Book Review - Organic Church

Book Review - Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens  

Cole, Neil. 2005. Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Part One – Roots of the Organic Church

Chapter 1

The church today has retreated to its four walls and focused inwardly while the enemy is at war to take over our communities.  This gives the impression to the outside world that the church is powerless and scared.  This chapter focuses on who Jesus is to us and what he says about the church.  Jesus builds and owns the church that is meant to be growing.  The growing church reproduces and as it starts to grow it faces opposition. Therefore the church needs to move form being defensive and become offensive. An offensive church is the light of the world dispelling darkness.  

Chapter 2

A new way of planting churches that are healthy and reproducing called organic churches.  Refocusing churches from being inward to spontaneously be missional and incarnational.  Church Multiplication Associates (CMA) lowered the bar of how church is done and raised the bar of how to be a disciple that empowers the common Christian to do the uncommon works of God.  This shifts the church members from being consumers and spectators to active participants in the kingdom of God. 

Chapter 3

The church today has lost her sense of identity and is often aware.  Jesus instructs the church to be zealous and repent in Revelations 3.  Six myth-debunking truths about the church: the church is a living organism, the church is not a building, the church is not in one location, the church is 24/7 not just one hour a week, the church is meant to be spread out (decentralized), the people of God are the church. 

Chapter 4

What is church?  Looking at scripture to answer this question.  Make sure we are sitting and waiting upon God before we launch plans and making sure that Jesus is part of everything.  Ministry must be done by Jesus not just for Jesus because he is the power for what we do.  Revelation 3:20 says he is waiting for us to open the door. 

Part Two – The Organic Nature of the Kingdom of God

Chapter 5

The parable of where it starts in Mark 4. You reap what you sow and you eat what you reap.  It does not matter how good you are at fertilizing, watering, cultivating and harvesting if you do not plant the seeds.  For a fruitful harvest you must have good seed and good soil. God’s word is transformational and is the seed of the kingdom. There are four kinds of soil.  Only one produces a harvest.  Freedom to no longer babysit the other ¾. Keeping bad soil can compromise the life of the church. Those receptive to the gospel: bad, poor, young, searching for God, uneducated, powerless, and insignificant.  Bad soil is likely found in those that are: intellectual, influential, high social status, good and “moral”, and wealthy.  Practical ways to find good soil: police ride-along, research the paper for bankruptcy notices, attend local 12-step groups, volunteer at crisis pregnancy center.  Be willing to look for good soil and shake the bad soil off your feet.

Chapter 6

The parable of how it grows Mark 4.  God makes it grow (I Cor. 3:6-7). Walking in faith and freedom, letting go of control to allow spontaneous reproduction. 

Chapter 7

American Christianity and the way church multiplication has been previously taught and done are dying.  Reproduction should be natural and desirable as a result of intimacy with Christ and his mission.  Natural Church Development’s survey reveals that evangelistically, small churches are 1600 percent more effective than mega-churches.  Cole suggests that we are entering a time where smaller churches have a greater kingdom impact on the world.  Life begins at the molecular level.  Parable of the mustard seed-starting small and growing large Mark 4.  Start with 2 or 3 people and grow.  Healthy church multiplication is to multiply healthy disciples, then leaders, then churches, then movements. 

Part Three – From the Microscope to the Telescope

Chapter 8

Body of Christ DNA is viral and organic in its approach to infect and transform the world. New Testament Discipleship Pattern’s (NTDP) three criteria for epidemic expansion of pattern: received personally, repeated easily, and reproduced strategically. Reproductive message should be oral before written.  Pattern must be lived out, not just spoken. Incarnational, viral, transformational, universal.  DNA of the church:  Divine truth, nurturing relationships, apostolic mission.  DNA pattern starts with Christ personifying it, teaching it and commanding it.  Pattern has three applications: faith, love and hope.  Dangers of genetic engineering: unraveling, subtracting, or addition to the DNA. 

Chapter 9

Church is chaordic because Jesus’ DNA provides the core code necessary for control, order and form.   Church structures are the means to the gospel not the living water that provides life and transformation.  Church internal or external structures should never regulate growth. Fractal designs make up an organic structure for an expanding movement. Seeing the internal pattern of the movement is discovering how it grows. Imprinting should take place upon Jesus not other believers and because this happens within the first 48 hours, what we do with new believers it is vital to whether they become consumer church members or active participants in their faith.

Part Four – The Epidemic Kingdom and How It Spreads

Chapter 10

Jesus repeated and had his disciples put into practice his plan for epidemic expansion of the Kingdom of God in Matthew 10 & Luke 10. A true heart of compassion rises to a task nobler than ourselves and risks caring like Jesus did.  Matthew 9:36 kind of splancthna (bowels) is compassion felt in your gut.  The church needs to understand compassion like Jesus and see the lost as molested and violently pinned down. The harvest is ripe but the workers are few.  The workers are in the harvest.  Churches need to engage the converts right away to carry the light into the darkness as they are contagious and excited about their newfound faith.  Freely we receive, freely we should give.  Relational evangelism is very powerful for new converts. Two sins we need to repent of in the Western church: underestimating the power of the Holy Spirit in a new believer and overestimating our own value in growing new converts.  The epidemic starts with the kind of compassion Jesus had for the lost.  What is a person to you?

Chapter 11

The gospel travels best through relationships that God divinely ordained.  The New Testament refers to the Greek oikos as relational communities that God designed to spread the Kingdom of God.  We are intentionally placed in these communities by his providence because His kingdom is relational and our witness is strong with these principles: time and available, transformed life, hospitable, spiritually intuitive and generous. 

Chapter 12

Our perspective can be the key to being courageous or fearful.  It is the difference between having faith and hope or being uncertain and immobilized.  As disciples of Christ we are no longer victims but valued participants in a search and rescue team for the kingdom of God.  Matthew 10 and Luke 10 give 5 principles to help start churches that multiply.  1. Prayer 2.  Receptive oikos 3.  Presence of God with us 4.  Person of peace within the oikos 5.  People of purpose.  Once you have a people of purpose they are sent out to expand the kingdom. 

Part Five – The Call to Organic Church

Chapter 13

The call to be your authentic self in what God has called you to do as heirs to His kingdom.  Learning by our failures, overcoming our weaknesses and surrendering our plans to the Lord.  Proverbs 16:3 – commit our plans to God and he will establish our works.  It is crucial to follow God’s voice least our self gets in the way. Event- driven churches burn out their leaders and fizzle out.  Create an atmosphere that allows failures and easy restoration.  Don’t bank on potential as much as proven.  Learn from mistakes and don’t be fearful to try again.  Seven things Cole would do different in planting a church: begin in the harvest and start small, allow God to build around others, empower others quickly, let Scripture lead, rethink leadership, immediate obedience through baptism, settle his ownership issues.  

Chapter 14

Do not settle for less than the life God called you to. Pray and allow Holy Spirit to lead you in to what looks like unsafe waters.  Expect attacks from the enemy but do not fear because God’s power in you is stronger than that in the world.  You were born to be a hero, to destroy evil strongholds and set captives free.  You were born to invite others to do the same and band together to give their lives for us, the expansion of the kingdom and for Jesus.