I've Been Thinking About This…

Finished these books last year (the links include my Amazon Associate number, so if you want to buy the book click through the link. You don’t pay any more, and I get a teeny tiny bit ): Church Marketing 101: Preparing Your Church for Greater Growth by Richard Reising

Readability: 7

Insight: 8

Practicality: 8

A great book about using excellence and common sense in helping people to find value in your church. ‘Marketing’ doesn’t have to be all about our perceptions of sleaze-ball Madison Avenue hard-sell. This is about connecting and communicating. A great book – lots to learn in here.

“The battle for growth is first fought in the hearts of churchgoers who want to better the lives of those around them”

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Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan

Readability: 8

Insight: 5

Practicality: 7

Much of what Chan is writing here is obvious. I don’t mean that slightingly. Sometimes we need to have the obvious thrust upon us because we’ve ignored it for too long. Sometimes it’s time to recognize that, just because a whole bunch of people say something, it doesn’t make them right.

“To put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards. When we disagree, let’s not assume it’s His reasoning that needs correction.”

His chapter on lukewarm people is particularly damning, but the encouragement throughout the rest of the book is powerful – what does “God is Love” really mean? What do people who are obsessed with God do and think? If you’re really in love with God, life gets different.

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C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War by Justin Phillips

Readability: 8

Insight: x

Practicality: x

This was a gift from good friends last Christmas – an excellent account of the way Lewis’ radio broadcasts became Mere Christianity. More on the book in my review here

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The Elephant in the Boardroom: Speaking the Unspoken about Pastoral Transitions (J-B Leadership Network Series) by Carolyn Weese & J. Russell Crabtree

Readability: 6

Insight: 6

Practicality: 7

I bought this because I sensed that the minister of the church I was attending was planning on leaving – as indeed he did, 6 months later. It gave me some good insight for what was about to happen, and in general, I thought that – for the narrow scope of life it was tackling – it did a pretty good job. I wasn’t overly impressed with the organization of the material, and I seriously question using the CMM approach for a church! However, other than small specific points of disagreement there are some excellent points being made from both common sense and experience. One significant shortfall however: There are a number of innocuous reasons for a minister to leave – such as retirement, ill-health or term limit – but there are also far more painful reasons, such as crises brought about by divisiveness between ministers or between clergy and laity. I felt that one quick chapter on low-performing churches was inadequate to cover this painful area. But there aren’t many books on this topic, and as a starter it did cover some much-needed ground.

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The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations by Dan Kimball

Readability: 7

Insight: 7

Practicality: 8

All about the post-modern church – although Kimball defines the ‘modern’ church as being ‘seeker-sensitive’ and the ‘post-modern’ church as being ‘post-seeker-sensitive’. My impression is that seeker-sensitive services were on the cusp between modern and post-modern – a brief movement that was tried by a number of forward-thinking congregations and found wanting. The book has the same friendly layout as Emerging Worship, and a great deal of helpful and relevant material based on Kimball’s experience in developing a post-modern church. Good stuff.

“…Scripture indicates it’s the parents’ responsibility to teach their children the things of God (Deut. 11:19). The church should supplement rather than replace the parents’ role.”

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Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations by Dan Kimball

Readability: 9

Insight: 9

Practicality: 8

This was the first book I read on post-millennial worship, and it was very much the eye-opener. I was excited about how many times throughout the Bible the call to worship is made (190 times), either by God, priest, prophet, king or apostle. My copy is full of highlighting and checkmarks (and a few scratch-outs as well). Definitely an exciting book.

“To be blunt, many modern … worship services are more anthropocentric than Christocentric. Jesus’ name is mentioned here and there, yet he [sic] is almost a side issue to the real focus…”

More on the book in my review here

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Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts by Thom S. Rainer and Sam S. Rainer III

Readability: 7

Insight: 5

Practicality: 5

I was able to download a free version of this book as a PDF, and while in general it’s an interesting book, it seems to be very confused about statistics. It pulls a great many of them, and displays them as authoritative, but I was often unclear as to how the statistic proved the point being made. It seemed as if the conclusion was arrived at by common sense, then the statistics were retro-fitted to confirm it- a very dangerous use of statistics. The book also suffered from some terribly ‘hokey’ interview descriptions:

“How do you feel it’s your fault?” She stared at the wall several moments. We could tell she was choosing her words carefully. (p. 71)

And

“I was raised in a Christian home,” he said softly. … John swallowed hard for a second and then gave us his story about becoming a church dropout. (p. 2)

Definitely not on a par with Rainer’s previous offering, Simple Church.

