Total Church

After reading a review over on Mark Moore’s blog a couple of weeks ago, I knew I wanted to read Total Church.  I’m only through the first section so far, so for a wider and deeper scoop read Mark’s review — but let me tell you that I haven’t read a “church looks like this” book with such excitement in a long time. I haven’t seen a full model of church being done that way Tim and Steve describe it, but the model resonates with me as fully Biblical and (hence, of course) eminently desirable. After I read more, I’ll say more about it. But for now, just to whet your appetite, here are some bullet points from page 34 in the section, “Why Gospel?”

We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?”, when the real question is “Where does my life fit into this great story of God’s mission?”

We want to be driven by a purpose that has been tailored just right for our own individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.

We talk about “applying the Bible to our lives.” What would it mean to apply our lives to the Bible instead, assuming the Bible to be the reality — the real story — to which we are called to conform ourselves?

We wrestle with “making the gospel relevant to the world.” But in this story, God is about the business of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.

We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission that God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of church God wants for the whole range of his mission.

I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should be asking what kind of me God wants for his mission.

Isn’t that good stuff?

I’ll write more after I read more. And someday soon I want to talk more about that phrase “make the gospel relevant to the world.” I think that’s already done, and not by us. But I’m intrigued by the way Chester and Timmis put it, that God is transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel. That’s worth thinking about.

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