Leveling the Church - By Micah Fries and Jeremy Maxfield

Leveling the Church: Multiplying Your Ministry By Giving It Away - by Micah Fries and Jeremy Maxfield is attacking the notion of, what they call, the "super pastor", the idea that the pastor is in charge of everything in the church and pretty much meets everyone's personal spiritual needs. Instead, they believe that the biblical model is for the pastor and elders to train men to be able to do various tasks that many think the pastor is solely responsible for.

I wasn't quite sure what I thought of this book at first, but I've concluded that I like it overall, though with some caveats which I'll mention in a moment.

 The premise is very interesting.  As I mentioned above, the case is made that the pastor's job is not to take on everything himself, but to build up others to be able to take on ministerial tasks, like visiting the sick in the hospital, counseling, and visiting in general. As the authors put it:  "…while the pastor ought to engage in ministry actions like visiting others, such ministry is our familial responsibility.  The vocational responsibility of a pastor or church leader is, particularly, to engage develop the church community so we can all engage in acts of ministry together…"

They attack the notion that Christianity is individualistic in its nature, that it is focused upon ourselves: MY spiritual growth, MY being spiritually fed, MY being ministered to, MY needs need to be met:  "…we have repurposed the Christian faith in a way that is generically individualistic.  We claim that we don't need the church to worship, that we can worship anywhere.  We claim that no one can judge us.  We claim that our relationship with God is our business alone…….  Consider, how we regularly judge the success of a worship service.  We leave and say things like, 'That was great! I really got fed today!'  That sounds mature, and faithful.  It sounds like we are prioritizing good biblical teaching, but it is actually in opposition to biblical worship.  When we judge the effectiveness of a worship service by what it does for us, we have made ourselves the object of the worship experience."  Rather, as this book points out, we Christians are supposed to gather together regularly, meeting one another's needs(and those aren't always personally felt needs), talking, and getting to know one another, and pushing each other to live as we ought.  The authors put it bluntly:  "We are specifically encouraged to gather together so we can be in each other's business."  This group responsibility for one another's spiritual needs and well-being truly fits with the Biblical model.

As to some of the things I was wary about: There was a positive quotation of a Catholic priest with no disclaimers about his beliefs. I'm afraid that perhaps this means that the writers consider Roman Catholicism an expression of the true Gospel. But it's not, it can't be. From what I understand of the teachings of Roman Catholicism, other mediators between God and mankind are proposed besides Jesus Christ and the idea seems to be propounded that Jesus Christ's righteousness is not the only righteousness available to cover one's sins (Mary's and other saints' righteousness are also available). Also the focus and reverence of the virgin Mary is quite idolatrous (also her being another mediator for us in Heaven, and her not being a sinner). I don't remember the authors quoting or saying anything else that indicated that they espoused Roman Catholicism, rather they emphasized the importance of getting the Gospel right.  So perhaps this quotation was just something that wasn't thought through…

Second, I didn't quite understand what is meant by "Multiplication" .  I was getting mixed impressions of what they meant by that.  At first I got the idea that the goal is not necessarily to multiply the people in your church but rather to grow spiritually.  But then it started to sound like numbers of people are important.  "Our vision is to see one percent of the metro area worshiping with us on any given weekend…we had to reach new people and see them developed into multiplying leaders."  They measured baptisms, measured the amount of people in certain small groups..etc.  That leads me to the question: Who builds the church? Doesn't Christ?  Who are we to assume that we know how many people He should be adding to our particular local gathering? The number of people in our area appointed to eternal life (Acts 13:48)?  what if 1 percent is too low? What if it is too high? Besides, what if one percent of our area do believe, but are attending other biblical churches in the area? What if our particular church is supposed to stay a small body of believers? The Lord will add our number if He sees fit, but it is not our place to set a numerical goal, nor I might add (in our day and age) an ethnic, age or gender related goal of the types of people we want in our group.  The Lord builds the church, we don't pick the people He builds it with or how many people or how fast it should grow numerically.

I also a bit concerned about some implications I got from things they said about ministry, it seems as though they think that the ministry done by people ought to be an 'official' church ministry, outside of the regular sermon meeting on Sunday. "…our life in the church has to be more than a once-per-week gathering for an hour of worship.  This will mean, for example, investing in a Sunday school class or small group or serving in an area of ministry."  Don't get me wrong, I agree that we don't just sit and listen to the sermon, leave, and that's our church life.   But what if it's not an official, church recognized area of ministry that you've signed up for?   What if your ministry is meeting another church family in the week and the majority of the rest of your church family never find out that you did  that?   Or just talking and encouraging someone else while meeting on a Sunday?  Does it have to be 'official' or known by the rest of the body?

The last question I want to mention that this book brings up in my mind is, how does the Pastor equip the Saints? I see the thought that he is to equip other people to work with him and help lead, but how, really, will the spiritual growth of the people happen?  Does equipping the Saints mainly happen by the Pastor offering practical training and appointing tasks or by preaching the Word?  Biblically he mainly seems to be instructed to equip them by preaching the Word.  By reproving, rebuking and exhorting people.  Feeding the sheep - That seems to be his main instruction for equipping the Saints. 

