I recently discovered The Crowded House as a result of getting a book entitled The Total Church: A radical reshaping around gospel and community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. The Crowded House is a network of missional communities in Sheffield and Loughborough, England, that are committed to church planting. Most of their churches meet in homes and are committed to:

I’ve only just finished the third chapter of Total Church but have already been deeply challenged by its contents. It is not a book for those who are content with being content to play church or who think of church participation as one activity among others that they are involved in. Tim Chester and Steve Timmis are clearly passionate about the church, that is, about Christian community that is intentionally centered on the gospel and mission. Tim and Steve write, “Most gospel ministry involves ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality” (61). “Being gospel-centred means being mission-centred, for the gospel is a missionary word. The gospel is good news. It is a word to be proclaimed. You cannot be committed to the gospel without being committed to proclaiming that gospel” (32).

Here are some quotations I’ve highlighted so far in my reading of this, what I’m finding to be, deeply challenging book:

“If the gospel is to be at the heart of church life and mission, it is equally true that the church is to be at the heart of gospel life and mission” (37).

“An identity that I construct for myself is far removed from an identity I receive by grace. Churches are full of people trying to earn their identity or prove their worth. As a result we lack assurance or contentment, or put others down to bolster our own self-perception, or are dependent on the approval of others, or are self-righteous or vulnerable to any circumstance that prevents us from fulfilling our ministry. But the key defining relationship for Christians is our relationship with God. Who am I? I am a child of God, the bride of his Son and the dwelling place of his Spirit. And this identity is given to me by grace” (38).

“Divine personhood is defined in relational terms. The Father is the Father because he has a Son. God is persons-in-community. Human personhood, too, is defined in relational terms. You can no more have a relation-less person than you can have a childless mother or parentless son. The trinitarian understanding of our humanity suggests we should define ourselves by the network of relationships in which we live…I am a person-in-community…My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This is our identity” (39).

“In our experience, people are often enthusiastic about community until it impinges on their decision-making. For all their rhetoric, they still expect to make decisions by themselves and for themselves. We assume we are masters of our own lives. ‘It’s my money, it’s my life, it’s my future,’ we say, ’so it’s my decision.’ In contrast, in The Croweded House we ‘expect one another to make decisions with regard to the implications for the church and to make significant decisions in consultation with the church.’ A married man must take into account his wife and family, consulting with them over significant decisions. It should be the same in the family of God…In the Christian community we belong to one another and so we are responsible for one another and make decisions together. This is not a process of ‘heavy shepherding’ where the leader tells people what to do. Our statement does not say decisions are made for people. It says they are made with regard to the community to which they belong” (45).

More to come…