HeyJaredUniquely Christian | Rev. Chad Brooks
United Methodist Congregational Developer and Misfit. I write about theology in our current moment and normal-sized church development.
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- 4
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- Sep 9, 2026
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- Aug 6, 2026
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Three things the mainline (and other traditions) need to talk about more... (opens the original)
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The 21st-century mainline church needs to find stability. Those of us in our tribe need to get over our theological quirks and begin to talk about historic Christian belief. Today, I want to share a few examples I came across in my devotional reading recently that point to some specifics.I have this fascination with a theological model I call “worldbuilding.” I won’t go too deep into it here, but it is an act of re-narrating and provides a hermeneutic for 21st century Christian theology. I’m inf
Self-Publishing, 90’s Hardcore, and the power of D.I.Y (opens the original)
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I remember one of the first times. I was in some unheard-of church fellowship hall. Across the river, and far away from the slick 90’s mega-SBC church I had grown up in as a pastor’s kid. This didn’t sound like the music my youth group played. I had heard the group at some big area-wide youth event. They had made it to the finals of a battle of the bands. The other groups made sense. A couple of acoustic guitar types were playing the typical youth group songs. A few girls I went to church with w
Don’t Make Sunday Morning Too Small (opens the original)
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I heard it again from a person in a pew a few weeks ago. I was visiting one of our churches in Louisiana. They had a brand-new licensed local pastor. The person came up in the “old Methodist” way. First, they served as a leader in their own congregation. They then became a lay supply pastor, went through candidacy and licensing school, and were 5 weeks or so in their first appointment as a licensed local pastor.The old Methodist way.It was a small rural church, in a town which was easily 50 year
My Current Hot Take In Normal-Sized Church Revitalization (opens the original)
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Hot Takes are a dime a dozen.I’ve got one I keep repeating in conversations.The average church in revitalization isn’t in an adaptive moment.Adaptive change and challenges have been a raging conversation for over a decade. Since then, it has turned into a talking point for the evangelical world as well. Marty Linksy and Ronald Heifetz, two Harvard scholars, created the model in the 90’s. My mainline tribe picked it up in the late 2010’s with Tod Bolsinger’s book Canoeing the Mou
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