AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church

The authors and the very kind folks at Zondervan sent a copy of AND for me to take a peak at. I really enjoyed this book. The focus on missional church has been an eye-opening and status quo challenging subject throughout the passed several months.

Halter and Smay, pastors of Adulllam, introduce this subject by stressing the importance of the AND component in Church structure. There are benefits to both “tradition AND innovation.” We can have a vision for a megachurch AND still find and build personal community within it.

Many people consider marriage to be old and outdated. Some think of the church in this way too. I think the authors feel that the reason for this is because churches are not reaching out to the community or providing a communal platform. God calls us to become a community, Abram’s call given as an example, as well as to gather for worship. This doesn’t place church-goers into the driver’s seat. The concept actually is intended to avoid the consumerism of our faith. The authors mean that by organizing our church structres with models for both gathering and scattering believers into the mission fields is more of a fulfillment of our destinty than concentrating on one or the other. It may drive some away, but then that is inevitable. We are not called, as leaders, to make everyone comfortable. We are called to lead the church body into maturity in Christ.

At the church I’m attending in Plymouth, MN, we spend time building community through men and women groups. These are much like small groups except not co-ed. But in time we experience intimate progress toward growth as a community. The two groups actually interact freely by sharing experiences and learnings.

One area of need in the author’s presentation of the material is in what they mean by “incarnational” church. I am assuming this has to do with Church life lived out. Larry Baxter had this same question after his reading. Peter Enns uses an incarnational paradigm to his approach to the Old Testament that he defends as helpful when facing some of the challenges in Old Testament biblical studies. I wonder if the incarnational approach in the minds of Halter and Smay is a similar way of looking at the development and changes in Church structure that Enns has in mind when he speaks of the way God’s people understand themselves differently as the historical record develops.

I believe my favorite chapter was 3 (Consumerless Church), but I particularly enjoyed Chapter 2 as well. Building intimacy with people is much like context. The authors present a comparison showing our negative view of taking things out of context is like trying to bring people to Christ without knowing the context of their lives. It takes the work of investing time and care to learn about someone in order to gain the intimacy that provides insight into their lives and builds our credibility to be able to speak into their lives. Confidence in the messenger plays a large role in our ability to lead our churches.

The authors haven’t claimed to have the market cornered regarding church building and its structure. But they provide very great ideas in forming that structure that can be fitted to shape our churches. This is very much a book for leadership: new or seasoned. It challenges us to look at our churches in a different view and consider our roles in scattering the church just as importantly as the gathered/structure church service element. My pastor asked to meet together and talk about some of these concepts and how they may contribute to our own mission of uniting the nations unto Christ.

There’s a lot of great material in AND and I recommend a copy. It will provide on going reference. The authors even touch on the issue of providing children’s programs in a way that is integrated with the overall mission of the church. Some view they should be separate, but the authors challenge us to rethink if this is the best fit for our individual churches. They have experienced maturity and other community building, like taking turns babysitting while they meet, by keeping the kids around, for example.

I was blessed by the book. I hope I’ve whet your whistle enough as I believe you’d profit from it. There’s a good outline of some of the book’s concept at Triocentric, a video at Mark Howell Live, and some quotables at Live Intentionally. Like Exponential, this book meets you right where you are. You can start your ministry or grow your church upon receipt of the book. You can lead right where you are.