I just finished reading Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger’s book Simple Church. It’s premise is that the reason why many churches are stagnant or declining is because they have allowed themselves to become too complicated thereby focus is diffused and effort is scattered in opposite directions. They and their group officially studied various churches and discovered that those churches that were vibrant (their word) had a simplified structure for making disciples.

Usually, I know if I am going to like a book and get anything from it in the first 30-50 pages. I knew I needed to read this book after the first few pages! The first chapter begins with an illustration of a pastor named Rush who is returning from a conference. It describes his week, and it is blow by blow very similar to mine. I said to myself, “dude, that’s me!” These gentlemen go on to describe the process for how a church can simply its’ structure in order to more effectively make disciples. If you are a church leader it is a must read, and our whole team will be reading it real soon.

I mention this because I try to make it a discipline to read regularly. I have found that when I am struggling through specific issues and need to address some things, God will bring a book at just the right time. There have also been some times (as I look back) that as I have preached through the Bible, the right Scripture has come at just the right time, to deal with a very specific issue. I didn’t plan it that way, God did. People have also come up to me and asked how I knew they were doing something, or going through something, that I would choose to preach to that particular issue. I was just preaching through the Bible, and God worked out the timing. As a church we fall into the category of “vibrant” but definitely have some things we need to tweak. This book coming to my attention now, is a God send.