Total Church

As a member of The Crowded House, the church the authors of this book started, I am convinced that this view of the church makes sense and works. The majority of the letters in the NT are written to churches - communities of believers. Yet as evangelical Christians today we tend to individualise our Christianity. God has made us a people of his very own, to proclaim his excellencies to the world and this book explores what that looks like.

This book is subtitled ' A radical reshaping around gospel and community' and I have to be honest and say that though the book was well written, articulate and interesting I did not really notice anything astoundingly radical about what was being said - and I think most people from an active church or following along on the 'mission shaped church' themes won't find it particularly radical either. It places great emphasis on the biblical principles behind mission, church planting, outreach and community endeavour and in some parts goes on to say many modern church initiatives lack true biblical grounding, choosing community over gospel truth, whilst traditional churches often lack both and that their way is the middle way. Even this is not really a radical statement or as controversial as one might like. To sum up, this book is interesting and puts forward some interesting idea's and suggestions for church and community, and certainly is worth a read if your active in community and church.