The Present Future

The Present Future

Intro:
McNeal makes it abundantly clear from the first sentence of his introduction that this book may not be for everyone. He states that he is not thrilled about writing this book because he feels he will fail to communicate properly what he wants to communicate and the readers will not be able to hear what he is saying because of being threatened by it. He clearly states that he does no mean to deconstruct the church in North American but desperately sees that what we are doing is not working and on this route we are doomed for failure.

His reason for writing this book is that he believes there is a group of people in churches that want to script a different story for the North American church. These people want to bring the dying church of today out of captivity and into the freedom that we gain with a relationship with Christ Jesus.

A final word of warning given by McNeal. “Please if you fit any (or all) of these categories, take my advice and don’t read this book. It will just agitate you. Trust me, you don’t agree with it. Here are just some of the assumptions that are challenged in these pages:
If you build the perfect church (the way we think about church), they will come
Growing your church will automatically make a difference in the community.
Developing better church members will result in greater evangelism.
The church needs more workers (for church work).
Church involvement results in discipleship.
Better planning will get you where you want to go (in terms of missional effectiveness).

The following review will be divided into the six chapters of the book:
The Collapse of the Church Culture
The Shift from Church Growth to Kingdom Growth
A New Reformation: Releasing God’s People
The Return to Spiritual Formation
The Shift from Planning to Preparation
The Rise of Apostolic Leadership

posted by Nick @ 9:16 AM