sethskim.com

 

 
 
 
Over the last 3-4 years I have been really mulling over the whole Kingdom of God theology. As I am visiting the Gospels again and again, I am confronted with the significance and the importance of how the Kingdom theology is interlaced with a lot of Jesus’ teachings.

Not too long ago, I had some stimulating conversations on this book by Russell D. Moore with some of my close friends. His book is probably one of the best books I have read that clearly articulates (albeit at times it is heavy in seminary level discussions) the Kingdom theology both from a historical point of view, as well as from a present emerging discussion from various theological camps.

This book is thoroughly researched. I have never read a book that had one third of its pages filled with endnotes. I guess only a dean of the School of Theology in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary would do something like this. But it was some incredible reading – the cross references to other sources were invaluable!

The thing that struck me was how there is a movement towards a consensus on the evangelical perspective on the Kingdom of God discussion. It has always been accepted that where you fall in the theological persuasion (Dispensation theology or Covenantal theology), it will affect how you view your role as a Christ-follower or the Church’s role in culture engagement – ranging from politics or social issues.

Moore argues that over the years, the lack of consensus on the Kingdom of God theology within the evangelical circles has weakened and fractured the Church’s ability to engage the culture. I love how Moore pinpoints three areas of contention, which affect how a person sees their calling to engage the culture: Eschatology, Soteriology, and Ecclesiology.

Instead of allowing the differences to separate the Body of Christ, Moore suggests that we need an “emerging evangelical consensus.” He believes that as the “dispensationalist evangelical” and the “covenantalist evangelical” see some of the biblical truths in each other’s perspective, they will come together to make a difference in our generation.

Moore writes, “With the various traditions reexamining their theological presuppositions, a remarkable coalescence has occurred, as evangelical theology has arrived at a Kingdom model that synthesizes these biblical truths, seeing them in harmony with one another… The consensus emerged from the long process of exegetical exploration and theological reflection.” He continues and states that this is a viewpoint which “holds in tension the Kingdom realities of a church truly militant but not yet visibly triumphant. This has clear implications for a theology of evangelical engagement – a theology that has both reachable goals and defined limitations.”

This book has been a catalyst for further thought in the whole Transformasphere Movement. As I try to prepare our people to engage in the various spheres of society, I am realizing that a stronger foundational teaching on the Kingdom of God will be an important piece to the greater vision of transformation.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 11:14 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
It was great reading up on the whole multi-site revolution that is happening in the churches across the United States, as well as around the world. God is definitely up to something.

This book highlighted various churches are and have become the catalyst for the movement. They also give some practical principles to follow through on. The more I think about it, the way we did the site in Chicago was a bit unconventional. But by God’s grace and with a lot of various factors, it worked for us.

The thought that constantly came to my mind as I was reading this book was – “Isn’t this multi-site church model just a revamping of the biblical principle that worked in the Book of Acts?” When you think about it, the early church, due to persecution did not have church buildings to meet in nor were they able to meet publicly in large meetings. This is why the early church was so viral. They met in their homes and also in smaller gatherings with relationships they had in their neighborhoods and workplaces.

I am wondering if the “multi-site church revolution” is really a 21st century redesign of a 1st century phenomenon. This is the great thing about biblical principles – it transcends time and culture.

It is my prayer that the Gospel will go viral in various university campuses around the world because once we reach the campuses, we will be able to reach the communities. Once we reach the communities, we will be able to reach the cities; and once we reach the cities, we will reach the nations.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 02:12 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
I was able to finally finish this book that covered the whole topic of children who are known as Third Culture Kids (TCK). The authors David Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken define TCKs as, “A TCK is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.”

In many of my global travels, I have had the privilege of meeting people who fall under this definition. They are people who have a unique background that allow them to move in and out of various cultures. In fact, TCK can be categorized as “transcultural.” They, in a sense “transcend” one particular culture and are able to interact with multiple cultures, which is very difficult for most people to do.

They are also transient, in the sense that they are not locked into one particular culture over another. They move freely from one culture to another, which allows them to adapt quickly to fit into the culture at that particular place and time.

On the flip side, TCK struggle with their identity as they have a hard time finding one culture that they can identify with. This causes them to feel as if they are “different.” But I believe that God is going to redeem the struggles of a TCK and use them as connectors – connecting people and cultures to others.

When you look at the Bible you notice that there were many transcultural people – Joseph, Moses, Esther, Daniel, and Paul to just name a few. God used their backgrounds and experiences for His greater purpose.

With globalization affecting different parts of the world, we have truly become a “global village.” People from different cultures are interacting with people who are from another culture. It is fascinating to see the interactions.

The vision of the Gospel reaching “all peoples” is becoming more of a reality as we see God raising up TCKs who are willing to go to the nations. It is my prayer that God will raise up more “transcultural” people in our church.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 09:12 AM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
Ever since 1996, we have been trying to build a multi-ethnic church here in Ann Arbor. To be honest, I knew that it was going to be difficult, but I didn’t know that it was going to be this hard. Human nature tells us that we like things are comfortable and easy; and building a multi-ethnic church is neither comfortable nor easy.

But the more we continued to search the Scriptures we resolutely decided that we want to experience a glimpse of heaven here on earth as we see people from every language and nation gathered together to worship the King of Kings.

With no disrespect to “ethnic” churches, I really feel like there is something more powerful when the world sees a church that is diverse ethnically and culturally. This realization hit home for me again when I was in Chicago last month. During the Christmas season our family went back to Chicago to visit our extended families. Christina and I decided to take our kids to a famous breakfast place (the kind of place where you have to wait hours to be seated).

When we were finally seated, I couldn’t help but to notice that in our section of the restaurant (we were placed in a back room) how diverse the people. But the problem was that we were all sitting in clusters. The White folks had their table. The black folks were right behind us. The Latino folks were at two tables in front of us. Then you had the Asian folks (us). I couldn’t help but to observe (a favorite pastime of mine) how diverse this room was but yet how separated we were. It was hard to explain but it just made me think about the Church.

In the secular world it is expected that there is prejudice and racism since their worldview does not necessary dictate the belief of the imago dei. But to see it in the church, it makes you wonder if we are not different that people who have not experience the Gospel of Jesus.

I brought up the observation with Christina and asked her, “what would it be like if we all were inter-mingled and we genuinely loved each other even though we are all so different?” (I was so tempted to stand up and share my observations with all of the 30 or 35 people in that room).

This is why this book really struck a chord with me. Pastor Mark DeYmaz shared their journey, both personally and as a church, in trying to become a multi-ethnic church. He starts off by rooting everything in Scripture with the prayer of Jesus for unity in John 17. Then he moved towards the Book of Acts.

DeYmaz lists 7 core commitments which are crucial in building a healthy multi-ethnic church. They are:

These are core components that HMCC has to continue to recommit to on a regular basis. Even the road is long and difficult, it is just more fun eating pancakes and corn beef hash with people who represent a face of heaven in the future.

You can check out Pastor Mark DeYmaz's blog for some more insights.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 01:02 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
God has graciously brought this book into my hands at this season of my life. There are different types of books that I enjoy reading, but God sovereignly directed me to Dallas Willard’s book, which I am thankful. As I start off, I will make a bold statement and say that this is probably one of the best books on the topic of spiritual formation. I am not the only one with this opinion and assessment.

Willard says so many familiar things in a fresh way that it really challenged me to think differently about discipleship, spiritual disciplines, and becoming more Christ-like. He states, “The human spirit is an inescapable, fundamental aspect of every human being; and it takes on whichever character it has form the experiences and the choices that we have lived through or made in our past. That is what it means for it to be ‘formed.’”

So many of our hearts have been “formed” by the things that we have gone through in our lives, but this is where the power of the Gospel comes in. When we surrender our lives to Christ and give Him permission to rule and reign, He will start transforming our hearts into the likeness of Christ.

Willard addresses the various aspect of a human being and he talks about how the heart, mind, will and even social relations need to be radical transformed. It is not the usual approach about praying harder or reading more Bible.

The book was hard to put down. At every turn of the page, there was some new insight to a familiar principle or situation. This book inspired me and reminded me of the importance of spiritual formation and how growing in Christ and seeing Christ-likeness takes not only time but devotion and commitment to the process. But above all, it is the grace of God.

Willard says, “It is the central point of this book that spiritual transformation only happens as each essential dimension of the human being is transformed to Christlikeness under the direction of a regenerate will interacting with constant overtures of grace from God.”

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 06:05 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
After my trip out to Indonesia and Malaysia, God really spoke to me about my ignorance about the Islamic faith and the Muslim people. It is interesting that no matter how many theological classes you have taken in seminary about world religions, there is a difference between head knowledge and practical knowledge.

I received Phil Parshall book by one of my former HMCC members who is now back in Indonesia (the largest Muslim populated country in the world). Parshall, in some ways is like the godfather of Muslim missions.

I have read a lot of academic books on the Islam faith, but for some reason this book was different. There is a huge difference when a person writes a book academically with just head knowledge compared to when a person writes a book from years of missionary experience. I was able to notice the difference right away.

This book was written in 2003 so in some ways it is still fresh. But so much has happened in the Islamic landscape especially with what is going on in Iraq. This is a must read for anyone who has a burden for Muslims or who wants to do Muslim missions in the future.

The major issue that Parshall covers is the issue of contextualization. In various seminaries and missions organizations there are some theological discussions about how to do evangelism in the Muslim world. Not everyone agrees with the various methods, but the importance of it is beginning to bring people together for dialoguing and strategizing.

God used this book to open up my eyes to the Muslim worldview and how there are so many different bridges Christians can make that might be easily overlooked. This book also exposed some of my own prejudices of how ought to be when it comes to witnessing to Muslims.

After giving some more thought and reflection, one thing that the Lord impressed on my heart is that God needs to raise up a special generation of Christians in order to evangelize to the Muslim world. When you look into the Muslim’s worldview of holiness, you start to realize why they hate the West so much. Also, when they look at Christians and how little reverence they have for their Christian God it is almost laughable for the Muslim.

Due to their works mentality in their relationship with Allah, it is hard for them to look at a Christian who preach grace that does not produce holiness.

I am wondering if the type of Christians who will be able to minister to the Muslims will be people who are radical in their faith (even willing to die for it), live in holiness and possess an unconditional love that cannot be explained by human terms.

But the problem that I see that there is a smug current that flows in the Church in the United States. There are people who disguise their comfortable and self-made Christianity under the banner of grace. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, “Cost of Discipleship” explains,

It is my prayer that God will raise up radical Christian who are committed to radical discipleship. This is the only way we will be able to gain respect and a hearing from the Muslims. Lord, may this be the standard and not the anomaly!

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 06:07 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
There are two groups of people when it comes to attitude – one that carries a bucket of gasoline and another that carries a bucket of water. Depending on the circumstance, some people either stoke the fire of optimism burn brightly or they eradicate it quickly.

I think we all have met people that make a difference through their attitudes. They are the kind of people who constantly see the cup half-full rather than half-empty. They are the “can-do” people in any situation. They are usually contagious people to be around because they stir up the fire of optimism in our own hearts.

John Maxwell, who has taught on leadership for more than a quarter of a century, constantly draws attention to this factor of attitude in a lot of his leadership materials. If leaders are the thermostat of any group then their attitude will determine how other people will respond in a particular situation.

He mentions that there are the “Big Five Attitude Obstacles” that everybody faces: discouragement, change, problems, fear, and failure. The way we handle any one of these five obstacles shows us about our attitudes.

Here are some phrases that I highlighted from this book:

The one phrase that stuck out for me was – “Most of the great work in this world was done by men and women who didn’t believe that what they were doing was impossible.”

When I think about history-makers and those who have transformed different parts of the world, they were people who believed that nothing is impossible. The Christians who made a difference were people who believed in a Great God who is able to do great things.

As we make the investment in our attitude, we will slowly see how powerful it really is in our daily lives.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 07:49 AM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
There have been a lot of talk on the topic of “being missional.” It is exciting to hear about churches that are living out their calling as the “church.” In the Greek, the church is known as the “ekklesia.” It is made up of two words “ek” (out of) and “klesis” (calling). The word, “klesis” comes from the root word, “kaleo” which means “to call.” Therefore, the church is to “be the called out one” who is suppose to “be calling out.”

This is why when Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Pe 2:9-10), we are reminded of our calling as the church.

But like with all things, everything rises and falls with leadership. This book addresses more of the issue of leadership within the missional movement. There are plenty of books and articles on the topic of “being a missional church,” but not too many on missional leadership.

This is why Roxburgh’s and Romanuk’s book adds value to the whole missional movement. They go over some of the key character traits of a missional leader which I found to be fairly helpful. It is interesting that no matter what context the topic of leadership is talked about (business, church, sports, missional, etc), there are always familiar character traits that we cannot avoid.

Great movements always have great leaders. God uses leaders to sustain the movement by His Spirit. As the 21st century church is trying to go back to its 1st century roots (the book of Acts) the need for better leaders will be evident.

It is my prayer that we will be focused on raising better leaders rather than trying to come up with better organizational methods.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 05:18 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
This book just confirmed a lot of things that were running through my mind in the last few years. Throughout my travels, I have noticed that the urban cities in the international scene were playing an important role in that particular country.

Due to globalization and other factors, the cities around the world are becoming ripe for missions. They international cities are becoming more diverse and progressive. I saw this first hand in Shanghai, Jakarta, Kula Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, and Nairobi to just name a few.

This book was a tribute to Harvie M. Conn, a former professor at Westminster Theological Seminary who had a great passion for the city and the Kingdom of God. All the contributors in this book had a wealth of knowledge and experience when it comes to urban ministry.

The more we study the Bible and the important role that various cities had in God’s redemptive purposes, it begins to put a great burden for the cities around us. There is a good prospect to the city’s role in missions and world evangelization. There are challenges as well. Issues such as diversity, injustice and poverty add to the complexities. But as the world is getting more global, there is a great need for us to understand the role of the city.

What would it be like to see a church being planted in an international city (outside of the U.S.) where people can experience the same transformation as we are experiencing here in Ann Arbor and Chicago?

It might be worth the risks.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 03:41 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
The topic of leadership is my passion. I love devouring books and articles on leadership. The topic can be discussed from Christian authors or even secular authors – it really doesn’t matter because any leadership principles that work in the world are always biblical principles.

John Maxwell is known as the guru on this topic in the Christian circles (always debatable). I guess after teaching and speaking on leadership for the last 35 years has some weight and credibility.

I have always appreciated his short one word definition of leadership – “influence.” So many people are so caught up on the position of leadership that they fail to see that the true measure of leadership is simply to see if we have “influence.”

In our church, I have been constantly talking about how we will all be in leadership roles in the future. Whether we will become parents, managers in companies, community project directors, helping out with small groups and etc. – we all have some level of influence with people.

Out of myriad of books on leadership, I think this book is probably the most applicable for anybody in any organization. In fact, I felt as if this book was Maxwell’s compilation of many of his leadership principles and lessons.

The basic premise of this book is learning how to develop your influence from anywhere in an organization. One hard fact is: not everyone will be the CEO (top guy) in an organization. In reality most people will be either on the entry level trying to work their way up or they will be in middle management. But the question is: can you be a leader that has influence with people above you (your boss), around you (peers), and below you (employees)? Hence, the 360 title.

Maxwell starts off by giving 7 myths about leading from the middle of an organization. He was dead on with every single one. I am amazed at the number of people who have bought into some of these myths. The stronger they hold on to these myths, the worst they are in being able to influence people from the middle.

Maxwell also tries to empathize with people who are caught in the middle management role (this is probably one of the hardest roles to play in any organization). He describes 7 challenges that most people from the middle face when it comes to influencing people around them.

In the rest of the book, Maxwell lays out principles so that a person can “lead-up,” “lead-across,” and “lead-down.”

The thing that caught my attention throughout this book is how hard it is to find people who are in the middle of the organization but that they love the vision of the organization and they are willing to do anything to see it become a reality. Whenever we are leading something, it is always easy to give 100% to it. But when we are not the ones calling the shots, it is hard to give everything. But when you find people who are just as passionate and committed to the vision (even though they are not the top-guy), then we need to do everything and anything to retain them and develop them. They will help the organization to reach the next level.

I think this book is a definite “must-read” for leadership teams in any organization. It will really shed new light to some of the struggles that people face as leaders.

If “everything rises and falls with leadership” then it is imperative that we start learning how to be a 360 leader.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 09:31 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
 
For some reason, reading Andy Stanley’s book, “Communicating for a Change” was a painful but yet pleasant experience. Maybe it is like running. It is painful as you run (especially if you haven’t ran in ages), but then at the end it feels good knowing that you got a good work out.

Stanley started off his book by sharing a story (it sounded pretty fictional) but nonetheless it was effective as I started to understand the points that he was trying to make throughout the book. The second part of his book was more practical and gave some hands-on advice on learning how to communicate effectively.

The book was definitely geared more towards pastors and their preaching, but I think the principles can be applied to anyone who has to communicate something to an audience. Therefore, this book can be useful to those of you who are in the business world and even in the teaching world.

The part that was painful was when Stanley addressed some of the famous or particular “styles” of preaching (I don’t he is a great fan of the alliterations). He also stripped away all the excuses that pastors might give when it comes to their weaknesses in preaching.

He shares that there are only three possibilities for why a preacher would preach:

You can probably tell that he believes in the last one. In fact, I think this is what all preachers want but the reality (how they preach) says that most of us are either #1 or #2.

Stanley says, “Preaching for life change requires far less information and more application. Less explanation and more inspiration.”

The big challenge was – “what is the one thing you want your members to know after your sermon and what do you want them to do with it?”

I couldn’t help but to ask myself this question and I started evaluating the last few sermons that I gave – “did people know the principle and wanted to obey it?”

It is truly challenging for every preacher.

If you want to hear some of Andy Stanley’s messages click here.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 03:43 PM | Permalink

The subtitle of Steven Levitt’s and Stephen Dubner’s book, Freakonomics is: “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.” This is an appropriate subtitle in light of what they try to present in their book. If you are a cynic or a skeptic, then you will love this book. As a cynic, I found this book fascinating.

In a nutshell this book exposes and reveals things that we might not normally notice or things that we take things for granted. Their premise of their book states, “If morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work.”

They make some extraordinary connections.

Here are just a few of them:

Levitt and Dubner show the power of the incentive principle – there are definitely positive aspects of incentives, as well as the dark side which always leads to cheating. It was fascinating to see how they caught various people in cheating situations. The biblical principle in action is the depravity of man.

They also argued that nothing is more powerful than information. Once a person has specific information, it allows them to really see things for what it is.

They even have a section on the importance of naming your baby. With a lot of numbers and statistics, they try to show that certain names have a greater advantage over others.

With every page turned, I couldn’t help but to be introspective and also analytical of things around me.

The prophet Jeremiah said, “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve” (Jer 17:10).

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 12:23 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
Recently, I finished reading Scot McKnight’s book, “The Jesus Creed.” There are just some books that cause you to love God more – this is one of those books. There are a handful of books that are in the same caliber – Knowing God, Loving God, The Pursuit of God, and Desiring God. Hmm… they all have God in the title… maybe that is the secret.

McKnight establishes the premise of his whole book on how Jesus came and gave a “creed” for people to follow. The creed was rooted in the shema. It is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” This was the creed for Jewish spiritual formation. This was the first prayer that every Jewish child was taught to say. It is believed that if a Jewish person lived by the shema then they would be blessed beyond imagination.

In Mark 12:28ff, when Jesus was asked by a teacher of the law what the greatest commandment was, He answer by giving the shema (love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all our mind, and with all your strength) and then added Leviticus 19:18, “love your neighbor as yourself.” This became the Jesus Creed and it transformed people’s lives and it still does today.

Even though the greatest commandment is so simple, it is not always easy to live out. McKnight breathes a fresh wind into this simple but yet profound commandment.

Following Jesus requires following this Creed.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 03:43 PM | Permalink

 

 
 
I really enjoyed reading Seth Godin’s book, The Big Moo. The subtitle of this book is: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable. I think the desire to be remarkable is built in to every human being because it touches on the issue of significance. We all want to make a difference. We all want to know that we have touched a person’s life or that we have made the world a better place.

The interesting thing about this book is that it was written by the top 33 people in their fields, all ranging from bestselling authors to business giants. These people are affectionately known as, “The Group of 33.” They are like the who’s who of the business world.

This book was a fast read. All of the 33 people wrote like a 2 page tidbit of wisdom. It was all from their experience and their expertise. There were some incredible insights and principles. Something that I have always mentioned to people is that many of the business principles that work are biblical principles. If something works in the business world, you will definitely be able to find a biblical principle that correlates to it. It was fun trying to connect some of the insights and principles in this book with a biblical story or a principle.

So many thoughts and ideas came forth from reading this book. In fact, it is a good primer for any organization or individuals who want to start taking steps towards a realized destiny. This is a book worth reading with your leadership team and board to strategize and come up with some fresh ideas to direct the organization into a new future. But like with all things in life, there will always be a cost to bringing forth change – but at the end it will always have great rewards.

One cool thing about this book is that all (100%) proceeds will go directly to charity. You can check out the website: www.thebigmoo.com

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 09:06 PM | Permalink

I finished reading Reggie McNeal's book, "The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church."

Whenever we are on the beginning stages of a new movement, there seems to be couple of things that become apparent. First of all, things in the movement change very rapidly, therefore it is hard to keep current with the writings. Secondly, some of the writings are just predictions and usually based on the writer’s experiences.

Nevertheless, we must listen carefully to the Holy Spirit. So often people are either too far ahead or too far behind God that we miss Him completely. When we are inside the will of the God, it is the best feeling. In fact, it is like catching a wave in surfing (so I hear) and catching a gust of wind in sailing (I can testify).

I was encouraged by this book knowing that Reggie McNeal has more than 20+ years of experience, both as a pastor and a practitioner of church movements. Some of the things that McNeal shared grabbed my attention. He address six important realities in our generation:

A lot of times we think we are headed toward the future but in reality the future is headed toward us. Many of us hold to the view that the present makes sense only as we see it from the past. But the truth is that the present makes the most sense in light of the future. It is amazing to think that God creates history ahead of time… as McNeal said, “God always backcast. The future is always incipient in the present.” God begins with the end in mind.

One new movement is the “rise of apostolic leadership.” As a matter of fact, it is just going back to the original pattern that we see in the Book of Acts, when the early church was explosive and transformed their known world in their time. In Ephesians 4, it talks about 5 specific functions (roles) that are used to build up the church towards maturity – prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers and apostles (Eph 4:11). All of the roles have been reclaimed in our generation except the gift of apostleship. This is a new day.

I am pretty pumped to hear McNeal speak at our AMI Leadership Summit in New Jersey hosted by Acts Community Church and Remnant Presbyterian Church. Hopefully, we will hear a fresh voice to what God is already doing.

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 02:30 PM | Permalink

I finally finished Ed Stetzer’s book, “Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age.” It was a highly touted book by all the church planting gurus. In fact, many of them mentioned that this is the “one book” that needs to be on the shelf of every church planter.

This is a very practical book. It has many chapters on the “how to” of church planting. It is pretty humbling to know that there were a lot of things that we in HMCC did not do when we planted our first church in 1996. But then, it is reassuring to know that it was really a “God thing” because we did not follow a lot of the expert’s principles – not that we were rebellious, but it was more out of ignorance. We just had a vision to “transform lost people into Christ’s disciples who will transform the world.”

The section on the biblical basis of church planting was excellent. Stetzer perused through the book of Acts and followed the pattern of the 1st century model (Apostle Paul). It was very insightful. It is interesting that there seems to be a re-surfacing of the 1st century methods of church planting. Even though in some Christian circles the term “apostolic” is not used or even shunned, we are seeing more people accepting the validity of the function (role) of the “apostle” (Gk: apostolos = “one sent forth”). This is what we are trying to do in AMI (Acts Ministries International). It is our desire to recapture the “apostolic” model of missions and church planting in our generation.

Stetzer in one section of his book tried to talk about planting ethnic churches. I thought that it was a bit too general. Maybe because he is not from an ethnic minority, some of the principles and comments did not account for a lot of the various issues that ethnic communities face in a church plant. But one thing we are seeing all over the world is more multi-ethnic church plant starting up with ethnic leadership.

It was interesting that even though this book was published in 2003, it was a bit outdated. This shows that the spiritual landscape is constantly changing. Even the various practices of the post-modern generation are constantly changing. We have to remember that “biblical principles never change, but the methods do” and we have to be ready to flow with the Spirit.

Towards the end of the book, Stetzer FINALLY mentions the importance of prayer and the importance of the Holy Spirit leading every church plant. It would have been more encouraging to see the prayer mantle in the beginning as well as interwoven throughout the book. If there is anything that we need to keep on reminding ourselves with is that fact that without prayer, we can do nothing (Jn 15:5).

Posted by Seth S. Kim at 10:24 PM | Permalink