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

(These are the words and opinions of Gene Edwards, and I think they are worth having us carefully consider the implications of them. Gene may not be balanced, or he may be right where we need to move as a congregation. The two areas in which I disagree with his strong position are first that the only way to start a church was with an itinerant church planter who by design left his church [ Jerusalem being a prime example]. The second is that the structure of the assembly was informal and spontaneous and free; there is very strong evidence that the early believers were pretty liturgical, and borrowed highly from the synagogue practices. Nonetheless, all of this is worth our consideration.)

 THIS BOOK IS AN INVITATION TO REVOLUTION. A revolution in spiritual depth—and in the practice of church life.

 A REVELATION WHICH INCLUDES

A people no longer attending a Sunday morning church service.

The end of the present-day practice of the pastoral role.

Replacing the pastoral role? A return to the first-century practice of the itinerant church planter.

The return to the practice of a church planter also includes the ancient practice of the church planter’s departing the church he raised up. He leaves it once that church has passed through a solid beginning. As he departs, the church planter leaves behind him a church that is lay-led.

 [25] In their own generation they are known as revolutionaries, radicals, rebels and heretics who are ignorant, arrogant, proud, troublemakers. They are known as visionaries, apostles and saints in the next generation. But in both cases their words are ignored.

 [29] It is native to our particular species (the new creation) to meet in fellowship, in great informality, in caring, in loving, in sharing, in talking to one another. It is native to our species to want to hear about our Lord Jesus Christ . . . from one another. (Not about ten thousand things that are related to Him but which are in no way really His person.) It is native to our species to have endless variety when we meet. It is native to our species, once these wonderful ways become a reality to us, to commit ourselves to one another for all the rest of our lives. It is also natural to our species to have an almost uncontrollable urge to get to such meetings. You cannot keep us away! And once there, we function!

 [30] The first motion lies with someone who is utterly foreign to your understanding. He is called an itinerant church planter. It is the responsibility of the church planter to so order his life and his work, and to so lead God’s people, that they—not he—make the discovery of how to meet. Not only how to meet, but how to behave, function, express themselves, and most of all . . . how to care for and love one another!. This will be done, and after these helps and directions are shared, the church planter walks out on them. . . leaving them leaderless!

 [33] “There are more devout Christians who love the Lord Jesus Christ who do not go to church, than those who do.”

 [34] And what did those meetings look like?

The answer is simple. The disciples all carried with them a hymn book and prayer book. Come time to meet, they got dressed up, sat in neat little rows, all faces forward, with an aisle down the middle. Then Jesus put on his best clothes, making sure he always had a collar to put on that was turned around backwards. They all sang three songs, repeated The Apostles’ Creed, sang another song, passed the offering plate, sang another song or heard a special from a quartet made up of Thomas, Mary Magdalene, John and Judas not Iscariot. Then Jesus stood up in front of them (they carried around a portable pulpit for him) and brought a twenty-nine-and-a-half-minute sermon.

Do you really believe that? What?! You do not?! Then let me ask you the most imponderable question of all human history: Then why do you meet that way? And! Why choose to continue to suffer through the agonizing misery of the kind of meeting you attend?

 [36] THE JERUSALEM CHURCH

[they met in two ways: open courtyard and homes]

The Open Courtyard

Back behind the Temple where almost no one went was a place where two of the walls of the city met, forming a corner. Someone had built a roof over a small part of that corner. People could sit under the shed to talk and visit. The first ekklesia the world ever knew confiscated that area and held daily meetings back there—around 500 to 2000 went there at some point of time on the clock most every day.

Twelve men spoke back there under the shed. What did they speak about? They spoke about the Lord Jesus Christ! And when they finished doing that, they spoke about the Lord Jesus Christ! And when they finished doing that, they spoke about the Lord Jesus Christ!

Jesus Christ was the message of all the early church planters.

 Jerusalem Homes

[38] When those large, dynamic meetings ended, believers bathed in the glory of Jesus Christ poured out of there by the thousands and returned to homes scattered throughout the city.

They met again . . . in living rooms! In that simple gesture of meeting in someone’s living room, the Christian faith made unprecedented history.