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The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again by George C. Hunter III

Readability: 7

Insight: 7

Practicality: 7

The book states that the Roman way of evangelism was to offer a rigid protocol – this is how you must ‘do’ Christianity – and get people to adopt it, often by carrot and stick. The Celtic way of evangelism was for the missionaries to adapt their own lifestyles so that they could reach people from the local culture; then those people could understand (a more fluid) religion and faith. Hunter then goes on to posit that newer churches in America are successful when they break from the traditional European denominational views and speak to local people in local terms. The denominational (Roman) approach focuses on the institution; the Celtic approach focuses on the movement – a sort of ‘religion vs faith’ debate. Examples of this ‘Celtic’ approach today are the Alpha courses offered by so many churches, and the cell-driven church movement.

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Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples by Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger

Readability: 7

Insight: 8

Practicality: 8

An excellent book with excellent insight on simplifying church so that it can do what it’s supposed to do. I’ve written more extensively on the book here, so I’ll leave you to it. In contrast to Rainer’s later book, Essential Church, statistics are used much more clearly, and possibly because of that, more effectively.

Some books are easy to read – even non-fiction. There are a number of reasons that come to mind: One is that you agree with them completely and spend the entire time saying, “Yes!” to everything you’re reading. These books affirm your point of view on the matter. A second reason is that the book sets out perhaps just one thought – new to you – and spends the rest of the time showing you how you would have come to that conclusion yourself if only you’d been thinking down that path. Books like this are exciting, because it’s as if they’re introducing you to a part of your own mind that you haven’t met yet.

Simple Church, by Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger, is a book that appeals for the second reason. It’s a fast read even though it’s not a particularly small book; it’s engaging; it guides through several examples; it bases the conclusion on some solid evidence and its logic is well presented. But above all, the idea is infectious.

The one new thought is this: to follow the true mission of Christ (which presumably all Churches should want to do if they call themselves a ‘Christian’ church) is to be obedient to Matt 28:19 and Acts 1:8. What do successful churches do? They stay focused on their process; distill it down to the minimum to be effective; and protect it. The process that often seems to work best these days is a three-step tool –

1. Step one is to invite people to attend, and provide an environment where they feel comfortable staying.
2. If they stay and eventually accept Christ, then step two is to connect them with others in the church who are more mature and who can help them to grow.
3. Finally, the third step is for these new members to take the lead: to bring their strengths to bear inside the church, and to invite others through the door.

A three-step process such as this, say the authors, is also easy to turn into a metaphor and remember – this helps members understand what the church’s drive (focus) is all about. This method has been developed and adopted by some of the fastest-growing churches in North America. North Point calls the three steps “Foyer to Living room to Kitchen”, and several churches (i.e., Cross Lane Community Church in Terre Haute, IN) have copied that metaphor. Saddleback uses a similar one. But it’s just a metaphor. The real key is to simplify church down to its basics and not get sidetracked by the latest, greatest idea. Programming is potentially distracting – instead, push what would have been ‘Yet Another Program’ into the existing process.

I don’t think the three-step process would have worked in mainstream churches 100 or even 50 years ago – the focus in churches was all about allowing people to come to church, not about going to the people. But today, some churches are reexamining the original mission (sort of ‘getting back to the basics’, if you will) and looking for ways to fulfill it more effectively. Again, I don’t get the sense that the authors are saying the three-step process is the only one that works.

What is being said here is, “Clarify your vision; focus on the mission; don’t let yourself get bogged down with programming that takes effort and energy away from the mission; get rid of the pet projects and deadwood that are strangling the effectiveness of your ministry. ”

And that’s good advice for any endeavor.

Wasn’t tired last night and the Biffster wanted to hang with me, so around 12:30 I picked up a new book called ‘The Story of Everything’ by John Kotre. It’s a small book (I was done in about 90 minutes); it’s billed as, “A parable of Creation and Evolution”. I’m throwing in a few spoilers here and there below, but I’m leaving the most significant revelation for you to discover for yourself. His two main characters are Adam – who we follow through the book as he grows from boy to mature adult – and an entity called ‘The Story’.

