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New Life For Dying Churches: It Can Happen Anywhere

by Dr. Rose Grindheim Sims Ed.D.

176 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); Revised and Expanded Eighth Edition; catalogue #06-2770; ISBN 1-4251-1011-8; US$10.95, C$12.59, EUR8.99, £6.30

Awarded best non-fiction by Christian Writers Fellowship International.

About the Book

Saving dying churches is not a theory&hellip but a proven fact and it can happen anywhere! Dr. Sim's inspiring story is so unusual, enlightening powerful, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you won't put it down. It is an American success story of two of God's servants, each of whom won their denomination's top national award for a lifetime of church growth. It is a "How to Grow a Church" story which any church can duplicate and it is a must for laity, clergy, church growth seminars, men or women's groups or church conferences.

For 27 years Oscar Grindheim and his wife, Rose, worked tirelessly to renew dying churches. When he was dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, Oscar challenged Rose to be a home missionary and carry on this dream. Despite seemingly insurmountable personal tragedies, single parenthood, losing family possessions in a flood, terminal illness of a second spouse, Rose Courageously persisted. Even these trails could not quell Rose's unshakeable dream, diminish her capacity to love, or stop her crusade to awaken churches.

About the Author

"Dr. Rose" Grindheim Sims, Ed.D, is a leader, mother and grandmother, Church Growth leader, ordained deacon, author, college professor, Conference Evangelist, whose late husband, Rev. O.J. Grindheim was named outstanding American Baptist minister in America for his phenomenal church growth ability. His vision was that he believed the vital, alive church could turn America back to God.

Dr. Sims has continued that vision winning the Circuit Rider Award from the United Methodists, their highest national award for church growth.

In seven years her last church in Trilby, Florida, went from a 7 in attendance to 350 members, founded one of the larger missions in Florida, built a sanctuary seating 250, a life center, mission, education building, a youth center and missionary parsonage, all debt free, and packed the church with youth, children, singles, and families who were won to Jesus Christ.

As a result of her book, New Life for Dying Churchs, which won the worldwide award as best non-fiction by Christian Writers Fellowship International, she has been incited to speak and conduct Church Growth, Youth, singles, and women's seminars in Australia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayman Island, England and in many national, state district and local church conferences across America in many denominations. The book has been filmed by Ken Anderson Films, gone into six printing including Spanish and been made into an 8 hour Church Growth Video Seminar which has changed many, many churches from declining too dynamic. She has conducted many "Vision 2000" conferences, the International Church of God Conference and clergy and youth conference. She has appeared on 700 Club and TV and radio stations.

Her popular new book Papa Was a Promise Keeper is a Christian "Little House on the Prairie" spellbinder, which shares the incredible saga of her Danish immigrant father who made a promise to his little girl to find Christ. Dr. Sims shares her father's depression-era struggle to keep that promise, the country preachers who were faithful, and her romance with Norwegian immigrant visionary husband who planted the dream for the preservation of the church in America. Her popular, colorful dynamic children's book The Little Church that Could is a powerful gift of rich heritage and a must for every child and every church library. Following the death of her precious little grandson, Dr. Sims has written Angel Wing & Heavenly Things for all those who need to remember again how wonderful heaven must be and how near to all of us is the rush of Angel Wings!

Excerpts

Reviews

If churches are Dying in America, and they are. It's not because there aren't millions in need of knowing that Christ died for them, or of exercising the love of Christ through the outstretched hands of those who claim Him as Lord. It's because the church has become enamored of institutional bureaucracy or burdened with care and responsibilities of Institutional maintenance and forgotten how to love any but its own/ And not only are those who do not know Christ Ignoring the church by ten of millions. "Her own" are abandoning her in droves.

Before I finished the first page of Rose Sims' book New Life for Dying Churches, I knew that this book would be priority reading for me until it was finished. Dr. Sims writes as one inspired, and consequently her writing is inspiring. Her zest for living is evident on every page. Do too, is her enthusiasm for sharing the gospel. Her willingness to do whatever needs to done, and can be done in the name of Christ, is clear. And the results rebirth of countless churches that once were dead, because she applied her devotion to the admonition of John Wesley, who advised, "Offer the Christ".

Oscar and Rose Grindheim shared the ministry of opening declining churches and bringing them a new life for 27 years. Oscar won the ROSA A HALL award winner as the outstanding American Baptist Pastor in America in 1958. After moving South they became United Methodists. After his untimely death, Rose continued his ministry as a Home Missionary, not because she chose to do so, but because she felt compelled by the call of God. In 1987 she was awarded the Circuit Rider Award as the Outstanding Methodist Minister in America. Herein lies one of the clues to her phenomenal ministry. The call never eluded her, nor could she escape it. Is it possible that the key ingredient is a fruitful ministry is an obsession with the talks that grows out of an unmistakable call? No wonder this book won the 1991 Koala Award as the most outstanding non-fiction worldwide by Christian Writers Fellowship International, and led to calls for her to speak worldwide and on TV.

This is not a "How To" book in the strict sense. Yet there are direct instructions as to requisites for church growth. More often the clues are woven into the fabric of her life story as it unfolds. And the clues as to why churches and denomination die are also presemt. Her understanding of what the gospel means reverts to a kind of evangelical zeal that shaped the early church and was reborn on the fires of reformation under the Anabaptist, the Wesley's and others, as accepting Christ's salvation was expected to Issue in lives of service to neighbors everywhere. Ken Anderson Films, world leader in film production has filmed this book and four video modules. Dr. D. James Kennedy of EE Int. has added his testimony. This step-by-step Do It Yourself Church Growth Seminar can be conducted by leaders in any church for less money than it takes to send a pastor to a one-day seminary. It has already gone around the world and churches enrich are using it report there has never been anything like it before and that the results, when the church faces why they are declining is nothing short of miraculous.
-A Book review by Dr. D.J. Janssen, American Baptist Exec.