 [39] It is a law of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and gravity, as well as a law of the spirituals, that if you put the Christian faith in a building, cover it with ritual, employ a clergy, take away the informality, outlaw the spontaneity, and end the functioning, you cease having the ekklesia.

  ANTIOCH

[45] “I must believe in the Apostolic Succession, there being no other way to comprehend the irrelevance of clergy and ritual except that these were passed down to us by the Apostle Iscariot.”

 Here is one of those few instances where secular history tells us a little about church history. There are secular records left to us, from the second century, telling that Christians in Antioch lived in one particular section of Antioch , a section of the city known for its poverty. Estimates of the size of the Antioch church during the second century go as high as 10,000 believers.

 [46] What were those home gatherings like?

These mere five men moved about in the city, visiting the house meetings from time to time, ministering Jesus Christ. That was the closest thing to a “professional” ministry that existed—temporal, spontaneous, sporadic, unpredictable.

 FOUR GENTILE CHURCHES IN GALATIA

[52] The only problem left is finding (1) a pastor willing to lose his job and (2) a people willing to be left without leadership, who will abandon the church auditorium and meet only in homes without leaders of any kind!

 [54] That next year—being left all alone—is absolutely essential for any ekklesia. Without that dramatic time, they would never have discovered for themselves how to meet.

 [55] Do you endow these ex-heathen with our mindset? Please do not. These people are not going door to door witnessing. They are not Bible scholars. They are not “into” the Christian family as a central theme of the church. They are not “into” sending their kids to college. Excuse me, a Christian college!) There are no Christian counselors on staff. No minister of music . . . not even a song leader. No pastor! No Bibles. No missions committee. No women’s mission society. No political involvement committee. No building. No budget. No money. No education. Few can read. No Christian literature. No songbook. No books. Heathen! Ignorant heathen! Saved. For four months drowned in a cataract of the revelation of Jesus Christ . . . now on their own, to sink or swim . . . with no safety net, no escape hatch, no “911” to call in case of catastrophe. They have been abandoned with no contingency plans for rescue in case of utter failure!

What is the hope of these ex-heathens? What is their secret? This: By the time Paul and Barnabas departed, (1) they were awash in the knowledge and experience of Jesus Christ, and (2) they functioned.

They functioned.

In the meetings believers were the meetings. Outside the meetings, they cared for each other because they were in love with one another. And they fellowshipped with their Lord.

 THE FOOLISHNESS OF CHURCH PLANTERS

THE CHURCHES WENT TWO YEARS WITHOUT HELP

YOU CALL THIS HELP?

[71] There is a fire that falls on all men’s gospel. Most men have a gospel of wood, hay and stubble, and it is burned to cinders when the fire falls. I have a gospel that I preach to the Gentiles that is gold, stone and pearl. When the fire falls on the churches I raise up, nothing burns!

A man said that. He meant it. Can you say that? If so, then test it the same way Paul did. Four months! Then leave!

 [75] Evangelism, First Century Style

Ours is strange thinking when compared to Paul’s! Paul’s thought is centered on establishing the ekklesia, not on soul winning. Note, too, this important fact: Paul evangelized in order to raise up churches. He did not raise up the church in order to evangelize.

 [79] HOW THE CHURCHES IN GREECE MET

“There were very few Christian in the first century. It is probable that this should have been true in all the centuries that followed. The greatest problem Christianity faces today is that there are simply too many Christians.”

 THE CHURCH THAT OVERFUNCTIONED . . . A LITTLE ( CORINTH )

[84] I have been in many gatherings where we found it necessary to dismiss the meeting at midnight—not because anyone wanted to go home, but because some present had to be at work by six a.m. The meetings were full, even effulgent, rich, overflowing, and (interestingly enough) indescribable. I have also walked into many meetings with a message to share. At about ten p.m. I gave up the idea! Better things than a message were afoot.

 Trip Two in Review

[87] Paul is a lousy evangelist and needs to be rebuked . . . at least by our standards. He has raised up only eight churches on this whole planet! All the people in all those churches may not have tallied over three or four hundred. (The population of the Roman Empire was 75,000,000.) By all present-day standards, Paul was an evangelistic failure. True. But boy was he a planter of functioning bodies of believers.

Ask God which He considers of greater value . . . and which produces the greater long-term results!

