Underground Church

If I lived in Tampa I’d join the Underground. Seriously. It’s the most exciting and thoroughly missional church I’ve encountered on my travels. The whole missional thing isn’t a theory or a conversation or even a paradigm for those guys. It’s a way of life! * MICHAEL FROST, author of The Shaping of Things to Come *In Underground Church, Brian Sanders brings above ground valuable lessons learned from leading a church that is solely focused on mobilizing people to reach the lost and serve the poor. If you want to discover a new framework for church that doesn’t focus on running programs but on equipping people—this book is a must-read! * DAVE FERGUSON, author of Hero Maker *The Underground is proof that being led by the Spirit has always looked and felt like creative, innovative experimentation throughout church history. As the Spirit weaves in and out of people’s gifting and calling, the result is a diverse, empowered church that becomes an underground city transforming network. * PEYTON JONES, author of Reaching the Unreached and Church Zero *This is not your everyday blustery, grandiloquent, church planter saga. Honestly, I have heard too many of those. The UNDERGROUND story is raw and honest—the real deal. Brian Sanders eloquently teaches the reader what it means to plant a church, to flail, flounder, and then to forge a beautiful new narrative of what it can mean become the church. * LINDA BERGQUIST, NAMB church planting catalyst, coauthor of Church Turned Inside Out and The Wholehearted Church Planter *What the church in the West needs more than any single thing are brave stories. Theories, methods, and old church metrics run amok, but stories blow through the paralysis of paradigms and give us practices for a new day and a new church. Whenever anyone asks me what I’ve seen in America that is truly missional church, I always point them to the story in Tampa called the Underground. For years, I’ve been trying to get Brian to share their story and am thrilled that they have tried, tested, and now are willing to extend their story into the national conversation. * HUGH HALTER, author, founder of Missio, and US director of Forge America *

Brian Sanders is founder and Executive Director of the Underground Network. He holds an MA in Religious Studies from the University of South Florida, and an MTh in Applied Theology awarded by the University of Wales and Spurgeon’s College (London). He is the former State Director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in Florida and the author of Life After Church. Brian has lived with his wife and 6 children in intentional community in the same inner city neighborhood for 20 years, embodying the ideas that drive him.