Book Summaries

Here is a sampling of some of the books that have made a special impact at CCiPH, and that have been transcribed or written in manuscript. 

Mostly it is made up of quoted significant paragraphs from the book. Occasionally there are also personal comments or applications, especially at the beginning and the end of the summary.

by Gene Edwards

This book is a transcript from a men’s conference of house churches, in which Gene was the speaker. A brief book that provides a clear view of our ministry philosophy at cciph.

“I am a minister and grateful to God for that. But I must not think ‘me.’ I must think ‘you.’ And you must join me in this perspective. My job: to utterly work myself out of a job. My job is not ministry nor to minister. My job is to turn a church over to brothers. . . . The church is to find its leadership and direction through brothers.

[There are only two or three types of people you find in page after page of the New Testament:]

“The first thing you see is church planters. They are all over the place, on every page. There are about twenty such men in the first-century drama. These men planted churches. Apostles are men whom God sent out to plant churches. That is what “sent ones” do. Not “sent out” to evangelize the world, mind you. No, rather, they are men “sent out” to enter a town and raise up a church. That, and that alone, is the primary function of sent ones. (Lay aside what came to your mind when you read church just now. Those men did not raise up church buildings.)

“Who else is center stage throughout the book of Acts?

“The second thing you will find is the ecclesia. She is wild and free and wonderful and glorious!

“. . . the first century church planter, having raised up a church, leaves! He leaves soon, quick, fast! (try to get a present-day minister to do that!)

“If you listen to men speak about the way eldership is supposed to be, you would conclude, listening to them, that the word ‘elder’ is on every page of the New Testament.

“Or you have the same disease that prevails in the traditional churches. They see ‘pastor’ on every page of the New Testament. (Pastor appears once in the New Testament. But he never appears in the story. Try to find him, for instance, in acts.

“Read it and weep. Or join the revolution! That third person, so often mentioned in the saga of the first century is . . . you are about to see the third main person on the stage of the first-century drama. There is the church planter, the church and . . . the brothers.

“Do you belong to a church with this vocabulary? Do the acts of brothers in the ecclesia fill your daily vocabulary? Automatically, spontaneously, unconsciously . . . simply because such sights and actions and ways fill so much of your daily matrix?

“Reread the Scripture. There are only three kinds of persons who hold center stage in the first-century faith. A church planter. An ecclesia. And thirdly? You have brothers; you have sisters. That’s it. That’s all. That is about all there is in the entire epistles and the book of Acts. Anything else? You’re chasing up trees for squirrels that don’t exist. You are putting organizations, people and teachings at the center stage which should not even be in existence!

[the church in Jerusalem had elders after 17 years, and not before!] Consider this, just before you get elder happy: Those elders came out of brothers! In a first-century type atmosphere there were always brothers before elders.

“How about this idea, then? A compromise: ‘Once a week, let’s allow laymen to preach, instead of the pastor.’

“Try it. It would be disastrous, because this is not coming up out of the soil of a ‘brothers’ atmosphere. This is something being pasted on to a present mindset. Listen! Laymen do not know how to minister.

“Until…

“And only until…

“Put them in a tribe and get the minister out of town. I mean by that . . . leave them. Leave those men to discover, leave them to sink or swim, and suddenly they do minister! It is called ‘action born out of the law of preservation.’ It is the action of survival.

“Laymen functioning in a traditional church? consider this, and you will find how utterly impossible this will ever be.

“How great is it when ten or more men get together to shape the direction of the kingdom of God ? In all your Christian life, what Christian meeting or gathering can you remember which you really wanted to go to…every time it met? A meeting you look forward to every week of your life? Have you ever known such a drive? Such meetings exist.

“Brothers meetings!

“What is it like? I cannot tell you.

