Simple Church

Mitch and I have been working through the book, "Simple Church" by Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger. The premise of the book is to simplify church, the structure of the church, and how we share the Gospel of Christ. It doesn't dumb down Christianity, rather pushes for a church that uses less programs, less structure, and in turn spends more time with people, teaching people, growing people, discipling people to become lovers of Christ Jesus.

Here is a small portion of the book that struck me as I was reading last night:

Hell is always on defense. However, the movement of the church is never on defense. Only offense. The church always has the ball. There are no defenders on the squad.

This is good news. Victory is guaranteed.

The question is not whether we are going to win or not. Our victory celebration has already been determined. Christ has promised it. We win in the end. In fact, the enemy never gets the ball. The kingdom of darkness is stuck on defence. And we are on perpetual offense.

Even the more inept team could win if the other team never played offense. It may take some time, but they would win. Eventually.

The question is, how much will we win by? How big of a dent in the gates of Hell will we make? Will we run up the score? Will we push the movement of the gospel forcefully through the gates of Hell?

-Chapter 4, page 85-86