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Sunday, September 6, 2015

Gaining By Losing - J. D. Greear

Why the future belongs to churches that send. "Bringing in large groups of people to hear a message is good, training up disciples and sending them out is better." the author points out  the introduction.  Without planting, there will be no harvest, and to follow Jesus is to be sent. Go into all the world. Mr. Greear reviews his church's and his own personal journey towards becoming a sending church in chapter 2 titled, Our (painful) journey toward sending. the book is divided into 2 parts with to appendixes. Part two is devoted to the ten sending plum lines. Each chapter is dedicated to one of these plum lines such as, "The Gospel is not just the diving board, it's the pool, Everyone is called, and the week is as important as the weekend. Extra points in my book for quoting Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon. I also saw that the author has written an article for the latest Tabletalk magazine.
Appendix 1 is a 20 page instruction on setting up and International Missions strategy. Appendix 2 is a instruction on developing a domestic church planting strategy.  Throughout it is a thought out plan, but maybe a bit too business like and goal oriented for my tastes. J. D. Greear is pastor of Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina,and is a graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of "Stop asking Jesus into your heart." Even though this book is mostly about church planting and sending, the author has some Reformed theology thrown in.
The big question comes in the middle of the book, in the chapter titled, The point in everything is to make disciples, If a ministry doesn't make disciples, why does it exist? A great question, and one that a lot churches should be asking.
published by Zondervan.

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