Perhaps the other elders are to take care of practical training and appointing tasks? Or perhaps the people are to be looking for ministry opportunities on their own, look for needs that need to be met, not just for the church building, but the needs of individual members, the building up of individual members, the provoking of one another to love and good works independent of having to have a permanent, recognized part in a small group ministry geared toward any specific work.   Some of the works will be done in the large group (listening to teaching of the Word of God on Sunday), small groups (helping someone paint rooms, clean things, just getting together..etc.) and one on one works (sweeping the floor in the church kitchen, mowing a fellow member's lawn, visiting the sick, widows, elderly, or helping someone with their personal struggles).  None of the works need to be publicly acknowledge by the corporate church.

Having said all of that, I'll repeat that the book was quite good overall, very thought provoking (as you can probably tell by my ramblings).  The authors give a good demonstration that Christianity is not to be lived in isolation, but as a community, as a body of believers each member needing the other.  And they also show that people shouldn't expect the pastor to be the one to do, or even to lead, most of the ministry that happens in the church.  People shouldn't go to church just to "fill up" but to live out what they've learned, and  not just living it on Sunday but on every day of the week.   I'll end with one more quote from the book:   "… if spiritual maturity is typically measured by daily Bible reading as individuals, and if discipleship (if it happens) is typically measured by the reproduction of sound doctrine and maybe Scripture memory, and if leadership is qualified by theological education (and perhaps business savvy for directing growth strategies and managing staff recruits), then we're functionally gnostic.  We've focused our efforts on the acquisition of spiritual knowledge in the mind while disregarding the spiritual significance of daily life in the physical world.  An incomplete gospel is an incorrect Gospel."

Thanks to the folks at MP Newsroom for the free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable)

My Rating: Four out of Five Stars

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This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

Daily Readings from: The Christian in Complete Armour - by William Gurnall

I have read a good chunk of the unabridged Christian in Complete Armour by William Gurnall, it is very good but HUGE, you kind of need to plough through it. This book, Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour, was an excellent idea!  Breaking it up into small chunks for daily reading makes it a much easier read, and gives you a good taste of Gurnall's great skill of teaching and illustrating various spiritual warfare concepts.

The best summary that I can come up with is that this book is like having a spiritual commanding officer giving you a rousing speech each day to be ready to fight the battles to come.  Gurnall talks about the armor our General has provided for us and each individual piece's purpose,  he instructs us to keep in  mind that we should 'wrestle' with the enemy in the way our General has instructed us to do so, not merely in the way that we think we can defeat him,  he also examines the strategy of our spiritual enemy, and gives many warnings about his tactics

Every day Gurnall will warn you about the enemy's deceptive tactics, alerting you with statements like, "When Satan cannot hide the truth, he works to hinder the practical application of it."  and  "If you wish to stand firm in the midst of suffering, forewarn yourself of this fact:  Temptation is never stronger than when relief seems to dress itself in the very sin that Satan is suggesting."  He'll remind you to be ready to follow the Commander's orders at any moment, "Sometimes soldiers do not have as much as an hour's warning before they  must take the field.  And so you, too, might be called out to suffer for God …. Abraham, for example, had very little time to deal with his heart and persuade it to obey God by offering his child.  'Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest' - not in a year, not a month or week, but now (Genesis 22:2).  This command came during the night and 'early in the morning' he was on his way to the mountain (v.3). .....Sometimes God makes very sudden changes in our personal lives."  He will remind you to keep your focus during suffering, "Let those who will, mock and scorn your faith.  What is Heaven worth if you cannot bear a little shame?  If they spit in your face, Christ will wipe it off.  They may laugh at you now, but not later.  The final outcome has already been declared, and you have sided with the victor."  And reminds us that our Commander is invincible, "Let Lucifer choose his way; God is a match for him at every weapon.  If he assaults the saint by persecution, God will oppose him.  If he works by a subtlety, God is ready there also.  The devil and his whole council are mere fools to God.  The more wit and craft in sin, the worse, because it is employed against an all-wise God who cannot be outwitted."

But remember, this book shouldn't be used to replace the Word of God, if you are going to ready any book every day that book should be the Bible.  Like any book, besides the Bible, this book has its flaws, to  name a few, the author may give a bit too much credit to Satan in our spiritual warfare and even in this world in general (he seemed to think that Satan can control the weather), and I don't agree necessarily with all of his advice or application of certain texts, but overall I thought the book was very good, It's now one of my favorite books.  It is VERY motivating and thought-provoking, it is a very good sort of 'push' to have in the mornings to get out and do the work, and fight the battles, that God has ordained for us to face. 