 Also note this: He would make only one more trip. It would be—as the other two trips—to plant churches. Three trips in one lifetime. That is all. Just three. So on the third trip we can expect him to maybe plant at least a dozen churches? Six? Well, surely at least four more. No! He plants just one! One more church! That is all! Nine churches total. Put that in your evangelism mindset!

 WHAT KIND OF MAN INVENTED THE SUNDAY CHURCH SERVICE (John Calvin)?

[107] It seems that ministers believe our call is to make people sin as little as possible. Here is a man who lived by this idea. A city was forced to live that way, too.

A few rules?

Adultery: Death by burning at the stake.

Witchcraft: Ditto.

Missing Church Service Frequently: Death by being burned alive.

Heresy: Death by being burned alive. Heresy defined: Anyone who dared disagree with Calvin’s theology.

(I think we are seeing a pattern develop here.)

Everybody got off the first time. Nobody got off the third time. Anyone could be brought before the Consistory. Suspicion was tantamount to guilt. You could be imprisoned at will.

You were told what kind of clothes to wear. Dress was by caste (that is, by your standing in society). Calvin believed that all things were predestined by God, including your place in society. Pity the poor soul who tried to break out of his caste—he was in rebellion against divine sovereignty.

Children had to be named after Bible characters.

[108] But, as always, sex was the big no-no. Any sex outside of marriage and you were drowned. Pregnant outside of wedlock, the same. The man was drowned, too. You do not believe? Calvin’s stepson was caught and drowned. His daughter-in-law was caught and drowned; so were the other two people involved.

Tenderhearted soul, this Calvin.

 But what of the man Calvin? Well, he called those who disagreed with him: idiots, riffraff, pigs, asses, stinking beasts, and dogs.

 [109] Someone put a placard in Calvin’s pulpit accusing him of hypocrisy. Calvin, as he frequently did, went into a blind rage. He could not tolerate the slightest disagreement with his views. Well, there was a suspect. No evidence, though. Arrested, the man was brutally tortured for one month. Finally he confessed—who would not? They then drove wooden spikes through his feet and forthwith chopped his head off.

 Well, dear brother Calvin, now that you are safely dead, may I share with you the truth: We didn’t like your long lectures nor your order of services then; we don’t now. You killed functioning. You created a silent laity.

 RETURNING TO THE HOME IS BUT A STARTING PLACE

TOWARD AN ORGANIC MEETING AND AN ORGANIC CHURCH

 [119] Our goal?

It is pretty formidable. It is twofold: (1) to place the meetings of the ekklesia under the headship of Jesus Christ—that takes a little time; (2) in the process, to see emerge an organic way of meeting within a fellowship of believers.

 [121] If you cannot accept a church planter in your midst, I urge you to forget everything in this book. Short of a church planter—from outside the group itself—you are courting a lady whose name is Disaster. If you are willing to embrace this long-forgotten way and this audacious person called a church planter, you have a royal adventure awaiting you!

 STARTING ALL OVER TOTALLY NEW FROM THE GROUND UP

STEP ONE

[125] The best way to discover how to meet is to start as a totally new people, with a church planter in your midst.

In fact, it is the only way. And that statement assumes the church planter is committed to leading this body of believers to the point they are able to meet under the headship of Jesus Christ. And that includes the necessity for his leaving.

 FUNCTIONING, WHAT IS THAT?

[125] God’s people simply do not know how to function when they get together. It is going to take a long time and a lot of patience before the people who are present with you, now gathered in someone’s home, hope to carry the total burden of a meeting. Never mind that one day you “laymen” will have to carry all the responsibility of church life. Right now just learning to function is a steep mountain to scale.

 WHAT, NO MINISTER?

[126] The first problem is the difficulty of people learning to function. The second major problem is the minister. What is his problem? The answer to that is easy! Ministers simply cannot give up ministering!

People will not function; ministers will not stop functioning! Paradoxical, is it not? Those are your first two obstacles to church life. Expect radical solution.

Ministers also cannot stop leading. That includes not only ministers, but ministers of education, ministers of children, ministers of music (and worship leaders), because a rose by any other name is still a rose!

