A week after its release, the book entitled ChurchShift by the founding pastor of one of Europe’s largest churches broke Amazon.com’s top 10 Bestsellers list.
The new book by Sunday Adelaja, founding pastor of Ukraine’s 30,000-member God’s Embassy Church, hit No. 6 this week at its best on Amazon.com’s Bestsellers list after debuting on Feb. 8. ChurchShift was also ranked No. 1 on Amazon’s Christianity Bestsellers list before falling to No. 4 on Saturday.
Marketing of the book has been unique in that it ties its mission to change U.S. churches with performing well on Amazon.com’s Bestsellers list. The ChurchShift Web site urges Christian leaders to buy the book on Feb. 8-23 through Amazon.com so that Adelaja could receive the “press coverage he needs as a catalyst to accomplish the ChurchShift mission in the United States.”
The book’s mission is to spark a revolution in American culture – which Adelaja believes is in decay – by reforming 10,000 U.S. churches so that they will in turn reform American society. The ChurchShift author is seeking to prepare churches for what he believes will be a massive “shift” in focus and practice.
“As goes the Church, so goes America, and as goes America, so goes the world,” Adelaja stated. “We want 10,000 churches in the U.S. and 100,000 churches worldwide to SHIFT! This will be revolutionary!”
Some of the features in the book include how to: avoid church splits and division; change every Christian’s view of “My Ministry;” inspire Christians to believe in supernatural outcomes; equip church members to impact the seven spheres of society; teach kingdom values for societal transformation; activate the potential of the local church; change a nation by emerging from four walls of a church building; and provide the keys to achieve national transformation.
Dr. James O. Davis, president of ChurchShift, believes the message from Ukraine will be welcomed in the United States.
“Most Christian leaders know that the greatest church growth in the world is taking place outside the US. Most recognize we need to recover our own culture, but do not know how,” Davis said. “ChurchShift provides a path of success for our times.”
The vision preached by Adelaja and practiced in his home church of Embassy of God is for every Christian believer to become a minister of the Gospel wherever they go. The vision is for church members to accept responsibility to bring the lifestyle of the Kingdom of God and its principles onto the earth in their daily lives.
“I believe in releasing people to bring the Kingdom of God into society,” Adelaja states. “This is my conclusion after many years of pastoring, two million conversions to Christianity, 600 church plants and more than 30,000 members in our home church.”
Davis noted that Embassy of God members bring their understanding of God’s Kingdom in social areas of influence. At least 600 congregants ran for public office in the last elections and one member is now the mayor of Kiev, a city of 4 million. Another member is Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ukraine and one young lady is representing God in entertainment as the reigning Miss Ukraine.
“If American Christians can get involved in their communities like Adelaja’s church members did in Ukraine, I believe we can see a major cultural revolution in our generation,” Davis said.
To introduce Adelaja’s new way to do church in America, “ChurchShift Breakfast” meetings for pastors and leaders will be held to study and discuss the Kingdom principles taught in the book. They have developed a strategy to organize 1,000 breakfasts and Adelaja is urging churches to arrange their own breakfasts and represent the Ukraine pastor and the ministry.
Adelaja grew up a poor orphan in Nigeria and was raised in a Christian home by his grandmother. He did not own a pair of shoes until he was 12 years old and had to earn a living from the age of six. Through the prayers of his Christian grandmother, Adelaja gave his life to Christ at 19 years old. He traveled to the Soviet Union to study journalism on a scholarship and later founded Embassy of God Church after the Soviet Union was dismantled.
The Embassy of God Church is the largest church in all of Europe with some 100,000 total members, including those from all its satellite locations. Although African, Pastor Adelaja’s church is 99 percent white Europeans. The church has planted more than 600 churches in more than 45 countries, including 20 churches in the United States.
