Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church [Paperback]

John Rowell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I have been moved, enlightened and enthused by this book. It communicates effectively and motivationally to pastors and people from smaller congregations. I also think it has much to say for those who are serving larger churches. The book is very practical. Local assemblies that want to become "Great Commission Churches" can use it as a manual. I am praying that our Lord will use it to motivate and mobilize scores - even hundreds and thousands - for the glory of God and the advancement of the Kingdom." -- Dr. Paul Cedar Former President, Evangelical Free Church of America President, Mission America

"This book did something I never expected - it made me cry. Tears of joy and gratitude flowed more than once as I read the story of how God chose ordinary people to make an extraordinary difference in a faraway culture and a very different place than suburban Atlanta. Gone forever is my superior attitude that insists on professionals for the job of world evangelization. Yes, training matters, but heart and grit took this church further than many would ever venture - even with the best of credentials. This is a story that every pastor should read, then lead his church into similar action." -- Woody Phillips President, United World Mission Board Chairman, ACMC

From the Publisher

As a national leader from former Yugoslavia, I have witnessed the efforts of dozens of organizations and churches that desired to bring relief and hope to millions of desperate people caught in the crossfire of the war in Croatia and Bosnia. It has been a blessing to see God's people around the world respond with compassion to the desperate situation in the Balkans. They all deserve special commendation for ministry done in the name of Jesus during this difficult time in our history. Few are more deserving however, than my good friend John Rowell and his congregation at Northside Community Church.

This book is the incredible testimony of God's hand directing this small congregation to become involved in the midst of our mayhem. Beginning in 1992, Northside Community Church allowed itself the freedom to dare "dreaming in the Spirit" as it reached far beyond the limits of its size to sustain a vital contribution to our denomination's attempt to serve Bosnian refugees. I commend this congregation for its incarnational approach to ministry, sharing the love of Christ and the gospel message while living among Bosnian refugees during the war. We have come to deeply appreciate this church's faithful service as a valuable long-term partner in ministry.

In a message offered in Northside's mission conference in March 1998 I noted that this church has done more to reach Bosnians with the gospel of Jesus Christ than the rest of America's churches all together. My comments were not an exaggeration! From my perspective the kingdom could be advanced more effectively in many parts of the world if more churches of every size would seize upon this example of partnership and follow it. Northside's story will be invaluable for anyone wishing to better understand the pathways that can lead to effective cross-cultural cooperation in modern missions.

I recommend Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church as a must read for anyone involved in missions or in training others for mission service. I am praying that this book will inspire others to take more innovative approaches to ministry on the remaining mission fields of the world. We need the fresh wind of the Spirit to blow as we enter a new millennium of ministry opportunity. May we all follow the example of this relatively small church and commit ourselves to emulate their passion and their capacity for dreaming in the Spirit! (Dr. Peter Kuzmic, President of the Evangelical Church of Croatia, Founder and Director of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 390 pages
• Publisher: ACW Press (January 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966885309
• ISBN-13: 978-0966885309
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #763,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most thought-provoking mission books in years., June 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church (Paperback)

I found this book to be one of the most thought-provoking mission books I've read in the last several years. Not only does it tell the amazing story of how God used a small church that stepped out in faith, but it spells out the biblical principles behind the story. It repeatedly drives home the point that "It is not the size of our resource pool, but the limits of our faith and our vision that determines our impact for the kingdom of God." While this goes totally contrary to our American "bigger is better" mentality,it is a message that the North American evangelical church needs to hear.

