There were many things about this book that I really enjoyed. I really enjoyed Donovan’s stories of his days in Masailand. I appreciated his heart for discovering where God was already at work in the Masai people and empowering them to lead. I loved his conclusions as to what the point of Christianity is after is experience in Masailand. But there were two main themes in the book that impacted me.
The first is Donovan’s persistence in allowing the response of the preaching of the Gospel to be firstly a biblical and secondly a Masai response. Not one in which he influenced with his western presuppositions. His teaching of the Gospel is summed up as this on page 63:
Repent, believe, be baptized, witness to Christ is the Spirit until He comes again. This is the response to the Christian message. This is the Church.
Donovan’s encounter with the Masai revealed to him how many culturally generated things we consider to be necessary in being a valid expression of the Church. His belief is that any given culture must be allowed to define for themselves a way of being the Church and following Jesus. He says on page 64:
Institutionalized and structured in a way entirely different from ours, or non-institutionalized, non-structured and non-organized, this response of theirs, as strange as it might seem to us, must be recognized as the church, or we are doing violence to Christianity.
His trust in the Spirits work in people is remarkable and an encouragement. It struck me that God wants His Church to be built even more so than I do and, in many cases, our best move is to let God have more control in His Church than we may feel comfortable with.
The second was Donovan’s conviction that the only true expression of the Church is one where mission is not separate, but a defining feature of what Jesus meant for the Church to be. He says it best himself on page 77:
Mission is the meaning of the Church. The church can exist only insofar as it is in mission, insofar as it participated in the act of Christ, which is mission. the church becomes the mission, the living outreach of God to the world. The church exists only insofar as it carries Christ to the world. the church is only part of the mission, the mission God sending his son to the world. Without this mission, there would be no church. The idea of a church without mission is an absurdity.
Well said.
All in all, I think this book is a great read. He flows from story, to theology, to practicalities very nicely and it makes for a good book. I’ve laid in bed thinking about different things that he said and have been greatly encouraged by it. This book was given to me over 4 years ago and I never read it…It came off my shelf and into my head at a good time.
Other notes:
Christianity Rediscovered was originally published in 1978 and then 25 years later published again.
Justin, you and I read many of the same kind of books. I am still reading The Shaping of Things to Come and just finished a book I thought you might enjoy. Much of the context was similar to what you read in Christianity Rediscovered. If you are interested, try reading ‘Why the Rest Hates the West’ by Meic Pearse. It is a social, economical, cultural, and spiritual breakdown of the West vs the rest of the world and digs deeper into our differences and why we have them. I don’t post on here much but I have read every post you make. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and heart on what God is showing you!