Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135981 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

House groups are the way forward
I was really quite unimpressed by this book. It didn't start off well by asserting that we do not just need a new way of doing ministry but a new way of being church and giving the impression that the author had thought this up all by himself - this book was published in 2002 and there have been rafts of books which have come to that conclusion far earlier than this author. Effectively this book asserts that we need to regenerate the use of house groups within a church or group of churches (where a vicar is shared). It's writing is very much biased towards the Church of England as the author is warden of a CofE training college and seems to perpetuate the class system within the Church of England by making out that those in stipendiary ministry have the responsibility for doing so over and above those in the non-stipendiary ministry. I also did not like his criticism of some current thinking to make the idea of 'Transforming Communities' the solution to all our problems.

This is a curate's egg of a book but you have to search long and hard for the good parts - some of the analysis of the current situation in the first part is useful and the last few chapters on group dynamics and adminstration are helpful as a reference resource but I really don't think the basic premise of this book justified its writing.

Using Small Groups as Building Blocks of Church
An Anglican perspective on small communities in church growth and development. He distinguishes `family churches', with fewer than 50 members from `pastoral churches' with more than 50 members.

A family church with a full-time minister may well grow. Others, with only one full-time minister are likely to decline. Therefore small groups are needed to sustain and grow the church. The purpose of a transforming community is to build members' relationships, to learn together and to support each others' ministries, sometimes in pursuit of a common task.

These groups are to be the `building blocks' of the church. Croft's communities are not as radically mission-focused as cell church, nor as justice focused as base communities. Perhaps because of this lack of sharp edge there are times when it seems a bit like an Anglican fudge!