Culture,Ecclesiology,Faith,Review,Thoughts
22 December 2010 | 0 Comments
Along with The Tangible Kingdom (Halter and Smay’s first book), And: The Gathered and Scattered Church is a challenging and worthwhile book for church leaders and church planters. It’s unique and insightful. In many ways Halter and Smay are extremely balanced (a rarity among writings on the subject of missional church). This balance comes through in the title of the this book, And: The Gathered AND Scattered Church. Halter and Smay are trying to do a good job of encouraging, and challenging, but at the same time not allowing the pendulum to swing too far in one direction. I really appreciate this intention. And I can honestly say I’ve been challenged and helped by this book. If I do have one caveat: occasionally their interpretations of biblical texts seem a little rushed or short-sided. It’s not extreme, but it’s enough to make me scratch my head from time to time. Still, this is a great book with a lot of time-tested advice. Halter and Smay’s desire to reach the world and see new people become disciples is very genuine.
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Tagged in And: The Gathered and Scattered Church, book review, church planting, ecclessiology, Hugh Halter, interpretation, Matt Smay, pendulum swing, Review, The Tangible Kingdom, Theology
Culture,Ecclesiology,Faith,Review
22 September 2010 | 0 Comments
The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay is essentially a how-to manual for creating a missional / incarnational church. Halter (who is the main voice of the book), both autobiographically and instructionally, defines and describes what a people who are on mission for God (missio dei) should look like. I imagine that many people will balk at this book because of its high focus on being missional and its low focus on typical church forms (such as the church services and preaching). And frankly there are parts of Halter and Smay’s suggestions that I disagree with and think are a tad short-sided; however, this is still one of the best missional how-to books that I’ve ever read. Something clicked in my mind during the reading of this book, and I feel like I suddenly sort of “get it” now.
A good percentage, not a small sliver, of my life should be spent in my neighborhood and at my local haunts, engaging people, forming friendships with them, and serving them. The chance to share Christ with them will grow naturally, integratedly out of these friendships. Evangelism isn’t this thing I go do, missional is the way I live. I know these sorts of statements can sound scary to those in the traditional church world because it might be assumed that this sort of approach is taken out of fear of sharing your faith. And further, that the missional approach I’m describing here will lead to no conversion fruit because all the focus will be put on friendships and none will be put on evangelism. But this is not what Halter and Smay are suggesting. What they are advocating is a truly integrated lifestyle where people hear about faith, see it demonstrated repeatedly, and then naturally ask questions and feel God tugging at their hearts and come to faith in Christ. This is actually more work than evangelism, not less. It’s hospitality and evangelism. It’s more integrated and not compartmentalized.
Like I said, there are parts of the book that are a little over-the-top for me, but I still think that this is a great book. Read with discernment, but plan on being challenged, and hopefully inspired. Our church planting team will definitely be reading through this book and applying much of what it advocates.
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Tagged in book review, church, church planting, ecclesiology, evangelism, Hugh Halter, incarnational church, integrated lifestyle, Matt Smay, missional, neighbors, Review, The Tangible Kingdom
Culture,Ecclesiology,Faith
11 September 2010 | 0 Comments
I’m currently reading The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. I’m not 100% on board with everything they say, but it’s a very helpful book and God is using it to open my eyes to some things. This is a chart they created to describe 3 main worldviews and their solution to spreading the Gospel in the midst of all three. Your thoughts?
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Tagged in church, eastern, gospel, Hugh Halter, kingdom of God, Matt Smay, modern, postmodern, The Tangible Kingdom, worldview, worldview chart
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