Uniting Church and Home, A Blueprint for Rebuilding Church Community [Paperback]

Eric E. Wallace (Author), John H. White (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

Family-based church ministry is far more than a change in programming to accommodate mom, dad and the kids. Family-based church ministry also includes everyone in the church: singles, single-parent families, youth, elderly, etc. Why? Because we are all members of God's household and church life should mirror this truth. Family-based church ministry is simply a multi-generational vision that is focused on heart-level relationships that are nurtured in everyday life. In a family-based church ministry, relationships are upheld as the primary tool for ministry, not programs. "Uniting Church and Home" is a blueprint for rebuilding church community around these principles. This resource will show how to transform your households into a family-based church ministry.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a stimulating book on the relation of church and family. Theologically sensitive and passionately practical." -- Dr. Dan Doriani, Vice President for Academics and Professor of New Testament Covenant Theological Seminary

"Eric Wallace shows that he understands both the crucial nature of the Church as the Body of Christ and the reasons why, as we enter a new millennium, that community is failing to fulfill the vision of its Lord. His understanding of households as the critical focus of local church life, together with his approach to equipping households for ministry, holds the promise of a reformation in the way we structure and grow our churches, and may just help to point the way toward real revival in our day." -- T.M. Moore, President, Chesapeake Seminary

"Home schooling families especially will find this to be an encouraging book, filled with practical, workable ideas for integrating the church and home." -- Mike Farris, President, Home School Legal Defense

"In a day of raging confusion about ministry-models, Eric Wallace speaks with clarity about the necessity of uniting church and home. This approach expresses the covenant concept of home and church working together to tradition the faith to the next generation. This timely book is, indeed, a blueprint for covenant community." -- Susan Hunt, Director of Women in the Church, PCA Christian Education and Publications Committee

"In this age of 'high tech' we need to be 'high touch.' This is especially true in terms of ministry. Mr. Wallace has demonstrated for us in practical terms what it means to walk by grace through faith in terms of relationships within the body of Christ. I believe this book presents a great remedy to the 'business-as-usual,' bureaucratic form of ministry which builds walls between people rather than tear them down. It is wonderful to read a book on ministry which carries the 'sweet savor' of the gospel throughout its presentation." -- Rev. Benton Taylor Pastor, Grace Presbyterian Church

"These ideas that have been expressed to me over the years in embryonic form have finally been fully developed and written in a clear and precise manner. This book clearly defines an innovative and challenging vision for the renovation of the modern church." -- Rev. Floyd Hall, Penn's Woods United Methodist Church

"This is an important book, it offers a cooperative, integrated, and covenantal approach to life rarely seen in these fragmented, individualistic times..." -- Dr. George Grant, President, Bannockburn College

"This book is a must read for Evangelical parents, church leaders, and educators." -- Dr. John H. White, Former President, National Association of Evangelicals

About the Author

Eric Wallace is director of Solutions for Integrating Church and Home which seeks to restore a household approach to ministry in the local church. He serves as director of Family Ministries for the Harvester Presbyterian Church in America in Springfield, Virginia; as an advisory board member for the Home Educators Association of Virginia, and has served as a staff writer for Mary Prides, Practical Homeschooling magazine. He has spoken at conferences and churches across the country. He and his family live in Springfield, Virginia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 287 pages
• Publisher: Solutions for Integrating Church & (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966731107
• ISBN-13: 978-0966731101
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #717,389 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Church: stop chasing trends that tear down your foundations, January 3, 2004

By 

torowan (Tangará da Serra (MT) Brazil) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Uniting Church and Home, A Blueprint for Rebuilding Church Community (Paperback)

In this book, Eric Wallace challenges the tendency
* to be programme-centric, and especially to promote programmes that pull households apart into separate directions, and
* to barrage individuals with teaching and activities that are so disjointed they can't be effectively acted on.
Western culture has largely torn apart the household and treats each person as an autonomous individual, to our collective loss; this book challenges the church to put that sociological trend in reverse.

There are many excellent ideas, and interesting and helpful suggestions, in this guide. Wallace seeks to develop relationships that build people, whatever their status: for example, children should be an integrated part of ministry, rather than someone to just entertain until they can grow up and contribute.

The ideas presented in this book are largely sociological, rather than theological; and are based on anecdotal rather than systematic interpretation of scripture (a frequent too malaise of popular books!). Wallace tends to simply state premises as facts (e.g., "the primary means of evangelism in the early church was in the household"), without giving a scriptural defence of their truth.

Wallace emphasizes the idea that the church is the collection of people who believe in Jesus Christ, wherever we are, rather than a building -- a very correct idea. This is valuable if considered as a contribution on one topic within a balanced Christian worldview. The risk I fear is our trend to make such ideas The Big Thing, and give them much more of a place of centrality, much more prominence, than they deserve. I fear that Wallace pushes the pendulum too far on this in two ways:
* He focuses so much on household relationships that he downplays corporate worship (and ignores many other aspects of Christian living). Certainly the New Testament vision of the church is its people joined through the Holy Spirit, not a set of buildings; but at the same time, it emphasises word and sacrament of the joint covenant people in a way that Wallace barely acknowledges. (See D. A. Carson et al, "Worship by the Book", and Gordon Fee, "Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God" for excellent discussions of corporate worship and the importance of the unity of the covenant people).
* Wallace overplays the analogy of family and church: while there is a relationship (pun intended?) in the Bible, there is also a distinction; and to be a father is not to be a priest among the people of the new covenant any more than it was in the old.

I commend this book to the reader to prayerfully consider Wallace's ideas, to test each one of them -- is there a solid scriptural backing for it? does it apply an analogy reasonably or to an extreme? -- and select a set of the excellent ones to put into practice. By all means let our churches synergistically build up our households and use the household's strength to build up the church, rather than promote programmes that pull us apart.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting New Blueprint, January 5, 2000

By A Customer

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This review is from: Uniting Church and Home, A Blueprint for Rebuilding Church Community (Paperback)

Uniting Church and Home presents an old and honorable formula for today's families and churches to learn anew--truly structuring the modern-day church to strengthen families instead of undermining them. Eric Wallace lays the groundwork for understanding what paradigm shift needs to be made and how to do it. I recommend that all pastors read this. I also recommend that every family looking for answers to why "church" seems to be more of a hindrance than a help read this book. Be prepared to have your thinking challenged. Having come from a church that has made the blueprint work, I know that it can make a wonderful difference in the life of church and family.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good ideas but repetitive and not practical, April 10, 2008

By 

Rob Tong "collegencareer" (Winchester, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Uniting Church and Home, A Blueprint for Rebuilding Church Community (Paperback)

I bought this book b/c I'm looking to start a Sunday School class for parents that would equip them to lead their household rather than use the church as a crutch (see Voddie Baucham's excellent book "Family-Driven Faith"). As one reviewer said, there are a lot of anecdotal stories but not much scriptural analysis. But the real fault is how he states his principle that relationships through age-integrated church & classes, not programs, bring about life change...by just beating this dead horse for 12 chapters! I was amazed how many different ways an author can restate his position.

When I finally got to Chapter 13 (the supposed application of this principle), I got a few one-paragraph examples of churches who went age-integrated but no specifics on how it was carried out. There was one example of father-child projects in a S.S. class but that was about it.

I like the principles Eric describes, but the book is a mile wide but only an inch deep. Get the book if you need to be convinced the age-integrated church model is better than the program-centric church model; skip the book if you already agree with that philosophy and are looking for specifics.