Saturday, November 10, 2007

Simple Church

OK, OK, I know my blogging has been extremely inconsistent. I have always maintained that my blogging is not motivated by maintaining high readership or by being a "quality filter" for numerous other blogs and information sources. Blogging is my opportunity to journal and share things God is teaching me. If I am busy, then blogging will be one of those things that slips off the radar on occasion. Anyhow....

Church leadership at Parkview are presently immersing themselves in several strategy books as we seek to implement our new mission and vision as a church. One of the books I have been reading is called Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger. I have only read the opening chapter, but it resonates very deeply with so many of the things I am quite passionate about. Today I thought I would share a brief excerpt from page 14...
The significance is that, in general, simple churches are growing and vibrant. Churches with a simple process for reaching and maturing people are expanding the kingdom. Church leaders who have designed a simple biblical process to make disciples are effectively advancing the movement of the gospel. Simple churches are making a big impact.

Conversely, complex churches are struggling and anemic. Churches without a process or with a complicated process for making disciples are floundering. As a whole, cluttered and complex churches are not alive. Our research shows that those churches are not growing. Unfortunately, the overprogrammed and busy church is the norm. The simple church is the exception, yet our research shows that should not be the case.
In an ever complicated world, people are crying out for clarity and simplicity.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm anxious to look at that book further or hear from you and find out just "what" the simple church looks like exactly. But ya, you know . . . it seems as if I've heard those type of thoughts somewhere. Golly . . . I can't remember WHERE I've heard them and who from . . . but I swear someone was just talking about this sort of thing lately! (grin)

- John

Unknown said...

Gotta get my hands on this book. Thanks for sharing.

Scott Sterner said...

John, no question the "big picture" of this book resonates with your mantra. It's also highly reflective culture at large. As the authors write, from google to apple/ipod simple communicates, simple is appealing, simple is effective.

Bill Reichart said...

We just reading Simple church last spring and it revolutionized the way we thought and did church. It was one of the best books I've read this year. But one interesting insight as we have applied it is that church should and can be simple for those in the church. But for me and the other staff who are involved intimately in the design and the process - it is nothing simple, but rather it can be very complex and a lot of hard work to create a simple church.

bill from ProvocativeChurch