I'll end with one of my favorite, motivating, go out and fight the good fight type of quotes from the book:

 "You should find great strength and encouragement in the knowledge that your commission is divine.  God Himself underwrites your battle and has appointed His own Son "the captain of [your] salvation" (Hebrews 2:10).  He will lead you on to the field with courage, and bring you off with honor.......For bravery none compares with our Lord.  He never turned  His head from danger, not even when hell's hatred and heaven's justice appeared against Him.  Knowing all that was about to happen, Jesus went forth and said, "Whom seek ye?" (John 18:4).  Satan could not overcome Him - our Savior never lost a battle, not even when he lost His life.  He won the victory, carrying His spoils to heaven in the triumphant chariot of His ascension.  There He makes an open show of them, to the unspeakable joy of saints and angels.    As part of Christ's army, you march in the ranks of gallant spirits.  Every one of your fellow soldiers is a child of a King.  Some, like you, are in the midst of battle, besieged on every side by affliction and temptation.  Others, after many assaults, repulses and rallyings of their faith, are already standing upon the wall as conquerors.  From there they look down and urge you, their comrades on earth, to march up the hill after them.  This is their cry: "Fight to the death , and the City is your own, as now it is ours! For the waging of a few days' conflict, you will be rewarded with Heaven's glory.  One moment of this celestial joy will dry up all your tears, heal all your wounds, and erase the sharpness of the fight with all the joy of your permanent victory"

Many thanks to Moody Publishers for sending me a complimentary copy of this book to review (My review did not have to be favorable).

One of the websites where you may purchase this book is Amazon.com

The Truth About Forgiveness

In this book, MacArthur outlines the Godly attribute of 'forgiveness'.  First he explains our need of it, and how God provided it, and defined it by His example, showings us how we are to forgive as well.  I thought it was a good overview of the topic.   I thought that the book would be longer than it was (its quite small, only 118 pages), but if you want a resource to give to someone who wants to learn about the Gospel, this is a nice concise read. 

I liked MacArthur's point about how the escalating depravity of humanity that Paul speaks about in Romans 1 is not merely grosser sins, rather, it is the loss of conscience:  "Paul knew that those who underestimate the enormity and gravity of human sinfulness - especially those who do not see their own depravity - cannot apply the only effective remedy to their problems…to attempt to eradicate the human conscience is one of the most spiritually destructive pursuits any individual or society can engage in.   It results in God's wrath- not yet ultimate wrath (hell( or eschatological wrath ( the Day of the Lord), but temporal wrath.  That is, He removes restraining grace and turns  a person or a society over the cycle of sin without the mitigating deterrent of conscience……That is Paul's main point in Romans 1:18-32.  There he describes the judgment of God that results in humanity's decline into wanton sin.  Notice that the most dramatic feature of his narrative is not the ghastly sins he names - although he chronicles some pretty gross practices.  But the singular feature that marks each step of mankind's descent under God's wrath involves the hardening and decimation of the conscience…….Paul said God's wrath is revealed because people 'suppress the truth in unrighteousness' (Romans 1:18).  He is referring to sinners who have successfully hushed their own consciences.  'The truth'  they suppress is innately known truth about the character of God, a sense of good and bad, and a basic knowledge of right and wrong.  These things are universally known to all, 'evident within them; for God made it evident to them' (vs.19 NASB).  In other words, God manifests Himself in the most basic sense within every human conscience."

Also, his critique of modern therapy, and our turning sin into 'illness' is very pointed:  "…the number of people who suffer from such newly identified "sicknesses" is increasing even faster.  The therapy industry is clearly not solving the problem of what Scripture calls sin. Instead it merely convinces multitudes that they are desperately sick and therefore not really responsible for their wrong behavior.  It gives them permission to think of themselves as patients, not malefactors.  And it encourages them to undergo extensive - and expensive- treatment that lasts for years, or better yet, for a lifetime.  These new diseases, it seems, are ailments from which no one is ever expected to recover completely……Recovery, the code word for programs modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, is explicitly marketed as a lifelong program.  We've grown accustomed to the image of a person who has been sober for forty years standing up in an AA meeting and saying, 'I'm Bill, and I'm an alcoholic.'  Now all 'addicts' are using the same approach - including sex addicts, gambling addicts, nicotine addicts, anger addicts, wife-beating addicts, child-molesting addicts,  debt addicts, eat addicts, or whatever.  People suffering from such maladies are taught to speak of themselves as 'recovering' never 'recovered.'  Those who dare to think of themselves as delivered from their affliction are told they are living in denial….. Disease model therapy therefore feeds the very problem it is supposed to treat. It alleviates any sense of guilt, while making people feel they are victims helplessly bound for life to their affliction….(it)is disastrously counterproductive.  By casting the sinner in the role of a victim, it ignores or minimizes the personal guilt inherent in misbehavior.  'I am sick' is much easier to say than, 'I have sinned'  But it doesn't deal with the fact that one's transgression is a serious offense against a holy, omniscient, omnipotent God.  Personal guilt is for that very reason at the heart of what must be confronted when dealing with one's sin.  But the disease-model remedy cannot address the problem of guilt without explaining it away.  And by explaining guilt away, disease-model therapy does untold violence to the human conscience.  It is therefore no remedy at all, but a disastrous prescription for escalating wickedness and eternal damnation."

If you want a good, but quick explanation of the Gospel to read, or just to carry around with you to give to inquirers this would be a good choice.

I received this book as a complimentary copy from BookSneeze® in exchange for my review(which does not have to be favorable).