Next Sunday
Will future generations find a church worth fighting for?
A great reckoning is underway in the church today: a naming and exposing of the exclusivity, abuse, racism, patriarchy, and unchecked power that have marked evangelical Christianity for far too long. What kind of church will emerge on the other side?
Like many families, the Beaches have been wrestling with this question. Together, Nancy and Samantha represent two generations: Nancy, a boomer, was a key player in the megachurch movement that revolutionized global ministry during the '80s and '90s, while Samantha, a millennial, is willing to abandon those massive buildings and celebrity cultures and find out whether the foundation holds. Each chapter offers their individual experiences and perspectives on a challenge facing the church and considers the way forward.
Filled with deep introspection and keen insight, Next Sunday is a vulnerable conversation about what the church has been—and what it can be.
"I love everything about this book—the honesty, the truth, the stories, the insights, the cross-generational conversation, and even the tension! Especially the tension. Because here's the thing: we can't fix what we refuse to face. This work helps us face the hard stuff about the church while honoring the good stuff, and it does so in a most winsome way that points to a future with hope."
"This is a memoir of two people, a mother and a daughter, who live in two different worlds and the same world at the same time. Reading this book is a jarring experience as each explores basic ideas, like community and Sunday morning church services, on their own from their own world. They're the same but not, at the same time. It disturbs me because I wonder if I can even know Samantha's world. I know Nancy's world, it's mostly mine. But they are siblings in Christ, and some inner-world reality transcends their two worlds. I needed this book."