Our church building sits on a busy road with an elementary school just a block away on the same street. Daily, during the school year, I can watch hundreds of kids walking on the sidewalk to the school in the morning and back home again in the afternoon. Over a decade ago, I got the bright ideal to send some of our church staff over to the school to pass out Vacation Bible School fliers to the students on the sidewalks. Noticing our activities, the school administrators told us to vacate the sidewalk and not to bother the students with our invitations on their way home.

According the Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer, the authors of Transformational Church, "Too often we've highlighted the negative realities of the declining American church but missed the opportunity to magnify the God of hope and transformation."

Based on the most comprehensive study of its kind, including a survey of more than 7,000 churches and hundreds of on-site interviews with pastors, Transformational Church takes us to the thriving congregations where truly changing lives is the norm.

Eugene Anderson, Pastor at Vardaman Street Baptist Church in Wiggins, Mississippi, talks about his experience with Transformational Church.

Ed Stetzer, President of Lifeway's Research Division, talks about the partnership between Lifeway Research and the Baptist Missionary Association of America.

Aaron Ledford, Executive Pastor at Temple Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas talks about the church's experience with Transformational Church.