New Book Argues the American Church Has It Backwards, and Offers Eight Frameworks to Fix It

RW Publishing announces the release of Pastor Jared Fabac's "Leading Lazarus," featuring eight frameworks designed to help declining churches transform their culture

CHESAPEAKE, Va., Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A new book from Pastor Jared Fabac takes on a segment of the American church that spends nearly $2 billion a year on conferences, coaches, and consulting: the church growth industry. His argument in Leading Lazarus: 8 Transformational Frameworks to Resurrect Your Culture is that the industry has been treating symptoms while ignoring the disease.

"The church growth industry sells more and more programs every year. Declining churches don't have a program deficit. They typically have a culture deficit," said Pastor Jared Fabac. "You can add worship nights and small groups and outreach events until you collapse. If the underlying culture is dying, the calendar just becomes a nicer coffin."

Fabac is not writing from a distance. He has worked the eight frameworks in the book while reviving One City Church in Chesapeake from the kind of quiet decline the industry rarely names publicly, but most churches know well. Attendance had disappeared with a leadership change. Staff members were imploding. Strategy discussions were just circular cycles. Today, One City Church is thriving, with an on-site Leadership Academy and Clinical Counseling Center. The turnaround, he says, didn't come from a new outreach campaign. It came from naming what was truly dying and applying eight repeatable frameworks to bring it back to life.

"Programs don't build culture. Practices do. That's the whole book."

The eight frameworks in Leading Lazarus have been hand-selected from Fabac's experience with hundreds of leadership frameworks over his career. Each was tested and refined over 20 years of executive leadership across church, business, and community settings before making the book.

The book was released September 6, 2026, with national distribution to more than 400 retailers. It is paired with a transformational 8-week digital experience at app.leadinglazarus.com that walks leaders through applying one framework per week in their own context.

Pastor Jared Fabac is the Lead Pastor of the rapidly growing One City Church in Chesapeake, Virginia. He is also a certified executive speaker, trainer, and coach. Jared holds an MA in Clinical Counseling, is certified in multiple clinical counseling specialties, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership. Leading Lazarus is the culmination of the best leadership frameworks he has encountered across 20 years of executive leadership. Learn more at leadinglazarus.com.

Media contact: Rachel Grace, RW Publishing | [email protected] | 757-760-8676

Author interviews: Pastor Jared Fabac is available by phone, Zoom, or in-studio. Review copies available on request.

SOURCE RW Publishing