Randall demonstrates that people have four basic yearnings: to be understood, to understand, to belong, and to hope. He believes that the church is in a survival mode at present because it focuses too much on maintaining structures and programs--and not enough on meeting the relational yearnings that bind together a worshipping community. Randall shows leaders how to address these relational yearnings so that the Christian congregation may be reestablished and healed through preaching, teaching, administration, and congregational worship and social life.