"In 1986, Dr. Kennon Callahan was serving as our consultant at Colonial Hills Church, helping us to develop our long-range plan. He and I were sitting in my study discussing my future. I shared with him that it was my lifelong dream to write a book, but I couldn't get my story on paper 'Why don't you do a couple of seminars and the book will probably fall into place,' he counseled. Six months later, I did my first seminar, and a year later The Church Growth Handbook was finished.
"Since that evening with Dr. Callahan, three additional books have developed from my seminars. Each book builds on the previous book, yet each stands alone. The Church Growth Handbook is an attempt to help plateaued or declining, program-based, established churches find the will to reach out to the unchurched around them. The book is clearly designed for fragile, established Christians focused on themselves. It is a basic book, comparable to learning the alphabet.
My second book, How to Reach Baby Boomers, was born out of an earlier struggle in the seventies to understand why things that worked in the early years of my ministry no longer worked. This book explains the differences between people born before and after 1946 and the ministries that reach people born after 1946. It scratches the surface of the major changes in effective ministry. It also brings to the surface the resistance and conflict that often accompany change in fragile, established churches. This book is comparable to learning how to make sentences out of the alphabet.
Dancing with Dinosaurs, my third book, goes far beyond the traditional established church and describes the 'Fringe Christians' and paradigms pointing the way to the future. It openly acknowledges the demise of fragile, traditional, established congregations and begins describing the church of the twenty-first century. This book is comparable to writing paragraphs out of sentences.
Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers is a response to the many questions and comments about control made by church leaders in my consultations with local churches and in my seminars. Most of the questions seem to be based on the assumption that everything that happens in the church has to be controlled and coordinated.
"All four books radiate out from a central theme: life in Christ comes to us on its way to someone else, congregations should focus outward instead of inward, congregations exist for those who are not part of them, life is meant to be given away not kept, God does not honor congregations that seek merely to raise money and survive.
"To write Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers, I had to jump into two worlds I knew little about--physiology and quantum physics. The journey was fascinating and rewarding. A special thanks goes to two people: Dr. David Green, a physician and friend, who introduced me to the intricacies of the human body; and Dr. Tony Amos, an Islander and oceanographer who pointed me to the books I needed to read about quantum theory. This book is comparable to writing an essay out of paragraphs.
"I hope that as you read you begin to smell hamburger cooking somewhere in your own ministry. Perhaps the following pages may convince your church leaders that it is better to free the people of God to make responsible contributions to the Body of Christ than to continue to control what happens in the congregation. If it even begins the conversion, it was worth the effort.
"Yours in Christ, Bill Easum, Port Aransas, Texas." -from the preface by the author.
"William Easum shows how an atmosphere of permission-giving, which signals the end of leaders as enabters, will help church leaders transcend bureaucracy and gratuitous regulations, and will enhance spiritual gifts rather than assign them. The sacred cows of control and regulation can be devoured, as leaders and people are converted to a new style of ministry. Bill Easum looks over the horizon into every effective congregation's tomorrow - seeing principles that others cannot yet identify and stating what others cannot yet understand." - HERB MILLER, NET RESULTS, INC., LUBBOCK, TEXAS
"Read this book if you are ready to let your ministry spin out of control. Then hang on, for wonderful changes are about to happen to your congregation." - CHARLES ARN, CHURCH GROWTH, INC., MONROVIA, CALIFORNIA
"Do the best things happen in life when you're 'in control'? Do the best things happen in your marriage when you're 'in control'? Bill Easum, the church's most accurate grenadier of a control-junkie society, shows how the best things don't happen in ministry when you're 'in control' either. This book offers a powerful charter, and chart, of how to do ministry in the 21st century." - Leonard Sweet, Dean, Drew University Divinity School, Madison, New Jersey.
"William Easum's insights on the Quantum Age and The Controllers are extremely valuable. I plan to recommend this book every opportunity I have." - Frank R. Tillapaugh, Kingdom Ministry Network, Denver, CO.