The Community of the King

Great book. It answers a lot of questions about Church. If you are struggling with Church-related issues, read this one!

Original publication date 1977, Second publication date 2004. Why do I say this to start with? Here we have a Man of God, "Howard A. Synder" who has an edge on all of us. Why? Because of His -NOW- Kingdom Mindset. Prophetically speaking, this teaching is aligning with the Now Kingdom spirit. The Spirit of God's teaching has been manifested in this book. If we come to the altar, with no pre-suppositions, no denominational boundaries, no preconceived ideas of traditional teachings of man's ideas and allow the Holy Spirit to teach you, then you will find yourself in the middle of this book nodding your head in agreement with 80-90 percent of this teaching. What are you interested in? Do you want to grow the Church of God? Then, how can that be accomplished in this sectionalized, denominationalized Church? We must move out of the failed systems of business plans to a Spirit Led Church. We must move from one seeing the Senior Pastor as a "CEO" of an organization to be seen as the "Spiritual Leader." Read this book after you ask God to remove all your presuppositions and begin your life anew. Move into a Kingdom reality, a Body of Christ mentality and out of a denominational hierarchy. In His Spirit

This book dawns with some definitions and clarifications. First Mr. Snyder contrasts the church as an "institution" marked by the characteristics of status, status quo, principles of human organization, etc. versus the divinely led "kingdom of God." This is a place that is both promised in our future (heaven) and present in our world today (the Church) offering redemption and reconciliation of people to God. He calls this understanding "kingdom consciousness." An excellent example of this contrast is summarized in this quote from Easum's book, "The Church too can be merely smooth-running machinery with a veneer of personalism. Or it can be a radically biblical, caring community of believers totally sold out to Jesus Christ." Snyder approaches the problems of today's protestant church from two fronts. He addresses the change in our world society that marks the end of the Modern Age. Like Easum (discussed later) Snyder challenges the Church to examine our paradigms and discover what prevents us from being relative to this generation. The second front is really a different perspective of the first. First churches must separate what is the Biblically sound, mandated mission, values, and strategy of the Church (Kingdom of God) from the "sacrelized" institutions made by man. Then institutions, which serve a purpose for the church, may be created and maintained so long as they are relevant and useful. Since we understand the difference between them and the truly sacred "kingdom of God," when they cease to be useful, they may be eliminated.