Customer Reviews

Community of Kindness: A Refreshing New Approach to Planting and Growing a Church

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Steve Sjogren and Rob Lewin's Community of Kindness is a tremendously helpful book. One must remember that kind acts are not necessarily a presentation of the Gospel itself, but they are things that can and do open the door for presenting the Gospel. This book is packed full of ideas and encouraging words that will help pastors. The authors' down-to-earth, practical advice about pastoring is humorous and helpful. Our church has begun to implement a number of the ideas contained in this book. People who have previously been inactive in our evangelism efforts are becoming extremely involved in servant evangelism. Some will disagree with particulars in the book, but overall it's a worthwhile book and well worth the investment. You'll be glad you read this book.

Paul Heier, author of Leading Out of Love

You couldn't ask for a more practical and usable book on a very tough subject. There are opinions upon opinions about how to start a church, but this book cuts through all the trivial, philosophical stuff. This book is all about action and how to get things accomplished. The information in this book is so wonderfully insightful and practical, I'm sure that it can be used successfully by a leader in any denomination or affiliation. The authors are able to get right to the heart of what a church planting pastor needs to know. It's honest, it's relevant and it's easy to use. I have added years to my level of experience by assimilating the Community of Kindness points.

Rob Lewin and I put this book together based on both of our exhaustive planting and coaching experience over the past couple of decades plus in the church planting game. In my experience in reading church planting books, even the popular ones, only a few of the authors have actually planted a church themselves. Those who have planted (no names mentioned) have planted in almost all cases small to medium-sized churches. In both of our cases, we have gone through all the phases of church growth - of starting with literally no people, gathering from scratch, in my case in the hostile environment of Europe where the locals literally dislike Americans usually... and have grown churches all the way up to, in my case, a normal weekend attendance of averaging over 7,000 (in Cincinnati). Out of the church in Cincinnati we have spun out over 50 churches so far. I am about to move to Tampa to plant a new church with my wife Janie to plant yet another church (Coastland Church). Our plan is to plant at least 2 churches in the first 18 months, and ultimately as we are up and running on all 8 cylinders, to plant hundreds of churches. I am just beginning at the age of 50!

We see value in churches of all sizes. This book doesn't make the statement that the only good church is a giant church. Nor does it assume that you will build a giant church in your setting. (I am about to release a new book on how virtually ANY pastor can grow his or her church to the 300-500 size - it will be entitled The Pretty Good Church - release date later in 2006. Look for it on Amazon.)

SURPRISING INSIGHT: This book is more than a lot of ideas on Servant Evangelism as you might expect coming from me... there are lots of ideas that come from our reflection on how to best cope with the early years / phases of both planting a church OR starting a new venture - in ministry within your local church or elsewhere. I have heard from a numbrer of people who are starting out in the business world who have taken the ideas captured in this book who have applied our ideas and have learned much! I'm not surprised... I have been coaching business leaders for the past several years using my simple principles of servant leadership and outwardness. This not only works for the establishing of networks for launching churches but for the launching of companies. Go figure!

I have written book plugs for a couple of author friends of mine who have penned works on church planting - namely Ed Stetzer and Ralph Moore. Buy their books first, then buy this one to add to your library.

This is a revolutionary new approach to ministry even though it is an age-old idea.

The authors write with credibility that comes from experience. Their church planting and coaching experience gives more weight to their advice than if this were a theoretical treatise. I really liked the style as well. Rather than attempting to write a text book, they give many short suggestions and considerations. Each one was developed just enough and not overdone. As a result I could easily digest the idea and go off to think about it for hours or days before going back for more. I don't think that everything they have done needs to be done the way they did it in every church planting situation, but as I said, due to their experience, all of it is very worthy of consideration.

Any pastor or elder could profit from the ideas in the book, not just church planters.

I read this book because it was recommended reading for those who are considering a church plant. Currently, I am reading as much as I can on this subject since I am at the beginning of the church plant process.

Although this book has some good ideas and encouraging words, I found it quite lacking. While I appreciate the experience of the authors and the gut realities of what they shared, this book seemed lacking in organization, it was overly repetitive, and some things I found disagreeable.

One of the ideas the authors presented was that the church planter should borrow sermon outlines from other pastors in the beginning - until the church becomes more established. The indication was that the planter would have little time for study. I find this unacceptable. If we are going to cast a God-given vision, we had better have a strong familiarity with God's Word and what uniquely applies to the people and the situation in which we serve. How well can one cast vision, meet the needs of the people, or be relevant to your community if you are only re-hashing someone else's message/sermon from somewhere else in the country?

What I was looking for was more of a how-to book. Give me some ideas on how you trained leaders, what criteria you used, what kind of requirements, etc. Maybe somebody could put together an actual copy of a plan from start to finish (mistakes and all, don't leave out the gory details except to print what is acceptable and discrete). Nobody wants to copy the plan, but seeing a solid usable plan, even a shaky one, helps spark ideas.

Probably the most helpful parts of the book were some of the evangelistic ideas, and the repeated reminder that people you start with are going to leave, but keep on progressing forward.