 Years ago, when I did not know better, I encouraged ministers in traditional churches to have meetings in which the people shared. I presented to them and their people everything necessary to have such meetings. But it never happened! The Lord’s people would not function, and the ministers simply would not turn God’s people loose. Or, perhaps, it went the other way around—the minister simply could not (either from orientation or from fear) turn a meeting over to the Lord’s people without having someone present who was a recognized leader.

 THE MAN NOBODY WANTS

[128] He has to be consumed with the headship of Christ. He has to burn for the ekklesia. He has to believe in laymen more than he believes in anything else on this earth.

He has to be a man consumed! He has to believe God’s people will function. He has to believe that, with a little help in the beginning, they can carry a meeting from start to finish. That they can eventually have glorious meetings. He has to believe that!

 THE ITINERANT CHURCH PLANTER

[129] Everyone is committed to a return to the first-century concept of an itinerant church planter? Easy? Well, can you see the pastoral concept (which is now at the center of the stage) totally disappear? Can you see the church planter—who has been absent for 1700 years—again taking his rightful place on that stage?

Perhaps that is the pivotal point.

It may be that (1) without that vision, that revelation of Jesus Christ, and (2) without that revelation of His bride, and (3) without seeing that church planter on every page in the book of Acts and in every epistle—there is no way under God’s heaven these things will ever come into being again!

Let me qualify that. Church life is spontaneous. Actually, church life is experienced all over America , all over the world, every day . . . in spontaneous little gatherings and home meetings. But those wonderful, brief little “ekklesia experiences” die out as quickly as they begin. Some last up to six months. A few last two years.

They all die.

 Why does spontaneous church life die? Because no one wants the one thing that is so necessary. If we hope to have church life on this earth again, it will be with the reappearance of that one thing. Dear reader, to have the ekklesia, then ekklesia planters are needed. Such men were an absolute necessity in the first century. They are still a necessity today. And they will be a necessity tomorrow. This is an immutable, immovable, unchangeable, unalterable fact. It is just God’s way! And He will not budge.

 STEP TWO AND THREE

[131] You are about twelve to twenty-five people who are setting out on the adventure of your lives. You are going to begin by meeting together in a home. That home is all you have. If the number is more than twenty, fine.

 Please note that no attempt is made to meet without the help of the church planter during the earliest days. No experimentation. No “going it alone.” You need that church planter. When you start out, please understand you are at least six months from “trying it on your own!”

(Go back and take a close look at the birth of all those Gentile churches. The church planter is at the center of everything going on. This is true from day one until departure day!)

 YOUR VERY FIRST GET-TOGETHERS

Never try to have an actual “church meeting,” not at the outset. It will fail so miserably, no one will really believe it is possible to have a truly wonderful meeting with no leadership present! You have to begin somewhere else. Do not try a meeting per se!

 [132] You begin by dropping things you have and acquiring things you do not have.

 STEP THREE

[133] At the very outset all of you need to realize, and agree, that you will come together every week for a minimum of six months, no matter how bad, no matter how hopeless things get. You must be committed to one another at least that much. In America —three years would be wiser.

[134] Meet for a minimum of eight to ten weeks, doing nothing by eating together! Nothing. Do not dare sing. Avoid prayer! (All right, pray over the food!) That is a pretty radical recommendation, I realize. But the roots of our religiosity go so deep it demands such a radical approach.

Those ten weeks will be an eye opener! You will discover that half the people you meet with are strange if not psychotic. Shucks, why lie to you. They are out-and-out-crazy. The other half . . . the second half makes the first half look normal.

During this time, get to know one another. Informally, get to know one another. That comes before all else.

Eat together once or twice a week. Take your time to et to know each other. Be patient. (We Americans want everything fast. We want it now! And, of course, bigger and better. Lay it down, brother.)

You who are getting together soon learn that you are now dealing with one of the most imponderable of all equations: fallen human nature. And you are about to attempt the impossible: to some way crawl over that fallen nature in order to reach the realm of things spiritual.

A strong recommendation: Read the first chapter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. That should open some eyes.

 [135] After five or ten weeks—or six months or a year if necessary—you probably have come to know one another fairly well. And despite that fact, let us hope you are still together anyway. But be warned: You still know one another on a very superficial plane!  Trust me, the worst discoveries about one another are yet to come!

I could easily offer you several hundred signatures of saints I know who would tell you, “Gene was being very kind!”

What is the next step:

 . . .