"Magnify Your Vision For The Small Church" should be read by the pastor/leadership/missions team of every small church and also by the leadership of every mission agency. I believe God can use this book to unleash what is undoubtedly the greatest untapped resource for the cause of world evangelization - the small local church.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking and inspiring, May 25, 1999

By 

Bill Smith (Norcross,, Ga USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church (Paperback)

Bill Smith, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. I highly recommend this book for pastors of small churches, missionaries, church planters, or anyone interested in what God can do through ordinary people. It sets forth some challenging ideas in the most effective format, a story. What makes the book so compeling is that the story is true.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply moving..., June 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church (Paperback)

It has been rightly said, "A church which is not mission-minded has ceased to be the church. It has lost the Gospel and is dead to the Cross." John Rowell's deeply moving book, "Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church," is the story of the evolution of Northside Community Church, a small church in the USA from the typical approach to missions, applying $12,000 to world missions from the general budget, to a church mobilizing its whole membership into church planting teams, adventuring by faith into a dangerous and desperately needy part of the world to reach an unreached Muslim people group.

The journey began by exploring ways of maximizing the impact of their limited financial resources by identifying and partnering with gifted national evangelists on the front lines of evangelism in Africa and Asia.

Then came the next step, from supporting to sending. By adopting the "Faith Promise" approach to mission giving, resources grew to match the challenge of sending someone from their own membership into the field. Laurie Nelson, a skilled computer programmer became the first full-time misisonary mobilized by the church. Within just a few years Northside had members serving as new missionaries or tent-makers in Russia, Singapore, Germany and Japan.

The third step was the call to adopt an unreached people group. "Professional missiologists taught us that as a mission-minded church, we should give priority attention to identifying a specific unreached people group target of our own - one for which we could pray and toward which we could plan to take the Gospel."

Tears and excitement move the reader as the story unfolds of how God used the ordinary praying people of Northside Community Church to plant a church among the faraway and largely unreached Muslims of Bosnia, a culture so different to the culture of suburban Atlanta.

Part 2 of this book begins with Isaiah 54:2, "Englarge the place of your tent; stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not..."and it is titled "Principles of Church-based Missions."

This half is packed with a wealth of instruction for the pastor seeking to disciple the people of his church into productive Christian living and leadership, with a view to making an impact both in the local community, and over the horizon where millions live who have no way to hear the Gospel.

Under the heading "The Small Church, God's Key to World Evangelism," Rowell states that "the most advantageous missions alternative is a model that succeeds by using a pattern of church growth which is indefinitely reproducible."

Success has so often been measured in terms of the mega-church, and more lately the meta-church, emphasizing the "bigger is better" mentality. However the mega-church is not easily reproducible, nor is it conducive to the in depth personal all-member involvement in the church planting, church reproducing mission to which every church is called. Rowell points out that 94% of the world's churches are smaller than 350 members. Therefore "in the real world, smallness is an observable characteristic of the overwhelming majority of churches in every culture." On the other hand, Dr. Richard Halverson discovered when serving as pastor of a 7,000 member church, "It would require only 365 to do the work that was required to maintain the program of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood." Rowell observes that in such a situation where most of the church is inactive, the strength of the local body declines and the 'muscle tissue' atrophies."

"Community Ecclesiology" is put forth as a healthy alternative and must preceed a change in missiological practice. The local church must recover the original mandate of Christ to the church to "make disciples." All too often good pastors have had to leave the professional ministry of the institutionalized church in order to find the time "to make disciples." The average church member can go from month to month and year to year without ever being in an accountability or discipleship group let alone being active in evangelism or church planting.

The "Training Scope and Sequence" chart on pages 252-255 is a brilliant format for the mobilization of the entire membership of the small church, taking them from level of Active Members to becoming Aspiring Leaders, to being Ministry Leaders, to Congregational Leadership, to Mentoring Leaders to Church Planters. And this is happening at Northside Community Church!

The later part of this book deals with relationships between agencies and the churches, how to develop a powerful synergism as the various expressions of the Body of Christ learn to cooperate and mutually prosper in the fullfilment of the great Commission.

John Rowell, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and with years of proven experience, has created a book which is not only a work of art, and a prophetic contribution to both ecclesiological and missiological theory, but also a powerfully practical text book for both pastors and missionaries. He closes his call to the Church with a prayer "that both churches and mission agencies accept the challenge and blessing of the synergistic mission model and in the process form strong partnerships to finish the task that remains."