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This book is not a tired rant.
This book is not a reactionary diatribe.
This book is a gentle manifesto against the status quo.
In The Prodigal Church, Jared Wilson challenges church leaders to reconsider their priorities when it comes to how they “do church” and reach people in their communities, arguing that we too often rely on loud music, flashy lights, and skinny jeans to get people in the door.
Writing with the grace and kindness of a trusted friend, Wilson encourages readers to reexamine the Bible’s teaching, not simply return to a traditional model for tradition’s sake. He then sets forth an alternative to both the attractional and the traditional models: an explicitly biblical approach that is gospel focused, grace based, and fruit oriented.
- Sales Rank: #61688 in Books
- Brand: Crossway Books
- Published on: 2015-04-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .58" w x 5.50" l, .70 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
Review
“Jared Wilson provides a stern warning against the excesses of pragmatic approaches to church growth while reminding us that if the power of the gospel is not driving our ministries, we may build a crowd, but we are not building a church.”
—Thom S. Rainer, President and CEO, LifeWay Christian Resources
“Jared Wilson paints a vivid picture of the grievous outcome of church centered on programmatic pragmatism instead of the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ. His critical analysis and probing confrontation, coupled with his personal encounter with grace, has the potential to bring the church to her senses and usher her back to our Father’s restorative embrace. The Prodigal Church is a desperately needed wake-up call.”
—Jeff Vanderstelt, Visionary Leader, Soma; Pastor, Doxa Church, Bellevue, Washington; author, Saturate
“The Prodigal Church is indeed a gentle manifesto against the status quo. Wilson writes with humility, urgency, and true pastoral concern for God’s people. He pushes back against the consumerism and pragmatism so prevalent in twenty-first-century congregations, and points the church to something far superior—the gospel of Jesus Christ. All who love the local church will benefit from reading this book.”
—Jason K. Allen, President, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and College
“Jared Wilson writes that we’ve forgotten “who the church is for.” He rightly, and with a kind spirit, questions the status quo in this book. The church is not a consumer experience. It’s not supposed to be a volunteer-draining, CEO-driven business. No, it’s much bigger, better, and more beautiful than that.”
—Brant Hansen, CURE International; storyteller; radio host; author, Unoffendable
“Although I don’t agree with all of the conclusions Jared comes to, he asks penetrating questions and lovingly argues as a man who deeply loves Jesus, the gospel, the church, and pastors. I am fully confident that what he has written here will save some weary pastors from burning out and will make The Village Church a healthier place.”
—Matt Chandler, Lead Pastor, The Village Church, Dallas, Texas; President, Acts 29 Church Planting Network; author, The Mingling of Souls
About the Author
Jared C. Wilson is the director of content strategy at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, and managing editor of the seminary's website for gospel-centered resources, For the Church. He is a popular author and conference speaker, and also blogs regularly at Gospel Driven Church hosted by the Gospel Coalition. His books include Your Jesus Is Too Safe, Gospel Wakefulness, Gospel Deeps, The Pastor’s Justification, The Storytelling God, and The Wonder-Working God.
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Let It Challenge You
By Tim Challies
John MacArthur’s book Ashamed of the Gospel changed my life. Literally. At the time I found it on the shelves of a local Christian book store I was attending a church that was committed to many of the principles of church growth. Though MacArthur had never attended that church, he understood it, he described it, he critiqued it. Best of all, he opened up God’s Word and showed something much, much better. I soon found that I had to move on. I had to find a church that cared less about pragmatism and far more about the gospel. And, by God’s grace, I did.
Jared Wilson was once also caught up in the church growth movement. Like me he was reading the books, attending the conferences, measuring the statistics, and trying desperately to generate a great work at his church. And he was feeling that same restlessness, that same sense that this just wasn’t right, that this couldn’t possibly be what church was meant to be.
While the church growth movement has slowed and evolved in recent years, many of its principles remain foundational within evangelical churches. Many churches still hold to an attractional model by which they measure the success of any element of the service or any program by its ability to attract unbelievers. It is “a way of ministry that derives from the primary purpose of making Christianity appealing.” In The Prodigal Church, Wilson offers what he calls “a gentle manifesto against the status quo”—against that way of thinking of the church. This is not just another rant from someone convinced he knows a better way. It is not another diatribe. Rather, it is a manifesto. It stems from Wilson’s own experience, heads straight to Scripture, and seeks God’s wisdom.
"You and I are sitting down for coffee. Or a long breakfast, since this is a book, not a pamphlet. I ask you, as a friend, to hear me out. I have some concerns about the way you’re doing church. You’re on guard, because you’re tired of rants, tired of legalistic whining, tired of reactionary diatribes. You just want to get on with God’s mission. I want that too. But for this long breakfast, I ask you to put the guard down and let me speak to you as a friend. As one iron sharpening another."
There are several elements in The Prodigal Church that I found especially appealing. The first is the deep focus on Scripture. Wilson’s personal reformation, where he came to see such deep concerns with the attractional model of church, began with personal tragedy that drove him to see the Bible in entirely new ways. The Bible transformed him from within, allowing him to understand the utter centrality of the gospel (rather than programs) in the church. So while he does critique the seeker-friendly or attractional model, he does so by opening his Bible and showing where it falls short.
