Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger, Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples. B and H Books, 2006.
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LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Thom Rainer is probably America’s leading researcher on effective congregational life. Here he teams with Eric Geiger. They write about the Simple Church:
A congregation designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth. The leadership and the church are clear about the process (clarity) and are committed to executing it. The process flows logically (movement) and is implemented in each area of the church (alignment). The church abandons everything else that is not in the process (focus). (67-68)
The research began with the assumptions that most effective churches had a clear and simple process for discipleship, and that most ministers feel overwhelmed and would benefit from knowing about this simplicity. Thus motivated, they sought to discover with certainty whether there was a relationship between a simple discipleship process and the vitality of the church. After screening several congregations to understand their ministry designs, they found several vibrant churches that had a simple process. Each of these churches had four interrelated features: clarity, alignment, movement, and focus. From there, they worked with a team of seasoned church leaders to design a reliable survey based on the four key elements. The survey was submitted to a group of diverse evangelical congregations from 37 different states divided into two groups, 319 healthy and thriving churches in one group and 166 comparison churches that were not thriving. As expected, the thriving churches scored much higher than the comparison churches on the four features of simplicity. These results were confirmed with a second group consisting of 44 thriving churches and 44 comparison churches. Thus, in the language of research: “There is a highly significant relationship between a simple church design and the growth and vitality of a local church.” (67) In practical language, churches that are vibrant and growing are simple.
The bulk of this book consists of separate chapters devoted to each of the four elements of simplicity that were discovered among the vibrant churches:
- Clarity: the ability of the process to be understood by the people. Five keys to clarity – define it, illustrate it, discuss it, measure it, and monitor it. (111)
- Movement: the sequential steps in the process that cause people to move to greater areas of commitment. It removes the congestion so that people can progress along the path of spiritual transformation. The steps must be strategic, sequential, intentional, offering a clear next step, and begun with a class for new members. (139-140)
- Alignment: the arrangement of all ministries and staff around the same simple process. Five essentials to alignment – recruit on the process, offer accountability, implement the same process everywhere, unite leaders around the process, and ensure that new ministries fit. (168-169)
- Focus: the commitment to abandon everything that falls outside of the simple ministry process. Five essentials to focus – eliminate nonessential programs, limit adding more programs, reduce special events, and ensure the process is easy to communicate and simple to understand. (203-204)
This is an excellent resource that lays out the benchmarks of ministry process design. It is the only book on the subject with such an extensive research base. Good theology should define what constitutes discipleship, but good process helps a church get there. Given the incredible complexity conveyed by a great deal of leadership and organizational literature, this volume provides needed simplicity and relief for church leaders who want a workable process to take their churches to the next level.
From the Publisher
The simple revolution has begun. From the design of the iPod to the uncluttered Google home page, simple ideas are changing the world.
Simple Church clearly calls for Christians to return to the simple gospel-sharing methods of Jesus. No bells or whistles required, so to speak.
Based on case studies of four hundred American churches, authors Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger prove that the process for making disciples has quite often become too complex.
Simple churches are thriving, and they are doing so by taking these four ideas to heart: Clarity. Movement. Alignment. Focus.
Each idea is examined here, simply showing why it is time to simplify.
About the Authors
Thom S. Rainer is president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, one of the largest Christian resource companies in the world. He is also a best-selling author and leading expert in the field of church research. Rainer and his wife, Nellie Jo, have three grown sons and live in Nashville, Tennessee.
Eric Geiger serves as executive pastor of Christ Fellowship, a large and growing multicultural church comprised of more than seventy nationalities near Miami, Florida. He and his wife, Kaye, have one daughter, Eden.
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