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| Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples | 
 enlarge | Authors: Thom S. Rainer, Eric Geiger
Publisher: B&H Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $12.79
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (79 reviews)
Sales Rank: 4112
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0805443908
Dewey Decimal Number: 248
EAN: 9780805443905
ASIN: 0805443908
Publication Date: June 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good Break From The Usual Fare January 7, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
To begin with, I think this book hits on a few very important points that get missed a lot of times in church growth theory. First and foremost being the need for churches to have a deliberate, and even simple, path of discipleship available to people. And on this point, the book makes its case well. Discipleship is crucial for the church, the authors are unapologetic about this fact, and they document several positive cases well.
That being said, I think the book lost its focus from time to time, especially late in the text, and reverted to more standard, church-growth fare. This book is strongest when it stays away from the typical "here are some leadership tips and tricks" and focuses on its thesis: simple forms of church that make paths to discipleship easy to understand and engage in are healthy and desirable.
I recommend this book for those who read a lot of church-growth theory. Some of it will be familiar, but a sizeable chunk will probably be new and very helpful.
 a must! December 8, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
excellent book, crystal clear and simple. it goes to the essential and it's very efficient...and it works, i higly recommend it if you want to stop playing the "church game" and start pursuing the great commission of our lord.
Simple, the way to go December 1, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
As the Pastor of Discipleship at my local church, I was so refreshed by the elegance and symmetry of Rainier and Geiger's approach. Pastor's are bombarded with gimmicks and contrived ministry methods. They all promise to revolutionize the task of creating discipleship environments where people can find Christ and learn to follow him. As a church grows, it is true that it has a tendency to become bloated with "fluff" programs and non-discipleship activity. This book is a lucid, dangerous call back to the uncomplicated and straightforward work of clarifying your process, developing the "handoffs" through the stages of discipleship, bringing every ministry into alignment with the process, and a commitment to crop every fluff program that doesn't fall into the process.
Having said all this...
my only real critique for the book is that it doesn't seem to allow for a certain degree of "messiness". Our particular church is ruthless in keeping an uncluttered ministry pipeline, but some ministries are a mess and necessarily so. Also, I believe though we can organize the ENTRY POINTS into various stages of discipleship, we must not force people through those channels. They must have the freedom to determine where they are on the process map, and engage without a lot of "pre-requisites". Discipleship is fluid in nature and our method, though simple, should be loose and accommodate the individual. That's my only push back for the book, but overall, I loved it.
 Contradictory and confusing November 30, 2007
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
Yes there were a few good points in the book and it would be useful for us to follow the Clarity - Movement - Alignment - Focus model, but there is just to much here that turned me off!
On page nine when they have to explain what an i-pod is I began to wonder who was the intended audience for the book? Then when they get into the statistical analysis on p.112 they say, "Notice how the majority of the comparison churches are on the left of the figure..." I looked and I looked again, and then again and I swear that unless I'm losing my mind, most of the comparison churches are on the right of the figure. Granted its not as high a % as the "vibrant" churches but its still most!
On p.117 we are told that "of the vibrant churches, 35 percent strongly agreed or agreed with the statement [we have a visual illustration of our process]compared to 16 percent of the comparison churches." Great I thought, until I looked and saw that almost 35% of the vibrant churches either strongly disagreed or disagreed with the same statement. Makes me wonder what this has to do with vibrancy?
We are told on p.129 that, "Vibrant churches are confident that people understand their simple ministry process." To which the authors point to the 60% of people who agree at some level. This is one of the few times they don't appeal to just the stronly agree and agree but also include the "mostly agree column." While this may be significant in relation to the comparison churches the reality that 40% of the vibrant churches disagree with this statement hardly permits one to state that "Vibrant churches are confident that people understand their simple ministry process." At best we could say "Most vibrant churches."
Yes, there is some good stuff in this book that you intuitively know is correct. Indeed it was this intuition that the authors based the study on. However there is just to much that looks and sounds like junk for me to recommend it to anyone.
