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The Church and the Dechurched: Mending a Damaged Faith

The Church and the Dechurched Book Cover The Church and the Dechurched: Mending a Damaged Faith, Mary Tuomi Hammond, Chalice Press, St Louis MO, 2001. ISBN: 0-8272-0486-8.

From the cover: "Dechurched" people are those who have lost a faith they valued or left a faith community because of a bad experience. They are our coworkers, classmates, family members, even church members, whose wounds make it difficult for them to trust the church or in many cases even to believe in God.

This trailblazing book is about reaching out to the dechurched to help them restore their damaged faith--and about how churches can repair the damages to their own faith that lead to dechurching.

Through scripture, the anointing presence of God in people's lives is often portrayed in the imagery of fire. For a host of individuals, however, the churchly experience of "fire" is more akin to being spiritually singed, scalded, and scorched. With great and patient pastoral skill Mary Tuomi Hammond has coaxed the painful testimonies from many for whom church life has been deadly, sometimes ruthlessly so. But hers is not simply an exercise in expose. For Christian leaders willing to listen, there is wise counsel in these pages on how to help mend damaged faith. -- Ken Sehested, Executive Director, Baptist Pease Fellowship of North America.