In one way it’s a sad little tale about a gifted boy who loses his grandfather (he dies), grows up to be a young man who loses his wife and son (she leaves him), then loses his dream – and at the end of his working life is still trying to find the point of it all – to make his mark on life and apply his gift. Or the story could be about the idea that, if you’re an otherwise ordinary person who has been given an incredibly huge gift, it might be a talent just too big for you to exercise.

But I don’t think either of those points are the central theme here – nor, for that matter, is the conflict between the creation and evolution parties in all its stupid, pointless anger, stubbornness, reactionary-ism and iconoclasty-ness.

First of all, Kotre is simply trying to point out that, contrary to popular thought, belief does not necessarily change as our understanding changes. Passionate flat-world thinking gave way to the round earth as we learnt more; an Earth-centric perspective eventually gave way to an understanding of planets in orbit. And in both cases, the church held the former view and fought the latter vigorously. Also in both cases, the change in understanding in no whit lessened humanity’s belief in God.

Secondly, even if belief did change our perception of God and His Purpose and Creation, it doesn’t change the reality of what God, His Purpose and His Creation are all about. In the same way, he says, it may be inevitable that creationist thinking will eventually give way to evolutionary thinking. And if so, then the church, like the rest of the world, will move past this issue and get on with life.

Although it’s clear that the entity called Story is sentient (it has a house and can purchase books and software), it’s difficult to reconcile just exactly what story we’re talking about. When we first meet it, we’re told very clearly that the Story is the Bible. It looks at a very old book it owns and remembers being printed onto the book’s pages. As time goes on, however, it remembers earlier versions of itself, back to papyrus and clay (so it clearly isn’t the Bible, which was never stored in cuneiform on clay), and eventually even to oral traditions. This leads us to the possibility that this could be the story of ‘Everything since the Beginning of Existence’, and the Story simply forgot about the earlier bits; just as for a long time people believed the Bible was the story of everything, so Story went along with them and believed that about itself too. Finally, near the end of the book, we come to find out that Story is really Adam’s – what – imagination? World understanding? The key to making sense of the talent he was given? Something along those lines.

Thirdly, Kotre is saying that this new perspective will change as well; that there will be other passionately-held beliefs that will be eroded and will eventually change the landscape. It’s clear from the central character’s words at the end that this is wisdom he is passing on.

I found the book to be easy to read, well-written from the story-telling perspective. It’s evident that the writer is as fed up with the Creation vs Evolution debate as I am, and he’s trying to put it into perspective with this tale. A parable over-simplifies the reality in order to reveal the core components to explain their true relationship. I think that this parable certainly glosses over much of the complexity to achieve that end. But unlike most parables, it also muddles things up a bit. If Story truly is the Bible then it’s difficult to see why it is saying it was wrong – the Bible, whatever humans believe, claims to be inerrant. Or was Story itself supposed to be evolving here? From the Bible to the story of all Creation? In which case it’s hardly a positive move to go from everybody’s story of Everything to just one person’s understanding of ‘How It All Fits Together’.

I’m also uncomfortable comparing the ‘flat Earth’ belief (which had already been disproven by Aristarchus and is not found in the Bible) to the account of creation (which clearly is in the Bible). I’m even less comfortable with the logic that, since conquering the flat-Earth and Earth-centric views didn’t result in sudden widespread disbelief, then conquering the creationist view won’t either. We’re in a different era from the flat-Earth, and peoples’ irritation over church issues are being inflamed by their personal beliefs over the issue – creation/evolution is not only a divisive issue, it has become a catalyst to division, in a way that the other ideas never did.

However: I thought the first ending (on the plane) was quite interesting – resequencing perception can often lead to deep insights. And the second ending (at home afterward) was good too. I do like a good redemption to a story! All in all, a pretty good read.

Back on June 28 I mentioned that I was reading by Hirsch titled The Forgotten Ways, which started off powerfully. Unfortunately the writing gradually became more and more weighed down with an academic approach – the ‘what I’ve found in my experience’ fades out, to be replaced with ‘what I theorize about things’. Little pictures start appearing that really don’t help my understanding of the issue. I struggled on – I really did – but at page 122 I gave up.
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