About book Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel And Community (2008)
Maybe my favorite ecclesiological work. Timmis and Chester are very readable, but the book speaks to the heart of mission. My hope is that the American church will reshape its life and vitality around this mission. The book's premise is that the life of the church is outside the walls of its gathering. Most people would agree with this in word, but 90% of the pastoral staff's work week is spent preparing for Sunday. The two authors do a magnificent job of rallying around a point without critiquing or guilting readers along. Wonderful gospel centered book. I hope every Christian will take the time to read it. I'm going to stop reading ecclesiology books for a while. This book may be quite good on its own. It emphasizes the importance of intimate gospel communtiies, with a strong focus on Biblical fidelity and authentic relationships, which is good, but not anything that isn't in all of the other ecclesiology I've read in the last two years. The level of commitment to small communities is remarkably high, so there is value in that, but I don't know if I'm ready to really apply it to my life and my church.Chester and Timmis make some pretty controversial statements in this book. For example, there's a passage about preaching that essentially says, "Look, we're not saying sermons are bad, we're just saying they're not in the Bible and they don't work and the only one who learns is the preacher." Which doesn't seem to me like an accurate reading of Acts. Also, there is an assumption in the book that people who go to college are inherently unable to connect with uneducated people. The authors may have something there, but I have a variety of friends with different educational backgrounds, and I don't think that the problem is as large in the United States as it is in the U.K. (the authors' location), but in all fairness, the authors have a fascinating discussion of how classism is the U.K.'s equivalent to slavery and the resulting racism in the U.S.Overall, this is a generally solid book. It is clear in its points, and the authors generally have legitimate Biblical support for their proposals (I disagree with some of their interpretations and applications, but I think they reach them fairly). It is not significantly better than any other book that recommends treating small groups as the focus of a church, though, and I would not necessarily recommend this book over another.
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Working through this with some of the pastors at 7MR. Really helpful, will re-read
—rey
LOVED this book...I loved the principles of Christian community taught in here!
—carob
It will always be a resource book for me. Wonderful, just wonderful!
—damneyes
Reshaped my thinking of ministry as Gospel Communities on Mission.
—charlottenheu
