Gospel & Community

I've just finished a brilliantly insightful book, Total Church, by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. Tim and Steve are cofounders of The Crowded House, a church planting initiative in the UK, and codirectors of the Porterbrook Network, which trains and mentors church planters.

Total Church is filled with amazing practical insights about church that would be helpful for any pastor or church leader. But it is especially helpful for church planters and small churches.

The foundational message is a call to radically reshape church around the two key principles of gospel and community. As they explain in the introduction....

"Christians are called to a dual fidelity: fidelity to the core content of the gospel and fidelity to the primary context of a believing community. Whether we are thinking about evangelism, social involvement, pastoral care, apologetics, discipleship, or teaching, the content is consistently the Christian gospel, and the context is consistently the Christian community. What we do is always defined by the gospel, and the context is always our belonging in the church. Our identity as Christians is defined by the gospel and the community.

"Being gospel-centred actually involves two things. First, it means being word-centered because the gospel is a word - the gospel is news, a message. Second, it means being mission-centered because the gospel is a word to be proclaimed - the gospel is good news, a missionary message."

The first part of the book is a discussion on why we would do well to shape church around these two elements, and then the second part of the book provides many many practical tips and insights on how this works in church life. Part two is pure gold. What does this mean for evangelism? Church planting? World mission? Discipleship and training, pastoral care, spirituality? What does success look like? And one of the most practical: what do we do in small churches and church plants when it comes to young people and children (something I've wondered about for the future)?

I'm so grateful to these guys for all of their insights. This book, and especially the chapter on church planting, was one of the things that first encouraged and inspired me to think seriously about planting a church. I love the humility and wisdom of the authors, and I'm so blessed to benefit from their priceless experience planting churches and working with church planters.