Also, Wilson is a very capable writer and applies humor in appropriate ways and appropriate places. He often pokes fun at himself, showing himself as the one who was ignoring such basic wisdom and buying into such trite programs. He is equally vulnerable, telling his own life’s story as an important part of the backdrop to his growing awareness of what the Bible says about church. In this way he continues to show that he is writing a book that is for himself first and the rest of us later—often a marker of the best kind of book.
Because this book is not a diatribe but actually offers rich and compelling answers, I was challenged by it. My church is not often tempted toward the attractional model, but we may be tempted to swing the pendulum too far to the opposite extreme. Wilson offered gentle critique to us, too, and I appreciated the challenge. He affirmed what we are doing well, but also gently critiqued those areas where we have grown tired or complacent.
I noticed that Matt Chandler’s endorsement for Wilson’s work begins like this: “Although I don’t agree with all of the conclusions Jared comes to…” And I doubt many people will agree with all of his conclusions. But I think any wise pastor can learn with him. Any discerning pastor can benefit from asking the same questions, even if he arrives at different answers. And it is not only pastors who will benefit. After all, we are all members of churches and all responsible to ensure that we are members of good churches that are going about God’s work in God’s way. There is wisdom in this book for all of us, and for that reason I gladly commend it to every Christian to read and consider.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Wilson focuses on Christ and shows the importance that no matter what a church looks like or what approach to ministry they take
By Amazon Customer
Everywhere you look there seems to be another book being released talking about the problems with the church. Whether specific doctrinal issues, styles of worship, types of bread used during communion, etc. There seems to be more and more books on how everyone is doing things wrong. With that being said, Jared Wilson has written a book, The Prodigal Church, that takes an indepth look at two styles/approaches to church and while diving into the argument and differences between a traditional approach and a attractional/seeker approach to show a third way of doing church. Throughout the whole discussion, Wilson focuses on Christ and shows the importance that no matter what a church looks like or what approach to ministry they take, Christ must be the center of everything they are and they do. But with that in mind Wilson writes this book to bring attention that how we are doing ministry is important too. “How we ‘do church’ shapes the way people see God and his Son and his ways in the world” (Kindle Loc. 205).
Throughout The Prodigal Church, Wilson looks closely at the attractional church model and shows that while many large/mega churches today have been “successful” through this model the data and stories show that their success hasn’t really done what they set out to do. The goal of most seeker churches is to reach the lost, and the data has shown that they have not done this but have grown through church transfers mostly. And through this they have attracted people mostly with a show and Wilson reminds that what a church attracts someone with is what they must keep them with. If it is through an attraction or event or program, they will eventually get bored with that or will see a better show in town and move towards that. Wilson keeps bringing the point back to the gospel and how it must be the focus and the center of all that a church does.
Can a large/mega church be make disciples that are making disciples? Absolutely! But this typically is not what is happening in larger churches. Metrics and measurements usually start and stop at ‘how many.’ How many attended? How many came forward? How many raised their hands? A church cannot stop at sheer numbers because numbers don’t tell the whole story. Numbers don’t show growth and maturity in Christ. This is harder to measure but it is important that a church is making disciples to be like Christ and moving them to make disciples in their neighborhoods and cities. The attractional church often puts most or all their focus on just attendance numbers and “how many” numbers. How many participate in ministries can’t show what matters. Wilson says, “It’s possible to mistake the appreance of success for faithfulness and fruitfulness” (Loc. 591). Wilson throughout this whole book helps to show the importance of not just gathering a crowd but making disciples.
As I said to start that there has been much written on this topic of how to do church better or reach the next generation. Most of what is out there misses that it begins with and always ends with Christ and following his command to make disciples. All that a church is doing must focus around this. Wilson begins and ends here in The Prodigal Church. I would highly recommend this book to all pastors and ministry leaders to start and encourage discussions together as staff and/or elders about the mission and purpose of your church and how you are making disciples that are making disciples in your church.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Gospel Balm for Refugees of the Church Growth Movement
By Erik Raymond
(This is a longer review as it was posted on The Gospel Coalition)
Like many people, I enjoy documentaries. Producers spend significant amounts of time investigating a topic, analyzing it, interpreting it, and then providing a way forward. The best documentaries are those that help you better understand—even feel—the tension in and burden for the subject. In his latest book The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto Against the Status Quo, Jared C. Wilson gives us something of a documentary on the contemporary evangelical church, particularly those who carry the enduring scent of the church-growth movement by means of attractional ministry.
Gracious Diagnostic for Churches
Wilson, director of content strategy for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and managing editor of For the Church, is not an outsider to this topic. Serving as a pastor for a number of years in churches thoroughly committed to the newest and seemingly best ways to do church, he has what you may call “pew-cred” when discussing the attractional church. In The Prodigal Church he simply asks Christians, particularly pastors and church leaders, to reexamine what we do and why we do it. In this way, the manifesto is something of a diagnostic for churches that provides a simple, clear, and actionable plan for biblical reform.
