From Nomads to Pilgrims: Stories from Practicing Congregations (Book)
Diana Butler Bass, Joseph Stewart-Sicking, Editors.  Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2006.

In this second book from the Project on Congregations of Intentional Practice, Diana Butler Bass and Joseph Stewart-Sicking collect portraits of congregations that have discovered vitality through embracing spiritual practices, engaging ancient traditions, offering compelling stories, and fostering virtue.

These portraits are important for those seeking to understand the meaning of a "practicing congregation"—a term that eludes definition but is best conveyed through story. We read of the Presbyterian church that discovered and expanded its healing prayer ministry, the UCC church that adopted and adapted the practice of testimony, the Lutheran church that applied the ancient "catechumenate" (small group study and reflection) to faith formation. Twelve congregations are portrayed; each one narrates how developing disciplines, and making them the core of their common life, enabled church "tourists" (or nomads) to become true disciples (or pilgrims). And as pilgrims, they found and embraced transformed lives.

In each instance, these congregations sought first the will of God through prayerful discernment. And in each instance, these congregations practiced hospitality by welcoming one another and the stranger into their midst. Such essential practices not only laid the foundation for spiritual depth, but also worked powerfully against the current cultural trends of individualism, aimlessness, consumer-orientation, fragmentation, and forgetfulness.

Readers will appreciate how From Nomads to Pilgrims gives flesh to concepts presented in Bass' The Practicing Congregation. Both books provide strong glimpses of the most significant elements of congregational vitality.

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See also these resources:

The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church (Book)
Diana Butler Bass, Author.  Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2004.
Looking at individual congregations as examples, The Practicing Congregation describes a growing trend in which mainline congregations are transforming into places of vital, intentional practices of faith.