One in every six churches in the United States is African-American. So, given the church's central role in the black community, why is the number of unchurched African-Americans increasing? How can you plant a church that proclaims with power and relevance the unchanging gospel to our changing African-American culture? Drawing from his wealth of experience, Hozell Francis gives you both the theory and practice for raising up a church in today's black community. You'll find out how to: - Shape a vision to guide your church - Form plans to realize your vision - Cultivate strong community ties - Develop an effective core of leaders - Impact families with the Gospel. - Transcend cultural dividing lines.

How Can an African-American consciousness and Reformed theology benefit each other? Where was God in the Atlantic Slave Trade? How does Christianity triumph among people historically oppressed in part by the church itself? Anthony Carter brings positive, informed responses to such questions, thereby enriching our understanding and furthering racial reconciliation. Book jacket.

Planting Missional Churches is an instruction book for planting biblically faithful and culturally relevant churches. It addresses the “how-to” and “why” issues of church planting by providing practical guidance through all the phases of a church plant while taking a missional look at existing and emerging cultures.

Reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition can help us connect with a rich faith history and address the urgent issues of our times. Demonstrating an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, New Testament scholar Esau McCaulley shares a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation.

The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. “Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again “Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

J. D. Payne explores the biblical, historical and missiological principles of global church planting, and suggests ways that readers can apply international church planting practices to their own contexts.

Throughout our nation, hundreds of vibrant African-American churches are leading people to deep, life-changing spiritual transformations. With visionary leadership, powerful worship, challenging faith formation strategies, and a strong sense of community and mission, these churches form the backbone of American spirituality. What generates this vitality? And how can you bring that same passion, energy, and impact to your church? In High-Impact African-American Churches, researcher George Barna and Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. combine their research, knowledge, and experience to describe what these churches do that is changing lives.