I finally got my mitts on a copy of Steve Timmis and Tim Chester's Total Church. I had read it at speed some time ago, but now I have contributed to their royalties!
Can I just say that for Sydney pastors and congregations contemplating a year of mission activity in 09, this is a must-read? I think it will pretty much change everything. I think this book could give us the shot in the arm that we need in thinking about mission and church.
Timmis/Chester don't make it particularly complicated. It's about the gospel, on the one hand; and it's about the people of God on the other. What they are into is small church + high buy-in from members. The model we tend to pursue is large church + low buy-in from members (plus high stress for paid clergy who are the 'professionals').
My favourite section is on 'Success'. Steve tells of a meeting with a conference organiser:
Steve: We could invite X to speak.
Committee member: I don't think so. He hasn't got a big enough congregation.
ARGHH!! It is SO true!
I'll write more (perhaps!) as I read more, but: I really think we ought to give this book a thorough reading, and soon.
12 comments:
Thanks for your thoughts dude; I now look forward to reading it.
Michael, I agree with you - this is a must-read book. I think it is especially challenging for conservative evangelicals who, let's be honest, aren't really well-known for valuing community!
Two of my favourite parts are
1. Apologetics meets the Theology of the Cross, and loses.
2. In his conclusion the authors refer to talk about "gospel ministers" "gospel work" and all sorts of gospel hyphenated things... but point out that talk about Jesus is harder to find. "I have been attending conferences for more than twenty-five years, yet rarely have conversations in those meetings turned towards the loveliness of the Saviour."
Thanks for the thoughts here on 'Total Church'. I found this a stimulating and challenging book. At times I found myself a little needled by some of their takes on the church - but I think this may simply have been the sensation of having my preconceived ideas deeply uprooted.
I agree with you about the 'Success' chapter, and also really enjoyed their thoughts on theological education.
One thing I wondered while reading 'Total Church' was how it might fit into a South American setting (I'm training for missionary service in Peru) but their thought on Pachuca, Mexico City at the end prove the viability of their model in non-European settings.
I'll look forward to more of your thoughts on this.
God bless you,
Andrew
Having been there as tookhey finalised writing of the b and having lived with those guys for a year I have to say that Total Church is an accurate reflection of the way The Crowded House has been doing church. Never seen it done so well before, and only hope by God's empowering grace to be able to establish something similar here. Hope your short review gets some of the conservative Anglicans reading and thinking and doing
Sydney Anglicans enjoying Total Church - well I'll be! Anyone want to dare suggest (very tentatively) that the Knox/Robinson view of church might, in part, be contributing to some of the weaknesses in our churches that a book like Total Church exposes (oops - I suggested it already)?
BTW - I make my (tentative) suggestions as a massive fan of Sydney Anglicanism. My little denomination (the Church of England in South Africa) is greatly indebted to (and in many ways, modelled on) Sydney Anglicanism.
Well now: this is the very question I wanted to raise. What are the differences as you perceive them between the two views of church? And, what is at stake?
I'm going to give an extremely simplistic answer going mainly on experience. I sometimes get the impression from Knox/Robinson practitioners (and there are quite a few here in SA) that all we have to do is gather a bunch of people and teach them the bible and then we've got church (like I said - extremely simplistic, but it feels that way). What I don't see is people wrestling with all the 'one another' exhortations in the NT, or showing a practical outworking of the 'body' metaphor. It happens in pockets, but it doesn't look intentional. It almost seems to me that gathering a group and teaching them the bible is, in practice, the goal of the exercise as opposed to the goal being all-of-life-encompassing-worship and mission - basically fruit.
Total Church seems to take those things seriously without dismissing the primacy of gospel-centered bible teaching.
I think you have hit the nail on the head Stephen.
In my ten years of being involved with Sydney Angs, I saw this being replicated many times, but I would suggest it isn't just SA who suffer from it.There was the time I went to Katoomba Mens Convention where Dudly Ford spoke regarding men needing to get into groups and truly share and pray with each other.
I thought great, "Nows a time to actually do it, form into groups and pray" but instead we broke off for lunch and though I tried to speak about the topic over lunch, the conversation was about other stuff...needless to say that the majority of those I went to were still not involved in groups 6 months later.
Also from a personal note, my experience of sharing personal issues in Bible Study groups was that normally what happened was someone would sprout Scripture at me and not really engage in what I was saying....This seems to be a trend I have noticed across the board, yet I have to also say I know of some terrific Bible Study groups who don't do that.
Seems though that for the most part Bible Study groups are for learning information, where we leave our lives behind, don't really share and just concentrate on debating what the text of the day is saying.
The church I go to now is far different. Yes the preaching is often sloppy and sometimes repetitive in theme. But now I have people truly ask me how I am feeling and wanting to know...people will approach us about our kids, ask about our marriage...and when I first fell sick the church took up a offering for us, and real ministry is taking place within the church and not only to us, this is representative of the culture within the church and its ministry to our community.
The sometimes sloppy and repetitive preaching I can live with; being part of a church that is vibrant and truly practicing what it preaches though I can't live without.
Hey Michael
re knox robinson - I can't work out how they get lumped together in the same sentence because they seem to reach their ecclesiology by two radically different routes.
Robinson is all about revelation/ word event - sinai- peopel of God gathering to hear - hence church as purposive word event.
Knox seems much more about reconciliation of the one new humanity through the gosple word - hence relational/ reconciled body of the elect etc.
the other thing is that the whole knox robinson event idea ends up being semantics, because even those who want to hold to the idea of a word event agree that it is an interreltional activity where the word of Christ dwells in the midst of his people.
what i loved about TC is that it challenges the focus from hearing a bible teacher to faciltiating gosple centred bbile learning and one anotherness in christ
can't wait to hear more from you
Looking forward to this series Michael. I'm a big fan of the book.
Modesty prevents me from mentioning that on my blog I am running a series called "Lessons Learned in the UK" which is my attempt to distill what I learned from attending the Total Church conference in Sheffield last year with The Crowded House.
That same modesty also makes me feel funny about putting a link to my blog here.
We'll be running a discussion of it in the Briefing fairly soon. Tony Payne and Simon Flinders have been looking at it.
Good stuff, engagingly presented with lots of worked examples. Brilliant, I totally agree that it's a must read for every minister.
However, my wife pointed out that it's not really saying anything profoundly different or new it's just taking seriously many of the relational commands of the Bible. (I'm not sure, it's emphasis on community has much more weighting than other conservative evangelical books on church) It made me think that maybe the biggest challenge is not to our ecclesiology but to our middle-class, my-home-is-my-fortress, compartmentalizing approach to life and relationships.
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