Creating Community

wow! Though I'm not a fan of the "7 steps to..." "5 ways to...." etc. books, I LOVED this! It starts off a little slow, but develops into a PERFECT plan for building community in your church. My husband and I are church planters and we were so grateful for every single piece of advice in this book. Amazing!

This book is not, perhaps, for the standard layman, but wonderful for anyone who wants to understand better in inner workings of their church and why some programs fail and others succeed. The questions at the end of each chapter are very thought provoking. The book is an easy read, but very powerful.

Creating Community is an interesting book, a big idea book. Reading it is like taking a tour of NorthPoint's small group ministry. The tour includes the feel for the required environment and leadership participants. It includes glimpses into the planning and formation of this "Small Groups" church. There's also a peak into review and reformation when changes are needed. As a big idea and invigorating planning book it succeeds,however, this book alone will probably not provide a blue-print for constructing a small group ministry. It will certainly inspire the framework and growth of smal group ministry!

Most "How To" books run the risk of taking readers down one of two bumpy paths. Either the reader becomes excited and tries to obey the book right down to the "letter of the law" and ends up creating a mess. Or else the reader yawns, tosses the book in a growing stack with other "How To" books and doesn't create anything at all. Some of the ideas in this book probably will not work anywhere outside of North Point Community Church. After all, the ideas were developed for this specific church, and even North Point continually revises its programs. Don't copy this book. It just won't work the same for you. Other ideas are innovative and valuable. Small group ministry has been around since Jesus called his 12 disciples. John Wesley built the huge Methodist movement on the structural foundation of small group ministry. Pastors salivate at the thought of using effective small groups. The problem is that most small groups are not effective. They become in grown. They fail to divide in life as easily as they divide on paper. They wander from the point and degenerate into globs of protospirituality. This book presents ideas to help keep those terrible things from happening. Wich ideas are which? Which ones should be overlooked at the present time and which are valuable? Look the book over. Use those portions that meet your needs and ignore the rest. Don't throw the book away. Given time, you may want to consult it again. Given the right time and right circumstance, all these ideas might be valuable!

This book is a really good read especially if you are wanting to learn about the small group concept. It is where church is going and from the way the book explains it. this is where all churchs should be.