and then gives what I find to be very practical ministry principles that can be contexualized in any setting.

Daniel Hill
Pastor at Axis/Willow Creek Community Church

Dan Kimball has the ability to form a balanced critique of the modern evangelical church that is both gentle and forceful. This book will open a lot of eyes, and the church will be better as a result.

Tony Jones
author of Postmodern Youth Ministry and SoulShaper, Minister to Youth and Young
Adults at Colonial Church of Edina (MN) and Senior Fellow at Emergent.

Dan Kimball has done an effective job of communicating the kind of essential information and practical examples that will inform and inspire both those who are beginning to engage the emerging generation as well as those who’ve been in the trenches for years. Creative, accessible, inspiring …this is vintage Dan Kimball.

Dieter Zander
Cofounder of ReImagine!, an incubator for kingdom inspired community-building, creativity, and social action in San Francisco and co-author of Inside the Soul of a New Generation.

While many Christians curse the “darkness” of Postmodernism and others imbibe its values, Dan Kimball helps us see realistically how the church today can communicate with and reach this emerging culture around us. Anyone who wants to join the force that is forging a new approach to ministry needs to listen to this pioneer.

Gary Tuck, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biblical Literature
Western Seminary, San Jose

Dan is a practitioner not merely a theorist. He is no armchair strategist. He is on the front line of reaching this generation. This is a practical book. However, it moves beyond merely presenting methodology to addressing fundamental issues.

The book offers a Biblically based approach to ministry but clearly states there is not one way to do ministry. Some of what is presented is new and innovative. Then, Dan breathes new life into a centuries old method of communing with God.

Les Christie
Chair, Youth Ministry Department
San Jose Christian College

Dan has the courage to model revolutionary thinking and the wisdom to encourage reconciling action. "The Emerging Church" is both a blueprint and a blog of transformation.

Spencer Burke - Creator of TheOoze.com

I have served with Dan for 10 years in high school ministry, in Graceland, and now in starting Vintage Faith Church and am privileged to call him a close friend. This book will open your eyes to the incredible opportunities for Kingdom influence that the emerging church has in post-Christian America. The coolest part of this book to me is that it all has really been lived out in the context of our local community, vintage-faith style.

Josh Fox
Pastor of Worship Arts, Graceland/Santa Cruz Bible Church and Vintage Faith Church,
Santa Cruz, CA http://www.vintagefaith.com

As a pastor who understands both today’s culture and the importance of biblical foundations, Dan has set forth in his book a pathway for any emerging church leader that’s safe to travel. His leadership insights are engaging and challenging for anyone who desires to introduce our world with the clear truth of the gospel.

Paul Allen
Executive editor, Rev Magazine