Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #186535 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 236 pages

Synopsis
Taking a look at the demise of Christianity's influence on Western culture, Powell and Hirsch present an assessment of today's congregations and offer an alternative plan for ministry that's designed to transform the church through incarnational mission, messianic spirituality, and apostolic structure. 250 pages, softcover from Hendrickson.

Customer Reviews

Attractional vs Incarnational
Finally, a book which offers a real alternative to the contemporary church leadership mindset. Frost and Hirsch's most important point in this book which contains so much good stuff, is that Christ's desire for his people, the church, is to be a transforming presence in the world - an Incarnation. They illustrate, in slightly tongue in cheek fashion, the way that the church has signed up pretty much wholesale to an Attractional model of church - essentially tipping the great commission on its head, turning Christ's 'Go' into 'Come'.
I really hope loads of church leaders read this book and begin to realise that attracting people to their building is totally NOT what their job is about, Jesus came to destroy the temple and rebuild it out of living stones.

The book we have been waiting for on mission in a contmporary context
Utterly excellent - at last a book which has the honesty to say of our modern context 'we're not at all sure how to do mission' but then takes some important principles and expands them to help us dream about what mission may look like. Rather than imposing a blueprint, rather than saying 'this is what the world is like and this is how you have to be missionary' - it said to me 'take time to discover your world and then listen to what God may be saying into your context'

Stepping out of a world which we Christians effectivly described into one in which all our 'language of description' often seems to be Martian is most disorientating. This book says 'yes it is isn't it - here are a few tentative suggested first steps'.

Really?
At the start I found this book interesting, which it is. But, I think it makes very sweeping and generalizing statements about the 'traditional church' many of which seem to be unfounded, or made on the basis of one visit. Some of the things they were suggesting seemed plausible, others not so. I would recommend reading this book if you are interesting in the church of this century, but I myself did not enjoy, or agree with a lot of the things they said.