Not a typical church growth book. November 23, 2007
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
I almost passed this book up when I saw the amount of church growth books written by Thom Rainer. My bravery was rewarded with a book that stimulated thought on how ministries within a local church should not only fit together, but work towards the same goal. The goal is making disciples. At the end of each chapter are well thought out discussion questions. I will try to outline the book using as many of the authors' own words as I can.
The authors state that "To have a simple church, you must design a simple discipleship process. This process must be clear. It must move people toward maturity. It must be integrated fully into your church, and you must get rid of the clutter around it." (p.26)
A simple church is defined as "a congregation designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth." (p.60) Later the authors add the following to their definition: "The leadership and the church are clear about the process (clarity) and are committed to executing it. The process flows logically (movement) and is implemented in each area of the church (alignment). The church abandons everything that is not in the process (focus). (p. 68)
The book begins by contrasting two imaginary churches: "First Church" is a complex church - one that has many great programs, but without an overarching focus. It feels disjointed and headed in multiple directions. "Cross Church" is a simple church. There is one overarching theme that ties all its ministries together. It's a short and simple statement - "loving God, loving people, and serving the world." (pp. 33-40)
A majority of the material I found valuable was contained in the first 134 pages. The rest of the book has something to offer, but you wade through more and more church growth language. (The chapter on movement was my least favorite.) I thought the real value in the book was the questions it asked which made me think more deeply about our church and its ministries.
Are people in your church truly being transformed? Are they growing as disciples of Christ? Or is everyone just busy? (Page 7) These are cutting questions. As leaders of a church, there is nothing more important (outside of salvation). Willow Creek recently took a hard look at themselves and realized they were not helping people to grow deep, just busy. The authors of Simple Church put forth a very viable solution: simplify. "Spiritual growth (sanctification) is the process of a believer being transformed into the image of Christ. Simple churches have chosen to align themselves with the way God works...with the discipleship process revealed in Scripture." (p.16) Many churches are "[s]o cluttered that many people are busy doing church instead of being the church (p 19)." "Imagine a church where you, as a leader, can articulate clearly how someone moves from being a new Christian to becoming a mature follower of Christ (p 27)"
If your church's mission is to make disciples, then all the activities and ministries should contribute to that goal. Not only that, but the average attendee should be able to tell how a specific ministry is adding to the process, because the process is simple and easy to understand. If a church has many mission and vision statements spread among its ministries, there is a very good chance that there may be a multiplicity of ministry philosophies, possibly even working against each other or competing with each other.
A simple model used in this book has three stages for spiritual growth: love God (worship service), love others (small groups), and then serve the world (ministry teams). (p.47) A person enters the process at the first stage (worship service) and moves through the other stages as they mature. Not only is the process simple, one can roughly track spiritual growth by the number of people involved at each stage. (The one flaw in this reasoning is that although this holds true for older generations, very often younger generations get involved first by doing, rather than by knowing. They enter in the process at the opposite end (serving), possibly before committing to Christ. Even so, these folks would be connected with a small group and serve in an environment where they would be discipled.)
The rest of the book describes four elements that are necessary in a simple church: clarity, movement, alignment, and focus.
1) Clarity (p. 70-74, 109-134) is "the ability of the process to be communicated and understood by the people." The authors note that "when there is no direction, people assume a direction or invent one. The church then moves aimlessly and off course." The church needs a clear ministry process to help people grow in Christ. "The culture of the church follows the culture of the leadership. The leaders' understanding and ownership overflow to everyone." If you are a leader, don't expect the congregation to join small groups if you're not in one!
2) Movement (p.72-74, 135-163) is "the sequential steps in the process that cause people to move to greater areas of commitment." This element involves assimilation, how someone is "handed off from one level of commitment to a greater level of commitment." Again, I don't agree that each "level of commitment" is a higher level as I have seen people come in at all levels. However, for those driven to measurement and counting, it's as close as you're going to get to counting something that may indicate spiritual growth. His ways are not our ways, and He uses measures unavailable to us (Proverbs 21:2). The point as my pastor pointed out, is that the authors want people to "move from being church observers to contributors." That's movement.
