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A review by margaretb6
Letters to the Church by Francis Chan
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
I read this book because it came highly recommended by two of my friends. I have read pieces of Chan's other works before and, though I respect his passion and commitment to accessibility, I feel like his tone shifts often. He tries to be upbeat, serious, urging, teaching, etc. and it usually leaves me wondering who the audience is that he is writing to. At times his tone can be very patronizing — as though he is speaking to passionless, occasional church members who know nothing. Then, he acts as though he is talking to leadership and people who are deeply invested. All of that to say, I do not think that I am his audience, even though this is called Letters to the Church, in a Pauline fashion.
Having said that, I did find his argument compelling that the church — the people, the body of Christ — should rethink the ways in which we have "traditionally" structured our meetings and look at the biblical model and precedence. And I do think that is important! I think I have two main struggles with it:
1) This book could have been a long (but not book length) blog post. Specifically, I felt like the two last chapters (8 "Unleashed" and 9 "Church Again") were where I finally felt like I was getting to the practical and useful part of his idea.
2) Though I am really glad that his home church has worked, I am not certain how he sees this playing out globally for already established churches. It is nice that he was able to start his own church but I do not believe that would be feasible for every church leader or even church member to do — even the faithful and involved ones. I guess I just wish that he had discussed how this principles could be applied even within the church communities and systems that we are already engaged in. I know that goes against his general point which is to abandon church buildings and go small everywhere but . . . I guess I am thinking about my relatively small church (note: I went from one in the high hundreds to one around 130) which uses its church building to host not only us but also smaller Christian groups who do not have their own space, has its own Slack for community needs and prayers, feeds its members every Sunday with volunteers, encourages its members to get involved and gives them different roles within the service itself (reading the Scripture for the day, praying for the congregational prayers which are collected into our pamphlet, etc.). I just do not see what the benefit would be of breaking this congregation into smaller groups. I feel like both models can build up the body of Christ in their own good, God-honoring ways.
Having said that, I did find his argument compelling that the church — the people, the body of Christ — should rethink the ways in which we have "traditionally" structured our meetings and look at the biblical model and precedence. And I do think that is important! I think I have two main struggles with it:
1) This book could have been a long (but not book length) blog post. Specifically, I felt like the two last chapters (8 "Unleashed" and 9 "Church Again") were where I finally felt like I was getting to the practical and useful part of his idea.
2) Though I am really glad that his home church has worked, I am not certain how he sees this playing out globally for already established churches. It is nice that he was able to start his own church but I do not believe that would be feasible for every church leader or even church member to do — even the faithful and involved ones. I guess I just wish that he had discussed how this principles could be applied even within the church communities and systems that we are already engaged in. I know that goes against his general point which is to abandon church buildings and go small everywhere but . . . I guess I am thinking about my relatively small church (note: I went from one in the high hundreds to one around 130) which uses its church building to host not only us but also smaller Christian groups who do not have their own space, has its own Slack for community needs and prayers, feeds its members every Sunday with volunteers, encourages its members to get involved and gives them different roles within the service itself (reading the Scripture for the day, praying for the congregational prayers which are collected into our pamphlet, etc.). I just do not see what the benefit would be of breaking this congregation into smaller groups. I feel like both models can build up the body of Christ in their own good, God-honoring ways.