• Archive of "review" Category

    Launching Missional Communities (Book Review)

    December 6, 2010 // 13 Comments »

    Like many others, I received a free copy of Launching Missional Communities: A Field Guide by Mike Breen & Alex Absalom to read and review here on my blog.

    I should probably say upfront that I have a ton of 3DM (the training network behind this book) friends.  I love them, their hearts, and their ministries, so as I come to this book, I’m already biased in favor of it.

    The easiest thing to say about this book is that it’s practical.  While it’s easy, even fun, to read, it almost can be treated more like a resource manual than a book.  It doesn’t need to be read straight through and it’s easy to reference bits and pieces depending on your interests.

    Before diving into all the good stuff I want to say, let me go ahead and get my one major criticism out of the way.  There is a small chapter entitled, “Attractional vs. Missional” in which the authors attempt to argue that we need both.  My opinion, however, is that the argument fails on both theological and analogical fronts.  They use the pre-Reformation phenomenon of Roman model churches (if you build it they will come) and Celtic model churches (more outward focused) to suggest that we need attractional and missional kinds of churches playing off of one another.  The analogical problem here is that what is generally meant today by attractional and missional does not at all correspond to the realities and circumstances in which these models of churches existed.  As for the theological problem, I can probably best articulate that by sharing the last sentences of the chapter and my notes in the margin.

    The quote…

    We just need to understand what Attractional does well and do it.

    We need to understand what Missional does well and do it.

    My notes…

    Impossible – attractional and missional churches are such because they have divergent understandings of basic Christian doctrines.  What we need is a theologically robust understanding the relationship between the the Missio Dei, the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and the Church.  This will lead us not to the ‘best’ of these two models, but to a cohesive vision of a missional ecclesiology.  This is the great error of ‘AND’ thinking; you never get to core issues because you spend all your time trying to artificially hold incompatible things together.

    The saddest part of this is that the underlying genius of the book actually does this work.  It undercuts the errant theology and philosophy driving attractional churches.  I just wish they had been more direct in stating it.

    UPDATE: Be sure to check this post Mike Breen offered in response.

    OK, on to the far more substantive praise.

    The authors fully communicate their heart for the life and ministry of local churches in their various forms.  They offer not just a proposal, but a methodical plan for churches of any size (though it seems pretty obvious that they have in mind mainly new, smaller communities and then more established larger communities in mind) and kind to begin to incorporate missional communities into the life of their larger church community.

    Discipleship, leadership and mission are the driving themes of both the book and the entire philosophy of missional communities.  To get the point of the book, you have to understand that from the author’s perspective, the task of the church is discipleship – period – the end.  And they are right.  You also have to embrace the idea that the replication of leaders is imperative to the larger task of discipleship.  If you don’t equip and empower leaders, you can kiss your changes of exponential discipleship bye-bye.  Again, I’m totally with them here.  Finally, mission is the context in which leaders are equipped and disciples are formed.  Amen!  If you can embrace and own these three things, then you’ll love this book and what it offers.

    A few final things.  I deeply appreciate that they didn’t skip over the tough (practical) issues like kids, schedules, and finances.  they address these things as only those who’ve lived through the ins and outs of the details could.  They also interspersed quotes and stories from those who have gone through their 3DM training and others who have implemented missional communities (or some derivation thereof) into their larger church context.

    Seriously, it was a great book – something that we are finding valuable at Life on the Vine even.  The guys behind 3DM are doing a good work and the people who contributed stories to the book are the ultimate testimony of that.  I highly recommend you pick up a copy or two to read through with a group that’s interested in the whole idea of missional communities – you won’t find a better practical guide for sure.

    Posted in books, church, discipleship, God, kingdom, leadership, LOV, missional, review, stewardship, theology

    Part 2: Reviewing “Knowing Christ Today” by Dallas Willard

    June 18, 2010 // 2 Comments »

    A few weeks ago I kickstarted a review of Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge, by Dallas Willard (part 1 here).

