Pisteuo

If you aren’t satisfied with your church experience so far, this book should help push you off in one direction or the other.  Either completely out of the institutional model or you will dig your heels in no matter what the Bible says.  It takes a fairly good swipe at how we ‘do church’ today and traces the history of our ‘traditions.’  Most of which this book attributes to pagan influences.  Everything from the clergy – laity divide to where steeples come from to tithing and many other sacred cows.  I don’t think I read anything new in this book, but they did a great job of putting a lot of different facts together.  And when it is all put together, it is a pretty big pile.  I am guessing that it was Barna who helped get the facts together and Viola is the radical idea guy.  They present a very compelling argument for getting up out of the pew and doing something.  That something is being a disciple of Christ and being part of the Body (a participating part).  Which according to them means getting out of building designed to elevate one person while you stare at the back of everyone else’s heads.  I like this book and I like their conclusions.  I pray that God will give us all the vision and courage to follow Him.

http://www.christianbook.com/pagan-christianity-exploring-roots-church-practices/frank-viola/9781414314853/pd/314853?event=CFN

Yes I liked Cole’s other book enough for me to read another one.  This book focuses on something that he introduced in Organic Church; Life Transformation Groups.  This is a discipleship method that I think could benefit the church.  It is simple and should be easy to reproduce.  At least that’s what Cole says and has convinced me to at least try.

The groups are made up of 2 or 3 individuals who have a  desire to have their lives transformed.  This means that they are desperate for Jesus.  The groups are not co-ed, because part of the weekly meeting that you commit to is confessing sin to one another.  He gives a list of questions that you ask each other that should cover most of the bases.  He also has other questions in the appendix that borrow from others such as John Wesley, Chuck Swindoll and Richard Foster.

Part two of the weekly meeting is discussing the Scripture that you read the previous week.  The group decides on what part of the Bible they will read together.  The book suggests 25 to 30 chapters a week.  If everyone doesn’t finish the reading, the group will read it again.  Each person shares anything that they got from the reading that week.  It is important each person does this during this time.  There are no experts or leaders in the group.

Part three is strategic prayer.  This means that the group agrees on others that they will pray for during the week.  Each member will agree to spend time praying specific prayers for the list.  The prayers are listed on a bookmark and taken from Scripture.

This is a good book with lots of examples of how these groups are done.  Here is a link to Church Multiplication Resources web site:  http://www.cmaresources.org/cultivating-a-life-for-god

I finished this about two weeks ago.  It is part of my continuing search for what a Church is.  (I am also reading the Bible)  But there is a lot of questions that are bouncing around in my my mind.  I am pretty much convinced that we have missed it, or at least missed part of it.   Cole takes a look at this by trying to strip away anything that isn’t necessary.  For example: Do we need a building?  Do we need programs?  Do we need professional clergy?

The church in the first few centuries seemed to do quite well with none of these.  We have problem even imagining what it would be like to be without these ‘necessities’.  The book gives examples of what sounds a lot like the house church movement from a few decades ago.  He even uses the Greek word Oikos (house) to talk about it.  I guess the main idea is that we need to seriously get a new vision of church.

We need to quit pretending to ‘do church’ when there is not even a hint of that in the New Testament.  We are supposed to be the people of God sent into the world to do His mission.  Cole takes to its logical conclusion and gives many examples of small groups who are doing just that.  One group chose a coffee shop that was the local hangout for Satan worshipers.  Another group of women have started a ministry in strip clubs.  Other examples were given of house churches.  These are all based on the statement that Jesus said about Him planting His church and the gates of Hades will not stand against it.  The gates of Hades is what is supposed to be in trouble, therefore take the fight to the enemy.

I like this book and recommend it for those who are thinking about what church means.

Here’s a link CBD:  http://www.christianbook.com/organic-church-growing-faith-where-happens/neil-cole/9780787981297/pd/981290?item_code=WW&netp_id=388748&event=ESRCN&view=details#curr

I first read Snyder when I was trying to better understand this Kingdom thing that is so predominant in the Gospels.  He wrote a little book called Kingdom, Church and World.  This is one of my favorite writers when I need some clarity about what is really important.  He writes to make you think and this book is a great one.

This book concentrates on what it means to be part of the Kingdom.  He writes with a long historical view of this question.  He doesn’t have any problem pointing out some problems that we have created over the last 2000 years, such as the institutional emphasis that we sometimes give the Church.  He wants us to see it as a living organism rather than a bunch of bricks or programs.  I have been waiting to read this book for a while now, but the upcoming conference on Organic Church gave me a good reason to pick it up.

My favorite chapter was The Unity of the Church.  He demonstrates how important it is to visibly be unified as the body of Christ.

IVP, 2004, ISBN: 0-8308-2749-8