This text is divided into four main parts and includes a total of thirty-one chapters. Part one of this book is “The History of the Church Growth Movement.” Chapter one really sets the tone of the entire book and allows the reader to better understand the rest of the text by first explaining the basic principles behind church growth, the church growth movement and evangelism. By understanding these basic principles and i

Laity, ministry and church growth are the next ideas that the author puts before the reader in chapter twenty. A look at the Pastor in the New Reformation is presented. This part of the text states that sometimes in ministry, for both the pastors and other laity there are things that have to take place, that are not always pleasant and are in fact sometimes so hard to do, they are painful to the church community. This idea is brought to a close with these statements, “One of the most exciting principles of church growth is unleashing laity to do the work of ministry. Implementing this principle means returning to New Testament basics where dichotomy between clergy and laity does not exist. This requires affirming the priesthood of the believers for which the Reformers passionately fought.” (Rainer, 203)

Assimilation and reclamation in regards to church growth is the next topic found in the text (chapter twenty-eight). “Prevention is much easier than reclamation,” the author states, (Rainer, 286) and this chapter elaborates on that thought. Small groups are very important in the church growth movement as well. Chapter twenty-nine gets into these ideas. A brief historical overview is given on Sunday school and then there is a section on the future of Sunday school and all that is anticipated to occur with that. There are many advantages to small groups and the text gets into that within this chapter. The structure and future of small groups are also topic that the reader is able to explore throughout this chapter.

As the reader, I found this book to contain a lot of valuable information. The book was very well written and kept my attention chapter to chapter. One thing that the reader could really appreciate from this text is the author’s style in regards to really giving the reader the ability to truly understand what the chapters are about. This is made possible by starting off an idea or a subject with the basics of the subject and the defining of the main words or ideas that will be talked about throughout the chapter. It really helps the reader to know the basics before going in and trying to understand the chapters. It was interesting the way in which the author combined real life examples with facts and even other people’s ideas and thoughts. I learned a lot of new things from this book, and I became aware of a lot of things that occur within the church community that I had before never even thought of. I would recommend this book to anyone who is going into any type of full-time Christian Ministry, or even just considering it. I found that there was a lot to gain through reading “The Book of Church Growth” by Thom S. Rainer.

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