    After a comment by my friend Josh on that post, I thought I’d hop back in with some further reflections.  Josh asked about Willard’s reflections on knowledge and their connection to virtue, to truth/Truth, and the works of Polyani and MacIntyre.  To my recollection, Willard is not interacting with other contemporary philosophers (at least not directly), but he does speak to the matters of virtue and truth/Truth.  Regarding virtue, Willard says,

    We today live in a curious period when almost no one is willing to discuss the question of how one becomes a truly good person.  There is now a widespread tendency in American culture to think that everyone is already good.  This probably arises out of confusion concerning the dignity of the individual or the equality of all people.  It seems to many that all you have to do to be worthy is just to be.  They mistake worth for worthiness; the most unworthy of persons still has worth, value, a certain dignity to be respected.  On the other hand, as we shall discuss later it is now widely thought that there is no objective difference between a good and bad person, or at least that we do not know what that difference is.  So, if that is true, a method for becoming a really good person would be presumptuous and pointless.  (49)

    Willard is saying that there is such a thing as objective virtue, but more provocatively, he is saying that we can know it.  Let me trace his argument briefly by noting his comments on Jesus’ answers to the 4 core worldview questions.

    1) What is real? Jesus’ answer, God and his Kingdom.

    2) Who is well-off, blessed? Jesus’ answer, Anyone who is alive in the Kingdom of God.

    3) Who is a really good person? Jesus’ answer, Anyone who is prevaded with love.

    4) How do you become a really good person? You place your confidence in Jesus Christ and become his student or apprentice in Kingdom living.

    The key to Willard’s line of argumentation here, I believe is found in this passing comment he makes – one that I think he would ave done well to devote an entire chapter (if not a book!) to.

    … ‘knowledge’ as the biblical tradition speaks of it is always interactive relationship.

    If indeed the sort of knowledge that the Bible is concerned with is characterized by interactive relationship, then it, by nature, has a dimension of subjectivity to it.

    The apologetic value of this sort of knowledge therefore is found not in intellectual argumentation, but in inviting people into a relationship with the risen Jesus, manifested (uniquely though not exclusively) in and through the Church as the Body of Christ.

    Let me stop there for now and see if anyone wants to engage with what Dallas is doing/saying here.

    Posted in books, church, Jesus, review, spiritual formation, theology, truth

    Reviewing “Knowing Christ Today” by Dallas Willard

    May 28, 2010 // 3 Comments »

    As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I recently finished a few books that I think are worth discussing.  I started with a review of Deep Church by Jim Belcher and though I’d try to tackle Willard’s book next.

    Reviewing a book by Dallas Willard is a formidable task.  The guy is nothing short of brilliant.  Add to this his personal humility and Christlikeness, and we have no choice but to take his words to heart and call ourselves, not him, into question if we think we disagree or have come to understand him fully.  Such is my stance as I offer my reflections on this excellent book.

    The fundamental issue Willard aims to grapple with in, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge, is this,

    In the Western world, a great historical struggle between what might be called ‘traditional’ knowledge, represented by the church, and modern knowledge, represented by science, has brought us to where many can only think of religion as mere belief or commitment. (23)

    From here, Willard goes on to explain how both conservatives and liberals, in their own unique ways, managed to divorce knowledge from their versions of Christian faith and life.  To summarize, on the left, the removal of Christian teachings from the domain of knowledge “was largely a defensive move, designed to insulate Christian faith and practice from any possible negative impact of the results of scientific and historical studies.” (24)  On the right, “knowlege was pushed away as inessential to saving faith, having nothing to do with it.” (25)

    What willard is after is a vision of Christian faith that ushers us beyond profession (what we say we believe, even if we’re not committed to it or don’t actually believe it), commitment (what we do regardless of its correspondence to reality), and belief (which doesn’t necessarily correspond to truth or knowledge – “we can believe what is false and often do” (16)), to the realm of Christian knowledge.  Of Christian knowledge Willard says,

    We have knowledge of something when we are representing it (thinking about it, speaking of it, treating it) as it actually is, on an appropriate basis of thought and experience. (15)

    He goes on to say,

    Knowledge, but not mere belief or commitment, confers on its possessor an authority or right – even a responsibility – to act, to direct action, to establish and supervise policy, and to teach… Knowledge also confers upon belief and action a stability and communicability that other sources of action do not.  This is because knowledge involves truth: truth secured by experience, method, and evidence that is generally available. (18)

    Let me go ahead and stop there for now.  I will jump back into what Willard is after in this book and its relevance for the lives of disciples and the Church in forthcoming posts, but at the outset, does anyone have initial thoughts on Willard’s project or observations at the outset?  Is “Christian knowledge” something you think much about and if so, for what purpose?

    Posted in books, Jesus, review, spiritual formation, truth

    Discussing Church, Christ, and Community

    May 14, 2010 // 5 Comments »

    While Amy was away I had the chance to read some books that has been on my hitlist for a while.

    Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional by Jim Belcher

    Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge by Dallas Wilard

    Free for All: Rediscovering the Bible in Community by Tim Conder and Daniel Rhodes

    I plan to offer some thoughts on all three eventually, but I was wondering if there might be some lifeasmission readers out there who have read any of these and were anxious to have some discussion on one in particular.

    (Books link to BetterWorldBooks.com, my book supplier of choice).

    Posted in bible, books, church, community, review, theology, truth

    Consuming Jesus

    January 15, 2009 // 2 Comments »

    I have been looking forward to reading Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church by Paul Metzger for some time.  For the sake of an alternative context and experience, I was even more excited to read the bulk of it amidst my time in Africa and its deep seeded tribalism.

    In Metzger’s words, his aim is to…

    confront the ways evangelical-consumer or niche-church Christianity fosters racial and economic divisions, and I wish to offer an alternative theological paradigm to the one that is often embraced in the evangelical subculture. (11)

    In my words, this alternative theological paradigm comes only by way of rejecting the version of the gospel which has led to a consumer-oriented faith/church and embracing one that prophetically strikes at the very heart of that reality.

    In John Perkins’ words,

    The only purpose of the gospel is to reconcile people to God and to each other.  A gospel that doesn’t reconcile is not a Christian gospel at all.  But in America it seems as if we don’t believe that.  We don’t really beleive that the proof of our discipleship is that we love one another.” (9)

    I love that Perkins understands the gospel by what it does.  Like love, the gospel takes on its true nature only when it is enacted.

    In the beginning of the book.  Metzger insightfully traces the various streams, characters, and events which have so vitally contributed to the dominant expression of Christianity in America.  From here, he probes into the ways in which “the dominant structure of the evangelical church today favors, fosters, and shapes its structures around the key ingredient of individual choice…” (79)  Key to understanding this tendency is his discussion of the popularization of the Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP) by Donald McGavran as a method for church growth.  The remainder of the book features insightful biblical and cultural reflections, helpful examples and a sustained discussion on the vitality of Scripture and sacraments for the formation of communities of reconciliation across racial and class boundaries.

    Of Scripture, Metzger says…

    We must move people with God’s word on Sunday mornings to move beyond their addictions to race and class affinity groups.  Authentic witness to Jesus is at stake, and we must stake our lives on it. (117)

    – a quick aside here: just as the goodness of the gospel lies in what it does, so too the sermon is only good inasmuch as it results in changed lives.  Don’t ever tell a preacher his or her message was good unless you are prepared to also tell them how it resulted in your changed life

    And I love that he includes Marva Dawn’s words on the Lord’s Supper…

    How can we share the eschatological feast if we don’t participate in displaying God’s future, in which all will be equally fed and we will all join together in universal praise?  It seems to be that if we eat the body and blood of Christ in expensive churches without care for the hungry, the sacrament is no longer a foretaste of the feast to come, but a trivialized picnic to which not everyone is invited.

    The end of the book is the author’s attempt to move into a discussion of partnerships amongst churches across racial and socio-economic lines.  His desire is for the church to…

    re-envision its understanding of communal identity in view of its communal and co-missional God as involving solidarity with society at large…. This will entail a radical break from the dominant American individualistic mindset that keeps us separate from others.  It will require that we lay down our lives and die for our enemies rather than try to take back America from them. (149)

    I found this to be a fantastic book.  A bit narrow at places where I though the discussion (at least by way of footnotes) should have been expanded, but definitely a much needed message for the American church.  I suppose the big question I am let with is how to think about local congregations that are seeking to incarnate themselves in places that are intrinsically homogeneous.  If anyone wants to weigh in, please feel free, I’d enjoy the discussion.

    Posted in africa, books, christendom, church, community, consumerism, culture, evangelicalism, gospel, individualism, love, missional, preaching/teaching, review, sermon, spiritual formation, theology

    The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible by Scot McKnight

    October 10, 2008 // 2 Comments »

    I had the good fortune of receiving an advance copy of Scot McKnight’s newest book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible from Zondervan who asked me to post a review, which I am happy to do.

    Scot begins with the following assumption:

    Everyone of us adopts the Bible and (at the same time) adapts the Bible to our culture… Everyone picks and chooses.  I know this sounds out of the box and off the wall for many, but no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise, it’s true.  We pick and choose [what to adopt and how to adapt].

    He then goes on to suggest that we do well to…

    1. Approach the Bible as a story – “Until we learn to read the Bible as Story, we will not know how to get anything out of the Bible for daily living.”  (Sidenote, Scot could have said this better.  How it comes across is out of harmony with the larger scope of what he is trying to communicate.  This sentence by itself perpetuates approaching Scripture as a commodity – what can I get out of it for my daily life? – but this isn’t really what he means I don’t think.

    2. (Re)Learn how to listen as we dwell in Scripture – “Our relationship to the God of the Bible is to listen to God so we can love him more deeply and love others more completely.  If God’s ultimate design for us is to love God and to love others, we can only acquire that love by learning to listen to God.”

    3. Practice discernment – “The pattern of discernment is simply this: as we read the Bible and locate each item in its place in the Story, as we listen to God speak to us in our world through God’s ancient Word, we discern – through God’s Spirit and in the context of our community of faith – a pattern of how to live in our world.”

    The final part of the book is an exercise in trying to follow this 3-pronged approach to Scripture by wresting with the issue of women in ministry.

    Kudos to Scot for writing a book that makes much of the excellent work being done in biblical hermeneutics accessible and for providing a resource to those of us trying to help others embrace a missional paradigm of the church that pertains specifically to the place of Scripture within that paradigm.

    As all college professors should be, Scot is clearly more concerned with the formation of people than the conveyance of information.  This aspect of his character bleeds through the pages of his book and, all by itself, should merit an audience for what he has to say about how we approach and use Scripture.

    Perhaps my favorite line in the book, “… God designs all biblical study to be a ‘useful’ process that leads us to the Bible in such a way that it creates a person who loves God and loves others.”  I would want to tweak this only slightly to read, “… God designs all biblical study to be a ‘useful’ process that leads us to Jesus in such a way that it creates a people who love God and love others.”  But again, I think in the larger scope of what Scot is saying, this sentiment comes through.

    It is just this sort of sentiment that I think holds great promise to help correct both those who elevate the Bible to an almost idolatrous level as well as those who would merely cast it off as impossibly relative or irrelevant.  More than this, Scot’s book can be helpful in freeing the Bible from the grip of Western individualism by helping readers to understand the primary role of Scripture as a centering text for a community.

    If you value the Bible, and perhaps especially if you think you’re got a pretty good handle on the Bible, I’d highly recommend picking this book up when it comes out.

    Posted in bible, books, church, community, missional, review