Death by Church: Rescuing Jesus from His Followers, Recapturing God's Hope for His People (ConversantLife.com®) [Paperback]

Mike Erre (Author)

Book Description

Series: ConversantLife.com® | Publication Date: January 1, 2009

The church is Jesus’ hands and feet today. But critics see it as hypocritical, irrelevant, and unloving. Materialism and consumerism abound. Mike Erre, teaching pastor and author of Jesus of Suburbia and Why Guys Need God, reveals how this has happened and how Christians can more effectively demonstrate Christ’s presence by again becoming...

• incarnational—allowing Jesus to live in and through His people
• eucharistic—reenacting the ministry and sacrifice of Jesus to the world
• baptismal—dying to old ways of thinking and presenting the resurrection of Jesus as the beginning of the renewal of all things
• communal—correcting an overly individualistic spirituality by living as the community of God
• eschatological—presenting a more helpful and hopeful interpretation of the end of our story

Readers will discover how the church can cooperate with Jesus in the world in which they live.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Entertainment-oriented. Hypocritical. Idolatrous. Consumerist. A mess. These are only some of the terms Erre uses to describe the plight of the church in contemporary American culture. A teaching pastor at Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa, Calif., and author of The Jesus of Suburbia, Erre delves into the Bible and church history to make the case that the church needs to recover its communal, subversive, confrontational, countercultural truth-telling mission of incarnating the upside-down way of the kingdom of God. Drawing on the writings of scholars in and outside of the evangelical tradition, the writer takes a fresh and compelling look at how a kingdom-focused community would approach such Christian fundamentals as mission, worship, evangelism, the Eucharist and apologetics. A culturally marginalized church, he argues, can still be a place of hope, engaging the world and pointing to God's rule. While ceding no ground on traditional Christian doctrine, this thought-provoking book is a powerful bill of indictment and an inspirational template for church reformation that may resonate with believers and nonbelievers alike. A too brief postscript offers suggestions for clergy who want to create the kingdom-focused church in their own congregations. (Jan.)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harvest House Publishers; Original edition (January 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0736924965
• ISBN-13: 978-0736924962
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #547,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent critique of the western church, May 12, 2009

By 

Bradley J. Brisco "Brad Brisco" (Kansas City, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Death by Church: Rescuing Jesus from His Followers, Recapturing God's Hope for His People (ConversantLife.com®) (Paperback)

This is a thoroughly enjoyable, readable, and spot on critique of the church in the west. Erre does an excellent job of arguing the fact that the early church was a vibrant, counter cultural community of Jesus followers that changed the world with a radical gospel. However, in contrast, the church today has become increasingly irrelevant, in large part because of the consumerist, feed me, inwardly focused nature of the church rather than a community that bears witness to an all encompassing kingdom of God.

While I first obtained and read this book from my local library, I soon purchased a copy of my own and plan to purchase additional copies to give away. I would also recommend Erre's "The Jesus of Suburbia."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's not an easy read., May 24, 2010

By 

Kay L. Wolfe (Portland, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Death by Church: Rescuing Jesus from His Followers, Recapturing God's Hope for His People (ConversantLife.com®) (Paperback)

This book, like Erre's others, is thought provoking. It is uncomfortable and unsettling at times. But, hey, that's were growth starts, right?

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Chewy, Chewy Goodness From Mike Erre, June 17, 2009

By 

C. Goble (Washougal, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Death by Church: Rescuing Jesus from His Followers, Recapturing God's Hope for His People (ConversantLife.com®) (Paperback)

Mike has a knack for forcing safe, comfortable, suburbanite American "Christians" to look at themselves in the mirror and ask the hard questions: If Jesus was so revolutionary, then why aren't the lives of his followers in America today? If people rioted wherever Paul went, then why are most American christians thought of as "Ned Flanders-esque?" Mike addresses these issues with his typically sharp and self depricating whit, coupled with a brilliant exegetical critique of how we do church, and how "church" should actually be done.