Comments
In the parable of the wheat and tares, Jesus said the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom. The corporate church has for too long kept the seed in the silo resulting in rotten seed. Churchshift is about releasing the sons of the kingdom into the world to possess and transform it. But this isn’t theory. This church in the Ukraine has transformed their nation. Look at www.godembassy.org, www.pastorsunday.com and www.hmbs.org for more incredible testimony. My wife and I are business owners in Houston. We have been students at the History Makers Bible School of Pastor Sunday for 7 months. We were drawn to the school to find out how a church changed a nation and history. My hearts desire is that the children of the Kingdom of my Lord Jesus in the United States would take our God given mandate to disciple the nations seriously. Let’s be thermostats not thermometers. We need to change our culture with the principles of the Kingdom of God instead of mirroring the culture set by enemies of God.
I was very disheartened to read the negative comments on this wonderful and well written article by Jennifer Riley! I wrestled with the thought of ignoring the statements but remembered the famous words of one of the foremost political thinkers of 18th century England, Edmund Burke "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing". CHURCHSHIFT is not a book on Church growth, neither is it some self-help Christian ideology or some third-tier watered down version of a man's concept of Christianity… IT IS A MOVEMENT! Yes, I have read the book through and I am still studying it all over again! Every principle Pastor Adelaja shared in this book is grounded in scripture and pivotal to the advancement of God's Kingdom on Earth! Prayer is not the answer to the challenges facing us today… we as believers have become so ignorant that we do not even recognize that we are no longer in the place of dominion that God has intended for us. Don't you see that our nation is dying? There is an implosion in the spiritual realm that has placed us on the fast track to death and destruction yet everyone wants to keep on praying, save the lost blah blah blah! There is nothing wrong with prayer, repentance, holiness, evangelism etc. They are integral fabrics of our faith and who we are as Christians but ACTION is required to bring about a fulfillment of that which we so desperately pray, fast, evangelize and yearn for. Have you not heard "O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" (Read James 2:18 - 20). Who are we trying to impress with all this form of godliness while denying the POWER thereof? For example, Here in America: While we were praying, the world was banning prayers in our schools; while we were preaching hell and damnation, the government was legalizing abortions and promoting pre-marital sex; while we were busy confessing, our school curriculums were being rewritten to teach the theory of evolution to the next generation and validate that God does not exist; while we were busy attacking our Pastors and looking for the next Church, our leaders were busy muzzling our preachers and consequently the Church of Jesus Christ! Need I say more??? For a nation founded on Godly principles, what has the Church in America been doing to the degree that homosexuality, teen pregnancies, substance abuse, mass murder suicides, lewdness have become the "acceptable norm" in our culture? Recently, I heard a teenager in my Church say "Homosexuality has been here so long that even God must have accepted it". Shocking? NO! Not by any means because the Church have been busy hiding out in our fancy buildings, getting more air time on major networks, "waiting" for the next "revival", raising offerings for personal luxuries and programs geared to fill our pews with "attendees" while the world is having dominion over us. THAT IS WHAT WE SHOULD BE SICK AND TIRED OF. A Church that is weak, irrelevant and self absorbed is what we have become.
Continued from Comments Above …
How many Christians do you know that will be willing to share their faith at their jobs? You will be amazed at the statistical percentages that do not and never will simply for the fear of losing their pay check!!! Are we still talking scripture? What an ignorant position and a waste of the life and gift that God Almighty has called us to. Hosea 4:6 puts it mildly, God's own people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge: so I stand in total agreement with the writer of the earlier comments below (Psalm3734) who said: "What I am tired of hearing is Christian who ONLY say 'let's pray, repentance, seek the Holy Spirit and keep on speaking negative of others who are doing something!" Guess what, People like Pst. Adelaja, Rick Warren etc are praying too… perhaps more than all the 'nay sayers' combined. They are seeking guidances from the Holy Spirit, preaching the Gospel and repented... It's the message we all need to hear. STOP SAYING/CLAIMING others to be false teachers. START PAYING ATTENTION."
The vision of CHURCHSHIFT is proven! Go read about the orange revolution and see how an atheist nation like Ukraine was transformed to God. CHURCHSHIFT is a wake up call to the American Church and indeed the Church around the world - that we must become proactive in every sphere of influence. God placed us on the Earth to SEEK FIRST His KINGDOM (from the compound words KING and DOMINION)!!! Don't just read your Bible, READ THE BIBLE!!! IN closing let me reiterate: If there is any one man that I know fears, walks with the Lord and does not have a personal agenda - it is Pastor Sunday Adelaja!!! Perhaps if you read the book, you will understand the concept and importance of CHURCHSHIFT!
