Who Stole My Church? .1

Jay, Jill, and I have been going through the book Who Stole My Chuch? by Gordon MacDonald. First off, great book. I totally recommend it to anyone in ministry or anyone who is interested in the great debate of “contemporary versus traditional” and how to deal with change in church.

I read the book in a week. For those of you who know me…you know it usually takes me at least a month, maybe three to get through a book. So, this is record speed. I have never, ever read a book in a week.

That being said, I don’t think MacDonald says anything that hasn’t been said before, but it is written in narrative form, which attaches you to people within the stories and make it a breeze to read.

It is a fiction story with Gordon leading a church in New England in 2007. He has been at that fictional church for 3 years. There was a church vote about adding a new sound system, but before they could vote a number of older members of the church are noticeably outraged. Gordon ends the meeting and asks a number of that group to join him to talk about their frustrations with him as a group. That group meets and soon it becomes a weekly Tuesday night gathering called The Discovery Group. These group meetings are what make up the bulk of the content. It is through the conversations during these meetings that we see just about every issue come up in regards to how an older generation views church versus how a younger generation views church.

That is a good starting place. I’m going to do a few posts on this book. He covers far too many great topics to not delve into some.

I’ll start tomorrow.