Discover Your Windows

Unmasks the hidden "worldviews" that stand in the way of congregational vitality and mission. They are problems with which every pastor is familiar: dwindling attendance in Sunday school classes; high levels of gossip and dissatisfaction; widespread apathy; weak financial support; inability to reach out to the unchurched. These and similar difficulties confound congregational leaders every day. Why are they often so difficult to address? Why do the programs put in place to remove these problems sometimes wind up adding to them? It is because these are not the problems themselves, but rather their symptoms. If you wish to get to the real problem, you have to address the underlying assumptions, perspectives, and attitudes that cause these symptoms. You have to root out the false, unbiblical worldviews that lie at the heart of the problem. Discovering those worldviews is what Kent R. Hunter's proposal Discover Your Windows is all about. Through years of working with individual congregations, and in the process of conducting nearly 15,000 interviews with individual church members, he has discovered the underlying perspectives that prevent churches from becoming the centers of witness and ministry God calls them to be. In this new book he summarizes what he has learned into 10 destructive worldviews, and demonstrates the biblical alternative. For example, to the prevalent yet false worldview that the main purpose of Christians in the church is to provide a place of fellowship and share God's love with each other, he posits the biblical worldview that the main purpose of Christians in the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ.