Missio Dei Suburbia

Total Church Study Guide

There have been several books that have radically reshaped my thinking, values, and behavior - the most recent has been Total Church by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester. When I first read it a couple of years ago, it turned just about everything I thought about church on its head. The result has been a methodical process of working with our leaders to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, resulting in a church that intends to live and function as missionaries in community empowered by the gospel.

A few weeks ago, another A29 church produced a study guide to help people walk through Timmis and Chester's book - here's more information:

The Resurgence:

An A29 church has created a free study guide to go along with the Re:Lit book Total Church, by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. The well-designed 32-page study guide is available for free PDF download here. We’ve talked with Steve Timmis, and he’s excited about this free resource.

For more related resources:

• View video and audio from the Total Church Training at Mars Hill.
• Read the Total Church blog series.
• Get Total Church in the Re:Lit library.

(HT: JT)

How Big Is Your Gospel?

From Jonathan Dodson:

In Seattle [at a recent Acts 29 boot camp] Steve Timmis gave us three sessions on “Total Church”. The first was on the Gospel, the second on Community, the third on practical training for developing gospel-centered communities. One of the things I love about Chester and Timmis is the way they allow biblical theology to drive their ecclesiology, and not in an academic way. Consider the following definition of the gospel which accessibly incorporates the biblical-theological themes of: monotheistic christology, substitutionary atonement, imputed righteousness, christus victor, new creation, inaugurated eschatology, and the gospel of grace:

Jesus, God’s promised Rescuer and Ruler, lived our life, died our death and rose again in triumphant vindication as the first fruits of the new creation to bring forgiven sinners together under his gracious reign.

This is a big gospel. This is not the individualistic, works-based, escapist gospel of much of American evangelicalism. It incorporates the whole world, person, and Jesus. It forces us to move beyond decision-based conversions to following Jesus as Lord. It calls us beyond Christianity as private religion into Christianity as public, communal gospel. It’s not a pocket-sized gospel. The gospel is bigger than we think. Now, if we can just lead our churches into renewal, revival, and repentance towards living out a big gospel, a gospel as big as the city, as the world, as the whole of history.

How is this big gospel impacting your church, your leadership? Are you doing anything differently in your church because of the size of this gospel?