I am not tired of those who keep on trying, never quit, pressing forward with strategies to win the lost and eventually, to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. I have been personally witnessing how active Christians in society literally change their community for the cause of Christ.
What I am tired of hearing is Christian who ONLY say 'let's pray, repentance, seek the Holy Spirit and keep on speaking negative about those leaders who progresses.
Guess what, People like Ps.Adelaja, Rick Warren etc are praying too....perhaps more than all the 'nay sayers' combined. They are seeking guidances from the Holy Spirit, preaching the Gospel and repented.
I have not read Church Shirt, but from the article written above, I can tell the book is right on target. It's the message we all need to hear. STOP SAYING/CLAIMING others to be false teachers. START PAYING ATTENTION. I believe if you just listen, you will know the purpose of all the seminars/books/movements are for the Glory of God.
valkyrie 1966 wrote:
"Oh good. Another church bandwagon/campaign to jump on. I am so sick of this kind of thing I could puke. Didn't we just go through 5-7 years of Purpose-Driven madness? Wasn't that supposed to change the church and change the world? Before that, wasn't David Mains' 50 Day Spiritual Adventure supposed to do it? Wasn't Robert Schuller's Rethink Conference supposed to shake things up for the church? How about the Catalyst Conference? or the Big Shift Conference with Brian McLaren? Somebody's laughing all the way to the bank with this garbage, and the enemy of souls gets the biggest laugh because he keeps everyone relying on strategies and man-made programs instead of prayer and repentance and seeking the Holy Spirit, the only author of true church and societal change. "
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The Emergent Church is redefining the Bible, it's intent, and even going so far as to reinvent Jesus, and the Apostle Paul. They figure, people don't like the concepts of hell being a real literal place God has for those who rebell against Him without repenting and turning from their sins, so, they just water it down. People in post modern circles don't like that homosexuality is called sin in the Bible, so they twist the meaning of the Bible to adapt to people's carnality. People don't like it that the Bible condemns fornication, adultery, bestiality, etc, so some liberal theologian, or popular mega church writer begins to rethink Christianity to suit today's post modern culture. The Gosepl is very simple - John 3:16, John 14:6, and other Scriptures have the Gospel of Christ pinpointed; yet liberal pastors like Brian Mclaren, Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell, Robert Schuller, Tony Campolo, Rick Warren, and many many others are pushing a different agenda in the church. We need not be alarmed, as the Word of God has told us that in the end times there would be false teachers amoingst the sheep. This is just the beginning of the emergent church heresy, and just another trend in post modern circles. Many think that just because a pastor may have numbers in church attendance that the Gospel is being preached - not necessarily so. This is just another man made, man driven church growth, reinventing of churches, etc like Rick Warrens Purpose Driven P.E.A.C.E. plan that bring a "social gospel", but fail to address issues like repentance, and true Biblical Salvation pointing to Jesus Christ as the ONLY WAY TO THE FATHER.
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. " James 1:27
I realize that the United States has been identified by Christian organizations around the world as their number one mission field, but this is a little ridiculous. Religion doesn't change the world, faith does. How much faith does it take to follow a program prescribed by a fellow fallen creature? Just enough to last until the next best selling book hits the shelves...
ChurchShift? How about 2 Chronicles 7:14:
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Oh good. Another church bandwagon/campaign to jump on. I am so sick of this kind of thing I could puke. Didn't we just go through 5-7 years of Purpose-Driven madness? Wasn't that supposed to change the church and change the world? Before that, wasn't David Mains' 50 Day Spiritual Adventure supposed to do it? Wasn't Robert Schuller's Rethink Conference supposed to shake things up for the church? How about the Catalyst Conference? or the Big Shift Conference with Brian McLaren? Somebody's laughing all the way to the bank with this garbage, and the enemy of souls gets the biggest laugh because he keeps everyone relying on strategies and man-made programs instead of prayer and repentance and seeking the Holy Spirit, the only author of true church and societal change.