What's On Mama's Bookshelf

I just finished, and enjoyed, Simple Church, written by Thom Ranier and Eric Geiger.    As I was reading Sid and I would talk about it.  Sid's concluson from our conversatins can be summed up as "it's being intentional about ministry."  This is true, but definitely not complete.  It's more than just being intentional.  The word that stood out to me in the book is process.  It's all about setting your church up to make disciples.

This is most definitely a book written for and to pastors. They assume the reader is a pastor.  There is thing wrong with that, just something that's nice to know going in. It is however, interesting, funny, insightful, and challenging.  They want to see churches pare down to the basics.

They call out 4 steps or things that a simple church has or needs Clarity, Movement, Alignment, Focus.  They point out that Simple Church is philosophy of ministry.  It's not a program.  In fact they say that leaders of simple churches are not programmers, but designers.  They describe the difference and really talk about what they mean by each of their four steps and what it looks like.

 I love the way they talk about simple.  They make a clear distinction between simple and easy.  They say that simple church is not easy, it's simple.  It's streamlined, clearly communicated, easily understood, and completely uncluttered.  I can get behind this kind of ministry, especially as a pastors wife!

What are you reading?