navigation
search
Book Review: Invading Secular Space
Adison Wongkar
 |
Invading Secular Space: Strategies for Tomorrow’s Church Martin Robinson & Dwight Smith. Mill Hill, London & Grand Rapids, MI: Monarch Books, 2003. 221 pages. Monarch Books, 2003. Category: Church and Christianity |
The church in the West is declining. True, that the church is still viewed as an icon of the western culture, but not more than that. Many still contribute financially to the church, but they are unbelieving and absent from the church. Responding to this decline, many churches resorted to what the authors called ‘marketingfocused American solutions’ to attract people to the church, which doesn’t solve the problem but exacerbating it further.
This book addresses the question of how the declining churches in the West might be restored from decay to carry out its original God-given calling. This very attempt to answer such question hinges on fundamental conviction that the church occupies central position in God’s intention for the world and that God is sovereign over His church despite of the dire crisis the church has put itself in.
The authors frequent us on a journey through church history to show how God has, again and again, used tenuous points in church history to bring about paradigm transitions as responses to situations of profound theological, missiological and cultural challenge. This historical accounts as well as the fundamental conviction breathed hope that it is possible for the church to be recast and that there is a hope for a fresh outbreak of church planting in the 21st century.
The central theme of the book is that the church must stay true to its mission. The church must to invade the secular space. The decline of church in West cannot be remedied by inviting secular people to enter the sacred place (church) but rather by the church stepping in to invade the secular space. Church needs to preach the kingdom of God through the evangelical message as well as social action that authenticates the message. This point resonates well with Melba Maggay’s Transforming Society that evangelism and social action are both essential parts of our proclamation of God’s kingdom. Social action served to demonstrate God’s real saving power.
Because of this emphasis in mission, the authors argued for a paradigm shift in our understanding of church movement. The authors contended that churches are means for God’s mission, therefore all churches need to plant other churches, actively training new leaders, and spreading the vision to catapult Christ’s ambassadors into the secular space. Bigger and more resourceful churches may act as the “Antioch church” to nourish other small churches. Churches are described as organic and have cycle from birth to maturity to decline. Special attention is given on how churches in decline phase could be revitalized.
The first six chapters are devoted to the issues outlined above while the last five chapters deal with church leadership development issues. This is not unusual because this book is intended mainly for church leaders or church planters. The authors poured their wealth of practical experience in this matter. How do the authors’ background and previous works lend credence to the findings of this book? Rev. Dr. Martin Robinson was born into a missionary family and was involved in several church planting initiatives in inner Birmingham, U.K. since his early life. He had almost 20 years of experience in capacities such as church growth consultant and director of mission and theology. Co-author Dr. Dwight Smith also had considerable experience with national church planting movements in the UK, Ukraine, India, and USA – which gave birth to his saturation church planting development model.
The authors criticize the lone leadership mentality found in many churches today and presented powerful challenge to develop lay leaders to mobilize the whole body of Christ. Anyone with genuine interest in God’s work through the church would certainly find this book an exciting reading full of stimulating facts and thoughts.
How stimulating is the book? In chapter 4, for example, the authors explored the chain of effects from Great Awakening revival, to creation of new denominations, to renewal of historic denominations, to fervent work of social action by Wilberforce and Clapham Sect, and to the modern missionary movement. This is a fresh look at the church history for me personally because I had never imagined that such an emotional revival event could have an impact to social action works by the Clapham Sect. But it clearly has. As a result, not only God’s sovereignty is displayed but it also helps me personally to treasure the rich church history across denominations and recognize it in unit as His work.
I personally like this book because of its challenge to focus on God-given mission and therefore freeing us from viewing church in merely traditional model. Understanding the social and evangelical dimension of God’s mission allows us to imagine bringing the vitality of the sacred into public space. I also like the copious use of church historical examples to make the authors’ points plain to perceive.
The book is titled ‘Invading Secular Space,’ however I found the book to be leaving out the deeper discussion of how to invade the secular space through social action, beyond the notion of church planting (although the book clearly talks about the vitality of social action). The book is almost entirely devoted to the discussion of church growth, planting, and leadership development. And it might be intentionally designed so.
Another book that I found might be a good complement to this book is Transforming Society by Melba Maggay. Here in this book, Melba addresses how we as part of the church or body of Christ are to make our impact in society addressing liberation, social justice and righteousness in the context of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.
I also found the book to be surprisingly relevant to Indonesian churches, although the book talks mainly about churches in Western hemisphere. There is universality in the struggle and problems faced by churches everywhere.
In the area of leadership and developing leaders (which half of this book is dedicated to), this book raises a serious consequence that all of us who professes to be believers equip ourselves as leaders to mobilize the church through church planting or social action.
In summary, I would heartily recommend this book to every Christian leader (lay leaders, not just church leaders) to grapple with the issue of what the church as body of Christ is intended to be. The book was written against the backdrop of Western church history. To personalize the content of the book in our Indonesian culture and heritage, it is left as our exercise to consider on our knees the history of God’s work in Indonesia.
Adison Wongkar graduated from University of Texas at Austin with degrees in technology commercialization, computer science and math. Outside his work as an IT professional in Austin, he is interested in understanding the role of technology in Indonesia economic development.
Back to top
