Book Review: The Church on the Other Side
Yep, another book by Brian McLaren. It wasn't the plan to review another of his books this soon, but you know what the say: borrowers can't be picky. The book's Amazon page is here.
The Church on the Other Side is a sort of guide to help church leaders establish the church that is needed after the postmodern transition period (that is, on the other side).
A major point McLaren makes is that churches need to change their attitude towards change. Churches need to realize that no program or leadership structure is going to fit long term, and thus change needs to be a regular occurrence. McLaren had been through some big changes himself. In 1982 he planted a church that started with 12 people, and in 3 years the church had grown to 100 members. However, all of the members had previously been in other churches, so they weren't meeting their goal of reaching the non-Christian population of their city. So, they actually disbanded their church. Later most of them started over in a new building in a new location and with a completely new worked out mission statement. This was a bold move that worked out nicely.
A good chunk of the book is spent on explaining postmodernism and on suggesting strategies on how to reach those who hold to postmodern concepts. McLaren write that we should embrace what's positive in postmodernism and not feel that we have to convert people to modernism and/or conservatism before we can convert them to Christianity.
Many of McLaren ideas from other books are in this one as well (appreciation for the whole of Christian history and for other segments of Christianity, focus on the narrative, conversion as a process rather than a single obvious event, the Church existing for the good of the world, etc ). Overall, a fairly good book.
Technorati tags: Book Review Brian McLaren The Church On The Other Side
The Church on the Other Side is a sort of guide to help church leaders establish the church that is needed after the postmodern transition period (that is, on the other side).
A major point McLaren makes is that churches need to change their attitude towards change. Churches need to realize that no program or leadership structure is going to fit long term, and thus change needs to be a regular occurrence. McLaren had been through some big changes himself. In 1982 he planted a church that started with 12 people, and in 3 years the church had grown to 100 members. However, all of the members had previously been in other churches, so they weren't meeting their goal of reaching the non-Christian population of their city. So, they actually disbanded their church. Later most of them started over in a new building in a new location and with a completely new worked out mission statement. This was a bold move that worked out nicely.
A good chunk of the book is spent on explaining postmodernism and on suggesting strategies on how to reach those who hold to postmodern concepts. McLaren write that we should embrace what's positive in postmodernism and not feel that we have to convert people to modernism and/or conservatism before we can convert them to Christianity.
Many of McLaren ideas from other books are in this one as well (appreciation for the whole of Christian history and for other segments of Christianity, focus on the narrative, conversion as a process rather than a single obvious event, the Church existing for the good of the world, etc ). Overall, a fairly good book.
Technorati tags: Book Review Brian McLaren The Church On The Other Side
posted by Freethinker at 4:18:00 PM
1 Comments:
I like this read alot.
In fact this will be a reading I highly recommend for our Square One church planters in the future.
I have No Perfect People for you. I just need to remember to bring it to a Sunday Gathering.
Post a Comment
<< Home