Book Review – Simple Church – by Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger

The experience of this book was a rollercoaster ride. I initially bought the book simply because of the title: Simple Church. We just moved to Las Vegas, NV to start a simple church network and in many ways we have NO idea what we are doing! We believe the philosophy behind what we want to do is pretty solid, but when it comes to the how, we are pretty clueless. We are attempting to do something that we’ve never been a part of. So, the title of the book drew me in. I thought it would give us a solid leg up on how to start a simple church network. It did not. However, it was still a very helpful book for me.

As I began reading the book, I was immediately confronted with the fact that this book is written for established churches that “do church” from a traditional perspective with buildings, multiple paid staff, large budgets, many programs, and lots of people and programs already in place. We are not in that situation as we still only have the four people who originally moved here to start this church planting movement. Once more, we don’t intend to become a church organization with a building, paid staff, etc. We desire to grow through a simple house church network organically. So, immediately within the first two chapters, I was disappointed that I bought the book and it was not what I expected.

I determined to keep reading it anyway and found it to be quite useful nonetheless. Here are few positives and negatives from my perspective…the bad news first:

1. If your definition of simple church = house church or organic church, then be warned that this book is not a “how to” manual for getting your network going.
2. While this book does identify a major problem in our churches today…that they are complex and ineffective as a result, it does not in my mind take the reader far enough into the problem. I believe the way churches are typically run are complex even when Rainer and Geiger’s advice is followed. It is a good first step to simplify the entire process of making disciples, but the complexity runs much deeper than just the program level of the church. It extends to church budgets, buildings and professional staff. I don’t believe the first Christians ever envisioned the church as an economic giant as we have here in America in the 21^st century. The greatest percentage of our time and resources are spent just keeping the organization running from a legal and business perspective. Believe me, I know…and we JUST started. Identifying the complexity problem and committing to fix it runs deeper than Rainer and Geiger acknowledge in this book.
3. It seems that numerical growth is the main concern. I know Rainer and Geiger would say it is not and that making disciples is. However, church life is not always simple. Sometimes its members require discipline or even exclusion. Numerical growth is not all important in these instances. The health of the body is at risk when cancerous individuals are allowed to continue in it. It may be that they just refuse to comment on the subject because it is outside the scope of this book’s purpose, but it is certainly something to keep in mind while reading.

Now for the good:

1. Even if you are trying to start a simple/house/organic church network you still need to have a plan. This book will help you keep that plan simple. We thought our plan was pretty simple, but turns out it needed to be simplified even more. The four words that Rainer and Geiger repeat over and over again are Clarity, Movement, Alignment & Focus. We needed work in each of those areas and this book is helping us move towards simplicity in all of them. This is a great time to do so, because, as the book mentions, the longer you’ve been in existence, the more difficult it is to simplify. What better time than at the beginning!
2. We are urged to simplify down to our ultimate objective…developing followers of Jesus Christ. All our plans and processes need to fall in line and work towards that objective. Everything else must go.
3. We were challenged to improve our clarity. We had a simple stated mission, but a simple mission statement does nothing for you if you don’t make it clear to everyone involved. Already the only ones who could probably tell you the mission statement were my church planting partner, Andrew, and myself. Our wives probably can’t tell you what it is unless they look it up on the website. Everyone needs to be clear where they are going, so we need to constantly talk about and clarify where we are going.
4. Movement is also key. We have lots of ideas as to how to minister to our community in Las Vegas, and how to make disciples, but we don’t have an organized process for how to lead someone from a casual observer to a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. Simple steps to the process are needed. The process needs to be visual and a clear invitation must be made to the next step in the process for those who want to go. We must be proactive about moving people through the process and not just assume it will happen.
5. The book challenged our focus. Again, we have many good ideas, but ultimately our focus needs to be on following Christ and leading others to do the same. Adding more programs, events, plans, etc. will not necessarily help. Most of the time more is actually less. More stuff activity can detract from the process. Be willing to say “no” to stuff that doesn’t develop followers of Christ. Be willing to eliminate stuff you are already doing if it isn’t part of the simple process of making disciples.

Overall, I recommend the book. It is worth a read. This is the first book I’ve read that would be of significant help to established churches. They are not offering another model, but a solution to a major problem (complexity) in our churches today. It can also be helpful for the house church network leader in terms of developing a strategy, but you must bear in mind that this book is not specifically directed towards that model in spite of the title.