It’s not a review yet… I’m not finished reading it yet.

But I will say this: This book is changing the way I think.  That is rare.

I find it’s influencing everything I think about church - why we do what we do, why there are problems, what the solution is, what a Christian should look like.  It is changing me not so much away from what I thought before, but changing me by bringing clarity to thoughts that were already flowing in the came direction.  It is digging a channel for my thoughts that were already flowing across the land in that direction.

Quote:

We have developed an entire generation of dependent consumers waiting for their leaders to spoonfeed them the Bible verse of the week, rather than an army of Kingdom agents ready to transform our culture by the power of the Gospel. (p. 154)

I was saying to a friend of mine yesterday, the reason we have programs at our church is because the people of our church are not really mature followers of Christ.  If we were, we would be out doing the things our programs accomplish as part of the very fabric of our lives, reflecting the aims and the mission of Jesus here on earth.  We would be feeding the poor, teaching the Word, making disciples, meeting for fellowship with one another - all without direction because Jesus is our King.

I know this is a perfect world scenario, and we are dealing with fallen humanity with hurts that go deep.  Serious help may be needed for some people to get them moving forward in the right direction.  Also, people generally have an expectation about what church looks like, so for their comfort, we do need to give the appearance of something familiar so as not to be a “stumbling block”.  But in my opinion we should be working towards weaning the people of our church off the “program mentality”.  That in the end, the only program we offer would be that entry point that “looks like church” to give new people something to grasp onto, then work on discipling them into a place where they are followers of Christ, not of Paul, or Apollos, or Warren or Driscoll.