Book Review: Total Church

I have been trying to read more books in 2010 so you may see me posting my brief thoughts about what I've read. The book "Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community" is an interesting book that proposes a simple model: "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." The book was written by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis who are two pastors in the UK. I found the book very intriguing both from a intellectual and practical perspective. The simplicity of their perspective is backed up with biblical teaching and the authors go to great lengths to detail how the principles of gospel and community should permeate all of church life. I was challenged many times in this book to be more gospel- and community-centered in my everyday life and in my ministry roles. In the practical section of the book, I found many specific takeaways that I could reflect on for the church I'm a part of. One limitation of the book is that all of their practical examples are in the context of their specific church in the UK; it doesn't take-away from the book but I would be interested in reading their analysis of other churches applying their principles. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who is part of a local church and is open to being challenged in the way they do church.

Here are some quotations that were especially inspiring/challenging to me:

"Church is not a meeting you attend or a place you enter. It is an identity that is ours in Christ."

"Church is not another ball for me to juggle but that which defines who I am and gives Christlike shape to my life."

"[The church] is at the very heart of God's purposes. Jesus came to create a people who would model what it means to live under his rule. It would be a glorious outpost of the kingdom of God, an embassy of heaven. This is where the world can see what it means to be truly human."

"All theology must be missionary in its orientation. We need the same reorientation as churches. We are in a missionary situation, and all that we do must be missionary. Church planting is the best way for this to happen, as it inevitably and naturally shifts the church into missionary mode."

"Being word-centered is more than how you teach and disciple people. It means governing church life by God's word. It means every decision, formal and informal, is explored through explicit reference to God's word."

"Theology is also the task of the church because the only theology that matters and is worthy of the name is practical theology. Theology is the stuff of life...Meaningful theology needs to take place primarily in the routine life of the people of God."

"The key to successful youth work is the Bible."