Takeaway: Simple churches are more focused on the mission of the church.
Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Audible.com Audiobook, Kindle Edition (You can also borrow this book on kindle, leave a comment or go to the lending page for more info)
This is a summary review for a group blogging project that I participated in. I wrote my post and then didn’t keep up with any of the rest of the posts. I finally finished the book last week and figured I should still go ahead an post a review on my blog.
Like many church and business books this book has a very good kernel that might be explained in a long article but instead it is expanded to book length. That isn’t always bad, the discussions and illustrations that would get cut in a long article are helpful. But the basic nugget really could be communicated in a short form.
What is here is good. The basic thesis is that churches that simplify and focus their disciple-making structure not only do a better job at creating disciples, are more effective and evangelism and are better at creating deep disciples.
The study and the corresponding graphs are pretty impressive. However, what I noticed most is that the authors may be correct in their reasoning (that simple churches are more effective), but that it only explains a portion of the success. A large group of churches are not simple and still doing well. And many simple church are also not doing well. So are the authors correct to suggest that on average many churches would be better off being more simple? Yes, does that explain it all? No.