The task of church leaders "is to place people in the pathway of God's transforming power." An ordered sequence of programs needs to reflect the process. "Simple churches move new believers into the life of the church. They are also purposeful in their treatment of new members." (p.157) The authors offer some insightful comments regarding new members and their importance in this section.
3) Alignment (p.74-76, 165-195) is "the arrangement of all ministries and staff around the same simple process." Without alignment, "the church can be a multitude of sub-ministries," or even a group of sub-churches. "It is not enough to unite the church around the same what (purpose), but they also must be aligned on the same how (process). Imagine if you were building a house. If the team of contractors and builders agreed only on what was being built, you would have a problem. They would also need to be unified on the approach, on the plan. Otherwise the contractors and builders would be competing with one another for time, money, and scheduling preference." (p.168). The authors suggest churches recruit pastors and staff "on the process," have each pastor create a Ministry Action Plan (MAP) for each ministry year, and then hold them accountable for results. I believe this can have value, but there is also danger in not doing this correctly (read: Christ-centered). Too much emphasis on numbers could create unintended consequences - pastors missing important God-ordained moments with people in exchange for a shallow activity that build their numbers up. Be careful, Peter Drucker is no Jesus Christ!
"The most challenging aspect of alignment is pulling existing ministries and existing staff in the same direction, especially if they have been moving in opposite directions." (p.187)
4) Focus (p.76-78, 197-226) is "the commitment to abandon everything that falls outside of the simple ministry process." This is not an easy task. And even if you succeed, there "will be a constant temptation to abandon simplicity, to lose focus, to become cluttered." (p.203)
Five critical elements to focus are 1) "Eliminate programs that do not fit [your] process, even if they are good;" 2) Limit adding new programs. Be very selective. Use "existing weekly programs for special emphasis/initiatives instead of adding new programs." 3) Reduce special events (!!!). Special events should be kept to a minimum so as not to compete with the essential programs that move people through the process. 4) Communication is vital - especially if programs and some special events are cut. The process must be easy to communicate (and remember); 5) Simple to understand: "It is vital that your process be understood because you will be saying no to everything else."
Unfortunately the final chapter starts with the typical church growth scare tactic "change or die." Nevertheless, some good points are made. Complexity in a church is expensive - not only in time and money, but in the unnecessary lack of spiritual maturity in some people. The authors realize the need for church leadership, as shepherds, to move to simple slowly. The move will be painful for some. Ask God for discernment. Keep Christ in the center.
The book ends with a look at Malachi 1 and then recaps the four main steps (Clarity, Movement, Alignment, and Focus) with the emphasis on implementation.
I can't close the review without pointing out a few ideas I strongly disagree with. "Only God is the producer of growth." (p.26) This is a popular idea. If we have large numbers, then God must be doing something. Cults can fill stadiums - is this the result of God blessing them? Satanic lies can be very effective (Matt, 24:23,24; 2 Cor. 4:3, 4). Maybe I'm just over-sensitised by the amount of church growth literature I've read. The authors could just be calling the readers to humility as in 1 Corinthians 3:6.
"And without a point of crisis, it is difficult to change." (p.33) This thinking is directly out of worldly business theory. Many "change agents" will work hard at promoting the perception of a crisis so they can more easily "sell" their ideas for change. The Christian view is that it is impossible to truly change without Christ. This is not splitting hairs - if the Body of Christ is to glorify God we must remain Christ centered, not crisis centered.
A vibrant church is defined as a church that had "grown 5 percent a year for three consecutive years." (p.65) The focus on growth as the indicator of a vibrant church is tiresome. Also the research statistics presented are unimpressive. By the authors' definition the ministry of Jeremiah was a failure, and many churches in hostile areas. I don't think our Lord would agree.
In closing, this book has a lot to offer. I recommend it. It is best if you got some of your church leaders together and went through the discussion questions together. You will be forced to think more critically about the relationship between your ministries/programs and their role in the disciple making process and spiritual growth of your congregation. Just don't expect a one-size-fits-all model.
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