Church Refugees: Sociologists reveal why the dechurched left… and what they're hoping to find

10 best books like Church Refugees: Sociologists reveal why the dechurched left… and what they're hoping to find (Josh Packard): Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, The Way We Never Were: American Families & the Nostalgia Trap, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church, A Spirituality of Fundraising, Millenneagram: The Enneagram Guide for Discovering Your Truest, Baddest Self

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

Author	Arlie Russell Hochschild
ISBN	1620972255

In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country – a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose...

Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others

Author	Barbara Brown Taylor
ISBN	0062406582

The renowned and beloved New York Times bestselling author of An Altar in the World and Learning to Walk in the Dark recounts her moving discoveries of finding the sacred in unexpected places while teaching the world’s religions to undergraduates in rural Georgia, revealing how God delights...

Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

Author	Robert D. Putnam
ISBN	1476769893

A groundbreaking examination of the growing inequality gap from the bestselling author of Bowling Alone: why fewer Americans today have the opportunity for upward mobility.

It's the American dream: get a good education, work hard, buy a house, and achieve prosperity and success. This is...

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Author	Robert D. Putnam
ISBN	0743203046

Once we bowled in leagues, usually after work--but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolizes a significant social change that Robert Putnam has identified in this brilliant volume, which The Economist hailed as "a prodigious achievement."

Drawing on vast new data that reveal...

The Way We Never Were: American Families & the Nostalgia Trap

Author	Stephanie Coontz
ISBN	0465090974

The Way We Never Were examines two centuries of American family life and shatters a series of myths and half-truths that burden modern families. Placing current family dilemmas in the context of far-reaching economic, political, and demographic changes, Coontz sheds new light on such contemporary...

Shameless: A Sexual Reformation

Author

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Raw, intimate, and timely, Nadia Bolz-Weber’s latest book offers a full-blown overhaul of our harmful and antiquated ideas about sex, gender, and our bodies.
 
Christians are obsessed with sex. But not in a good way. For generations countless people have suffered pain, guilt, and judgment...

God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State

Author	Lawrence Wright
ISBN	0525520104

With humor and the biting insight of a native, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower explores the history, culture, and politics of Texas, while holding the stereotypes up for rigorous scrutiny.

God Save Texas is a journey through the most controversial state in America....

Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

Author	Rachel Held Evans
ISBN	0718022122

From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans comes a book that is both a heartfelt ode to the past and hopeful gaze into the future of what it means to be a part of the Church.


Like millions of her millennial peers, Rachel Held Evans didn't want to go to church anymore. The hypocrisy,...

A Spirituality of Fundraising

Author	Henri J.M. Nouwen
ISBN	0835810445

Great short read- 40 pages. Packed with wisdom and truth re fund raising. The book is available for free on Nouwen's website or as a pdf many places on the web.

Fundraising is "not a necessary but unpleasant activity to support spiritual things."
Fundraising is spiritually good for both...

Millenneagram: The Enneagram Guide for Discovering Your Truest, Baddest Self

Author	Hannah Paasch
ISBN	0062872397

Buckle up, folks. It’s time to jump in, embrace your inner self, and release the things that are holding you back from wholeness. Enter the Millenneagram.

The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system that has a sneaky way of revealing who we are and why we do the things we do. Using...

The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong

Author

Karen Gonzalez

Meet people who have fled their homelands.
Hagar. Joseph. Ruth. Jesus.

Here is a riveting story of seeking safety in another land. Here is a gripping journey of loss, alienation, and belonging. In The God Who Sees, immigration advocate Karen Gonzalez recounts her family’s migration...

Uncluttered: Free Your Space, Free Your Schedule, Free Your Soul

Author	Courtney Ellis
ISBN	1628627913

How can we sift through the busyness, the mess, and the stress to uncover the abundant life God offers? Uncluttered is not a formula about what stuff you need to give up. It's about slowing down long enough for God to remind you of his truth and what it means to be his child. Through heartwarming, relatable,...

Fire by Night: Finding God in the Pages of the Old Testament

Author	Melissa Florer-Bixler
ISBN	1513804189

What do we do with the Old Testament? How do we read words written in a world so different from ours, stories so ruthless and so filled with grace?

In Fire by Night, pastor Melissa Florer-Bixler invites readers to marvel at the Old Testament. Page after page, in stories and poems and prophecies,...

Almost Holy Mama: Life-Giving Spiritual Practices for Weary Parents

Author	Courtney Ellis
ISBN	1628627905

With the honesty of a close friend, the hilarity of a late-night comic, and the humility of a mom up to her eyeballs in diapers and dishes, Courtney Ellis invites us on a journey to draw closer God amid the joyful, mundane, exhausting days of young parenthood. Probing ancient Christian practices for renewal,...

Love Big: The Power of Revolutionary Relationships to Heal the World

Author	Rozella Haydee White
ISBN	1506455581

Love has the power to transform us

In the words of Mother Teresa, "We have forgotten that we belong to each other." This lapse in memory has caused deep fractures and allowed fear, hatred, and division to infect our lives together. We've become disconnected from each other and from our very selves.

In...

Saving My Assassin

Author	Virginia Prodan
ISBN	1496411838

"I should be dead. Buried in an unmarked grave in Romania. Obviously, I am not. God had other plans."

At just under five feet tall, Virginia Prodan was no match for the towering 6' 10" gun-wielding assassin the Romanian government sent to her office to take her life. It was not the first time her...

Anglican Theology

Author	Mark Chapman
ISBN	0567008029

This book seeks to explain the ways in which Anglicans have sought to practise theology in their various contexts. It is a clear, insightful, and reliable guide which avoids technical jargon and roots its discussions in concrete examples. The book is primarily a work of historical theology, which...

Unchurching: Christianity Without Churchianity

Author	Richard Jacobson
ISBN	0692749950

Millions of believers are currently leaving the organized church, without giving up their faith. Sadly, many are only defining themselves by what they don't do, as Christians who simply “don’t go to church.” It’s time for these believers to catch a vision for genuine spiritual community,...