About The Book

I love the church.

I have never loved the church as much as I love it now. What has helped me love the church was growing up in it. To be fair though, growing up in it was also a way how I grew to despise it. At one point in my life I wondered what was the point.

It was at a moment in time where my experiences of church had got pretty bitter. As God loves the church, He did me the immense favour of helping me see that what I had experienced wasn’t all there was to church. He introduced me to different people who helped me appreciate just how much more there was to church and when I looked at His Word and how He defined church experience, I realised why there was so much to love about church.

One of the people heavily influential in my renewed love for church was Alan Knox. His blog was a goldmine of great questions and explorations about how church should be. Through his blog I came across a variety of others who also blogged extensively about God, Jesus and His Church. Among them included Eric Carpenter whose journey to a deeper love for church lead to some truly breathtaking decisions.

I could list so many others online and offline whose writing about church challenged me to see church as God designed it.

Some of those I admire greatly also visited my blog from time to time and we were able to develop some sort of relationship whether through the blogs or occasional emails or more often than not friend twitter rapport. (Don’t mention coffee, though.) This culminated in being honoured to receive an invitation to be part of a fascinating project – Simple Church: Unity Within Diversity.

Eric is the editor of the project and undertook the task of taking on over 20 different contributors from around the world with various experiences who all shared a love for church. A love for church that had gone through different phases and lead them to see that the Jesus we love is building His church and from its inception there were building blocks in place that we can refer to that helps us express simply church.

That journey has lead some of us to be vocal against some traits of modern expressions of what can be termed ‘institutional’ church. There is room for dissent, but what marks out followers of Jesus is their spiritual capacity to build bridges and positively propose what can help us all grow in knowing Jesus. It was great, then, that Eric undertook the exercise in getting the diversity of writers to pen experiences and theological backing for key elements of what makes simple church what it is.

By the time you read this blog entry, the book will be released and available on Amazon. It’s such a privilege to be involved in this enterprise. Later this week I will post a review of the book, in the meantime check out more information about the book here.

I invite you to explore further about simple church and wherever you are and whatever your position is, I invite you to deepen your love for God, deepen your love for His Son and deepen your love for His Church.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden