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Relax. This book is not about another church model.
Thom Rainer, Ph.D., president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, along with Eric Geiger, Ed. D. executive pastor of Christ Fellowship, share a clear message from case studies of four hundred American churches:
Church is done best when it’s kept simple.
Rainer’s and Geiger’s research in their new book Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples (available now) offers this insight: Churches with a simple process for reaching and maturing people are expanding the kingdom. Complex churches are struggling and anemic.
The authors have observed the simple church in action and they want others to see it too. Simple churches are thriving and they are doing so by taking four ideas to heart: Clarity. Movement. Alignment. Focus.
“We compared growing and vibrant churches to non-growing and struggling churches. Church leaders from both groups were asked to complete the same survey which was designed to measure how simple their church discipleship process was. We anticipated that there would be a relationship between a simple process and church vitality, but the results were greater than we imagined. Our statistical consultant told us that we had found something big.”
“The vibrant churches were much more simple than the comparison churches. The difference was so big that the probability of the results occurring with one church by chance is less than one in a thousand.”
The simple church revolution has begun. Are you in?
“Imagine a church were you, as a leader, can articulate clearly how someone moves from being a new Christian to become a mature follower of Christ. Imagine that your church is no longer just busy but is alive with ministries and activities that make a difference. Such is the simple church revolution,” explain Rainer and Geiger.
Thom S. Rainer, Ph. D., has consulted with more than five hundred churches, served as pastor in four churches, and interim pastor in seven churches. He has spoken in hundreds of venues and authored sixteen previous books including the bestselling Breakout Churches. He currently serves as president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, one of the largest Christian resource companies in the world. His other books include High Expectations and The Bridger Generation.
Eric Geiger, Ed. D., has worked with churches in