Following through on my "resolution" to finish one book per week in 2003, I finished THE CONNECTING CHURCH by Randy Frazee this evening.

Okay, maybe "finished" is a pretty loose term, seeing that I skimmed through the last two chapters. In these, Pastor Randy detailed how his fictional couple, the Johnsons, put into practice all of the principles upon which the book had already expounded. While I was challenged by alot of the insight into community building, the necessity of overcoming individualism, consumerism and isolationism, and the need for our society to be based more on geography than affinity (proximity to each other, rather than similarity) - I didn't like how preachy it became as the book ran on. That's probably why it's taken me so long to read it. After starting it some time last summer, I just now got around to finishing it.

I recommend it to pastors looking for a mindset change that would lead to more fruitful community in the neighborhoods surrounding their churches. For me, I don't know quite how to process it yet. Some of the precepts in there are playable, but I don't know that all of them are. Of course, there's a built in time factor that we usually don't have to allow things like this to grow properly, right?

Next week: FOUR SOULS.
- posted by Rick @ 00:14