Book: Church Reformed

About the book:

Many are asking today, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE AMERICAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH?”

Professing, evangelical Christians are leaving the church in large numbers. Fewer and fewer Americans, in general, are going to church or identifying themselves as religious—per Gallup, attendance has dropped by 20 percent in the past 20 years. What is happening?

In the newly released Church Reformed, (published July 2019, Warhorn Media) Pastor Tim Bayly draws on over 35 years of ministry to address the failures of the American evangelical church. As he exposes the lies Christians have believed, he shows how the Church is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Evangelical publishing has had a field day presenting solutions to the modern crises in our churches. As church attendance falters, books multiply—books on growth, strategies for reaching millennials, new models of doing church to appeal to youth, and on and on ad nauseam. 

Too many of these models take their cue from the very trends and ideas that have caused the problems. But what if there was a way to climb out of the hole we’ve dug? What if the church found the power to attract people we thought we’d lost—just by returning to a humble, biblical pattern of church life?

Church Reformed is a call to embrace what we see modeled for us in the Bible and by our fathers in the faith across church history.  It's a call to be committed to the Church that Jesus Christ bought with his own precious blood. As Tim says,

"Jesus loves the Church, and we should too."

My thoughts:

This was an interesting book.  The author’s point is that some of the things we “do” in churches are not how it was done in Biblical times. Do we even know why we do these things? Is it what the Bible teaches? Examples include the Lord's Supper and baptism.  The author is urging us to take a look at how we should be doing things. 

I appreciate that he started the book with a detailed description and explanation of what church is. In the chapter on fellowship this stuck out to me that we are all one in Christ and that the fellowship we have with other Christ followers should be different than with others.

I did not agree with everything he wrote but enjoyed the book for the most part. It is not the typical type of book I read and it was good to read it and think about these things. 

I received a copy of this book from The Barnabas Agency for my honest review.  Thank you. 

 Have a day of blessings!
Bethany