The Church in an Age of Crisis by James Emery White

As they say, “the handwriting is on the wall”.  Culture changes and people are culture.  The way people think changes.  The way a society organizes itself and structures itself changes based on the desires of the group.  The message of the Gospel is for all people, and is relevant for all time.  If the church wants to keep moving forward, then there does have to be some thinking about how the message of the Gospel is perceived by society, and how it can be shared with society.

The Message of the Gospel is sacred.  The method that it is shared is not.

In The Church in an Age of Crisis by James Emery White out lines 25 ways that thinking has changed, and how the message of Scripture sits with respect to those changes.  It is a book about the alarming degradation of moral thought and behaviour in North American culture.  The book is broken into section about faith, thought, the family, media and then it has a section at the end about the mission of the church in all of this.

In that last section, Dr. White speaks to some of the ways that the Church is misrepresented, and about how there are many myths that people believe that have nothing to do with the church.  He discusses the relevance of church in society, and how to listen to those that are unchurched.  He also discusses the idea of evangelism, and how it is not happening.

I found this book to be a very sobering look at where the church is, and how it’s impact on the world is… how it REALLY is.  I go to a church where we use some pretty unconventional means to reach out to this generation of young people, but I get the impression that the church as a whole needs to do more…. A WHOLE LOT MORE.  Get out and share your faith!

I was given a complimentary copy of the book by Baker Books for my unbiased review.

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