Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, both with significant experience in missions and church planting, are now part of a community in the UK known as “The Crowded House.” It is not exactly a typical local church but also not exactly a home church. Their idea, and the ruling principle by which they’ve tried to find a better way to be the church in all of life is this, “Christians are called to a dual fidelity: fidelity to the core content of the gospel and fidelity to the primary context of a believing community. (pp. 15-16)”
The book is broken into two basic parts. The first two chapters focus on gospel and community in principle and the last eleven shift to those things in practice. The section on principle spends time developing why gospel and community are the main focuses.
Chapter 1 puts the gospel at the forefront by pointing out how central the word is to everything God does and expects of us. ”…the rejection of God’s rule begins with a rejection of God’s word (p.25)”, “The growth of God’s kingdom is synonymous with the spread of God’s word. (p.29)”, and “The Psalms are God’s revelation of how we should respond to God’s revelation… (p.30)” are just a few samples of how the authors tie in the revealed word as our starting point in any idea we may have of church. In searching out implications of how to put the gospel into action in forming the church the authors challenge us to view church as a pioneer mission endeavor and ask ourselves the same kinds of questions when identifying what we want in church and what our role is.
Chapter 2 starts getting to the heart of what we are saved to as believers. ”We are not saved individually and then choose to join the church as if it were some club or support group. (p.39)” The authors are dead set on fleshing out how we are saved into a community and thus must live out that community as intentionally as we possibly can. In a rejection of one of the tenets of Western thought, individualism is placed in a negative light in relation to the people we are called to be a part of.
The rest of the book tackles the topics of evangelism, social involvement, church planting, world mission, discipleship and training, pastoral care, spirituality, theology, apologetics, children and young people, and finally success in the context of this kind of intentional, gospel centered community. The chapters all involve trying to analyze examples from Scripture and relay stories from the authors own experience to try to give us a framework for best applying what we know we are called to be in our contemporary culture.
This is a very good read containing a rare humility and a clear desire from the authors for the church to best live out it’s calling and purpose. Well done and worth the 2-3 hours you’ll likely spend on it.