“You are free to not be reverent. You are free to get things off your chest. There is confidentiality. A place even to pontificate or philosophize. (Brothers love to do that.) You are free to be who you are. You are free to be a pain to the other brothers. You are free to make mistakes. Lots and lots of mistakes. You are even free to make the death move of all death moves: You are even free to try to become the leader of the brothers. We get a discount rate at the graveyard where such men are buried!

“These innocent words ‘brother’ and ‘brothers’ which you have perhaps only today noticed for the first time in Scripture, belong to no other religion. They belong to no present experience.

“The ownership and the direction of the church belongs to no pastor and to no elders…it belongs to the brothers and the sisters! And to Jesus Christ. But to no other!

“I will warn you that some brothers cannot handle such a life. Some, for instance, simply must have some kind of status. I fear that kind of person. Fortunately, this one does not stay around very long. Then there is the brother who cannot stand so much drama. He thinks nobody should have so many problems nor face so many decisions or pass through so much crisis, so often. He wants to go back to a false, solo life. Can you blame him?

“Then there is the brother who can’t handle inequalities; he is the brother who says, ‘We are all equal.’

“We are as unequal in a brothers meeting as we can get. We are different. We are not euqal. There are some of us who have wisdom…there are brother who have insight…there are brothers who are absolutely clueless. They walk into the meeting clueless, they walk out of the meeting clueless. They stay clueless. Yet all the above are still brothers. But not equal.

“Some men are natural leaders. Thank God for that. But, oh, watching God (and brothers) bread that natural leadership is a ghastly sight to see. (Just as God also breaks the brother who wants no part of anything but peace and love, who faints at the very idea of two brothers in the meeting having opposite opinions. God breaking him is also not a pretty sight!)

“Don’t ever try to make it an equal thing. It is never an equal thing. . . . the paradigm constantly shifts.

“Ask men in church life, ask men in a brothers meeting: Do you feel like someone is watching you? In the church and in brothers meeting…no one is watching you. The only person above you, watching you, is Jesus Christ!

“Brothers meetings teach all of us submission. Brothers meetings—when well expressed—put only one in authority, and King Himself./

“The brothers in Atlanta meet, knock heads, seek the Lord, have fights, play football and do all sorts of other things. But after a brothers meeting is over—if any decisions were made, the brothers send one or two brothers to (humbly) report their decisions to the sisters. The sisters listen to the brothers. (The sisters decide which brothers they want to do the reporting to them.) Sometimes the sisters pow-wow. Sometimes they consult and consider. Sometimes their responses are immediate. Either way, they tell the brothers what is fine, not so fine, and what isn’t! The brothers virtually always comply.

“This arrangement works beautifully. Why? Because brothers are dangerous when left alone to their own devices. Anyone would want checks and balances on them. Why? Because brothers are stupid, that’s why!

“But be careful. From what I have said you may get the impression there are brothers meetings over here and sisters meetings over there. Actually there are probably five times as many gatherings with everyone present. It is hard to describe how things really work. Community, of this style, is a place where there is daily input from everyone. You have to see it.

“Men go on and on…in the early brothers meetings. Eventually frustration seeps in. (Not many moons will pass before all the men hate one another.)

“Finally…the men make a decision…a naïve brother comes home and says, ‘Honey, we decided to…’ The wife gives you this look. A short time later you brothers go back and change your decision. You know why you will go back and change it? Because we are all afraid of wives. And sisters that’s why! All that testosterone we throw around in the brothers meetings doesn’t mean zip when it comes to getting past the sisters.

“A year or two passes. Look again at the brothers meetings. There are no longer any principles involved. Nobody is wondering if there should or shouldn’t be a name. Nor are they dealing with any of those other ponderous questions they once pontificated over. They don’t’ give a flip any more.

“Now, here is a curiosity. You should also know how much the sisters come to eventually admire the brothers. How they become enthusiastic boosters of brothers having brothers meetings.

“A lot of the things men in church life today know about life itself is the result of being brothers and being in brothers meetings. Stretched out over ten years or so, you will see those meetings produce men!