This is a real solid and easy read for anyone who wants to set down some basics in why we do the stuff we do at church. The book sets out to present the Biblical church and it’s activities in today’s flurry of all sorts of different ways to do church. It tackles a different aspect at a time starting with a commonly overlooked yet most important; the centrality of the gospel to the church (very interesting and a refreshing slap in the face) it goes on to look at preaching, worship, baptism, communion just to name a few. Each is looked at in depth and a real helpful part of the book is at the of each chapter there are a few FAQs and answers which definitely resounds with a lot of my experience. Even if you don’t move through the whole book the chapter are quite individual and therefore can also helpful for people who just want an insight into a particular area of church.
The language is written in a very understandable way, the case is presented in a convincing and Biblically grounded way. In fact the footnotes to this book is absolutely amazing, with plenty of links back to the Bible for cross referencing, a very useful tool if issues about any particular subject was to come up.
Another interesting part of the book is the chapter on love. It clearly presents the foundation of church and why we do any ministry. Although the last couple of chapters on multi campus churches and technology is a bit irrelevant to us and almost sounds like Mark Driscoll justifying his way of doing church.
At the end of the day the book was filled very insightful experiences ad knowledge distilled from years of ministry and research in a easy to understand not too thick book, worth a look into if you have any questions about church.