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Last week I read And: The Gathered and Scattered Church by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, and am finally blogging a few of my thoughts.

I had heard of this book initially after a few friends were at Exponential this year.  I couldn’t go because I’d just been at the Q Conference in Chicago.  However, I probably should have been there because I’m in the throes of planting Fair Haven’s first multi-site right now called South Harbor Church (a week and a half from the first preview, with launch on 10.10.10.), but I couldn’t give up the Q experience.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, and will recommend it to several people – particularly certain chapters.  Let me begin with a critique, and end with some things I liked.

The premise of the book is basically to stop fighting over different models of the church and honor one another in our differences but seek to use whatever models work in seeking the kingdom.  The book talks often of mega and mini churches, and of missional and attractional.  These are important dichotomies on the one hand – and ones I’ve struggled with myself.  On the other hand, it’s too easy a division to hang a hat on and there are deeper issues than the book goes into.  Ultimately, I love title, but think the book got into too much about Adullam (Halter and Smay’s church), and only scratched the surface of these deeply ecclesiological issues of our time.

“And” does a good job of articulating the need for working together through various models with the same ends in mind, but in my estimation never gets to some of the deeper issues about how much a model influences the end goals.  For instance, Halter does a good job talking about moving people out of consumerism and into transformation and into dying to oneself for Christ.  He nails the issue that disciples are not consumers (chapter 3), but then never really deals with models of doing church these days that promote consumerism of a Christian sort.  In an effort to be unifying, Halter sometimes borders on not being critical enough where healthy critique is necessary.  Other times, though he says that both types of models are helpful, but then tends to tip towards favoring the missional impulse.  One question that would be more helpful to me would be around how the mega church can remain missional enough to be Christian and how does the missional church become attractional enough to stay alive and have an influence beyond a small group.  Overall, I think he tries to be balanced between multiple models, but speaks only out of the Adullum experience.  It would’ve been nice to see a balanced approach in this book with multiple models all expressing the unifying aspects of the gathered and scattered church.

Where “And” does hit the nail on the head in terms of what’s necessary for both the scattered and gathered, missional and attractional, mega and mini is the incarnational community.  Here is how it’s put on page 66:

“Whether you’re starting from scratch and moving down the missional flow or starting from an existing structure and moving up, you’ll notice that the center of the process is ‘incarnational community.’”

By incarnational community, they mean here bands of people with the missional heart of God integrating their lives with those who don’t know Him and are doing something intentional about.  Simplistic, yes, but true none-the-less.  Too many churches lose the core mission of God to reach his people far and wide and lose their very nature as church altogether.

For me, chapter 4, “Spiritual Formation for Missional Churches” was the best chapter in the book.   This chapter really deals with how to move someone from being far from God through the discipleship and growth process to the place of mobilization in ministry (in their words from Observance to Preparation to Participation to Partnership).  This is such a key issue, and one that churches tend not to do well.  We call it a “people pathway” or a “people process” – but who wants processed people!  However, churches today desperately need a pathway of discipleship that includes evangelism, grounds people in the basics, and moves them towards influential leadership in the use of their gifts.  With studies like Reveal and churches realizing their lack of depth, discipleship pathways are getting popular.  Chapter 4 is all about how to go about that, focusing on the transitions in stages, and developing a clear pathway.  I like it. This chapter is one that I will recommend several people read.

Chapter 5 is also very helpful in describing the difference between modalities (structures focused on caring for those already in the church) and sodalities (those that push toward those on the outside).  This is a helpful chapter, finding its roots in the missiology of Ralph Winter.  This is where the book gets closer to living up to its name.  I think if the book had moved this chapter earlier (after the biblical foundation of Chapter 1) and then built upon it, dealing with the centripetal and centrifugal forces necessary for the gathered and scattered church to remain in balance, it would’ve felt more balanced and helpful.  This chapter is one that I will recommend several people read (like church planting interns, student and children’s ministries staff, seminarians, etc.)

I just finished reading the book Obstacles Welcome: turn adversity to advantage in business and life.  This book by Ralph de la Vega is part autobiography, part leadership history, part leadership principles, part self-help, and part personal development.   de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets has been responsible and overseen everything from the move to mobile to the proliferation of the iPhone.  The book starts out, though, with stories from de la Vega’s youth in which he emigrated to the United States without his parents through a last minute glitch at the airport.  At the age of 10, he began his life in the United States without his parents.

I really enjoyed reading Obstacles Welcome.  It was a really accessible and easy read, and de la Vega takes the complexity of managing a huge corporation and a gives simple but not simplistic look into how he does it.  I also appreciated the type of leadership de la Vegan seems to exhibit.  He appears to be a person who values people, virtue, integrity, hard work, and determination.  After reading this book, I thought to myself, “de la Vega would make a good mentor” and that is exactly what he does through this book, becoming  a personal and leadership mentor.  If you’re in a leadership position, it’s worth a read.

The Expanded Bible

I recently got a copy of The Expanded Bible, New Testament, published by Thomas Nelson. It’s text is a modified New Century Version, and the “contributing scholars” are Tremper Longman III, Mark L. Strauss, and Daniel Taylor. I’m new to Strauss, but I’ve appreciated Longman’s writings and thoughts as a biblical scholar for a long time. I first learned about him through Dan Allender (who happens to be a promoter on the dust jacket). Taylor, as far as I’ve known, is more of a writer than a biblical scholar, but has always worked with biblical material, is contibuting editor to Books & Culture, etc. I had my introduction to Taylor at the Calvin Faith & Writing Conference years ago.

In any case, this is a very interesting resource, and I’ve already found it quite useful. What these writers/ scholars have done is take the New Century Version and then expanded it within the text to include alternative translations for words or phrases, literal translations of the words, the traditional translation (read KJV), comments, references and textual variants. Rather than have some of these within the footnotes, or expanded explanations (as in a Study Bible), these are included within the text. Doing this allows the reader to see the translation decisions that need to be made, or the possible other meanings, textures of the text, etc. It also allows the reader to see both the formal equivalence possibilities (favoring a more literal translation) and functional equivalence models (favoring words that convey meaning rather than being literal) – choices which most translations make and you never see.

What I appreciate about the Expanded Bible is the ability to really see what’s going on a little better without a) having to go to multiple translations or b) having to go back to the original language. Particularly for those who do not have training in Greek or haven’t studied the textual variants or semantic range of words or idiomatic renderings, this can be a great help for Bible Study or teacher preparation.

One thing that may be lacking here is a more helpful explanation of textual variants as well as translation in general. There is a good, short explanation of the difference between a formal and functional model, but more information in the introduction could help those who pick this up and haven’t been introduced to the issues. What I find in most churches is a relative lack of knowledge about how the bible has been contructed, about additional manuscripts, scribal errors, the decision-making process of most translators (older, harder reading, etc.)

However, overall, I think this is a great addition to or prequel to a Study Bible. It allows you to get into the text with more texture without getting into someone else’s decisions about what the correct reading is, or someone else’s interpretation. With any translation, many decisions have been made. With a study bible, there is lots of commentary on interpretation.

I would not probably use this Bible as a normal “reading” bible. I would find all the symbols and extra information distracting, but in the right uses, it can be really helpful. I think an Old Testament Version would be great.