In the introduction, Wilson works hard to ensure he’s not unduly offending anyone. With a title that has the word “manifesto” and this much apology in the opening, I was prepared for a scrappy book with a lot of ecclesiastical “elbows” being thrown. This is not the case. The Prodigal Church is well researched, gracious, pastoral, and pleasantly serene. The only people this book would irritate are those who would say, “Don’t confuse me with the facts; I know what I believe.” Even those who might disagree with Wilson should find the tone courteous, the critique fair, and the action plan biblical.
Pragmatism and Consumerism
In this manifesto, Wilson makes an observation about what has become mainstream within evangelicalism. It was formerly referred to as the church growth movement and now is broadly grouped in the category of the attractional church. This ministry sees itself with the priority of reaching people. This of course is not bad. In fact, it’s to be applauded. However, the observation is that too many churches have the wrong reference point when doing ministry. Instead of starting with what would appear to be the obvious question, “What does God’s Word say?” many innovative, attractional churches start by asking, “What works?”
Wilson concedes that the Bible is somewhat vague about exactly how to “do church.” But he also observes that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. He notes:
I think the evangelical church in the West is particularly susceptible to two primary ideologies that drive many of its ways of doing church today, and I think the attractional model is fundamentally built on these functional ideologies. These ideologies are pragmatism and consumerism. (47)
Pragmatism, says Wilson, isn’t the same thing as being practical. It’s about doing what works: ”Pragmatism has a utilitarian ethos to it. It is by nature unspiritual. It has no room for discernment in it . . . (and) it has essentially become the water that evangelical ministry swims in” (48).
Ministry is oriented around what seems to work. How do we know what works? Walking through some of the philosophies of leading church growth experts, Wilson demonstrates that much of this ministry is built on the business practices of corporate America. If the customer is the guy not yet in the pew and the customer is always right, then it’s not hard to see that in the attractional church the proverbial tail is wagging the dog.
Asking the Important Questions
In a bustling, busy evangelical church committed to “reaching people,” it’s tough to see through the dust of activity and ask the important questions. If you do ask them, people might think you’re strangely opposed to the church’s mission. Wilson, having himself breathed in the dust storm of attractional activity, perceptively poses a couple: “What if the customer isn’t actually right?” and “What if it’s not actually working?”
Wilson culls from numerous studies on trends in evangelicalism to demonstrate that what many think is so successful is actually mythical:
It turns out that while megachurches are flourishing, America has suffered an actual net loss of churchgoers since the rise of the seeker/attractional movement.
This means that the seeker/attractional movement has not succeeded. It meant to get lost persons in the doors and make them “fully devoted followers of Christ,” and in the fifteen years or so of their model’s predominance, American churches are actually less full across the board.
So who’s filling all these churches? Every week, some of the attractional leaders post growing numbers of baptisms and “decisions.” What can we conclude? As the research shows, by and large the people filling these church buildings week in and week out turn out to be other Christians. Often they are de-churched Christians or disaffected Christians or disillusioned Christians, but the idea that the attractional church is having its doors beaten down by lost people is a myth. (35)
Instead of conversion growth we see transfer growth. Perhaps, to use Wilson’s paradigm, it’s consumer growth.
Prescribing the Path Ahead
At this point we may mistakenly take The Prodigal Church as something of a jeremiad against the church. But after pointing out the cracks in the attractional church’s foundation, Wilson prescribes a path ahead. This path is neither novel nor innovative; it is the simple yet powerfully proven path of Scripture and church history. In this explanation, he makes an important observation many need to hear: “You can’t program discipleship because Christianity is supernatural.”
Here he cautions churches away from the “church-in-a-box,” “just add water” approach to ministry, showing that it’s far more complex, messy, and “New Testamenty” than that. Recalling firsthand stories of seeing the gospel bloom in unsuspecting soil, Wilson reminds us that God causes the growth. He points us back to the powerful gospel, the sufficient Word, the beauty of the church gathered, and the testimony of true gospel community. It’s so simple that it’s refreshing and liberating. I was reminded that this is exactly what the gospel does—it liberates and refreshes.
Power of God’s Grace
In the final chapter Wilson hops into the documentary and shares a very personal story. He talks about how he was enslaved to sin and almost destroyed his marriage and family. Through a number of very painful years he came to a place of utter desperation. It was then and there that the truth and beauty of the gospel became clear. Truly knowing he was accepted before God changed everything. He was actually loved. In the depths of the slough of despond Wilson realized his greatest need was the good news:
When my own life fell apart, I had a notebook full of sermon outlines overflowing with helpful tips and practical steps for becoming more victorious, happy, and successful. Not a single one worked. Only the grace of God was powerful enough to save me. I urge you not to deny your people their only help. They are inwardly (and some outwardly) crying out for help, for rescue, for redemption, for salvation. Don’t throw them the anchor of the law. Only the gospel works. (217)
If our goal is to truly glorify God by “helping” people, then we need to hear Wilson’s gentle manifesto. The Prodigal Church calls us back to the whiteboard to ask, “What does the Bible say we are supposed to be doing again?”
This is the work of a friend who cares.
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