Book Review: Rediscover Church

Why the Body of Christ is Essential

“A Christian without the church is a Christian in trouble.”

In Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ is Essential, Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman explain why this statement is true, and they demonstrate how the corporate gathering is designed by God to be uniquely integrated into the Christian experience.

Why the church? Why now, in our increasingly technological age?

As twenty-first century believers, we have hundreds of resources at our fingertips: livestreams, Youtube videos, sermon recordings, podcasts, books (audio, paper, AND digital), Facebook groups, and more. We can log in anytime, anywhere and listen not only to our own pastors, but also to any other pastor in the world. We can pick our favorite service based on preaching style, the music we like best, or our schedule.

So why do we really NEED to be a member of a local church? Why isn’t livestream just as good? After all, we used it during the pandemic. Why not just keep “doing church” that way?

That’s what this book attempts to answer.

Making the Case for Corporate Gathering

Hansen and Leeman make the case for corporate gathering as the body of Christ by answering key questions about the church:

• What is a church?
• Who can be a member?
• Why do we need to gather?
• What’s the big deal about preaching?
• Is membership really all that important?
• Why practice church discipline?
• What if I don’t really like the people at my church?
• How should the church show love to unbelievers?
• Who should lead in a church?

They discuss these ideas using a framework based on the following definition of the church:

A church is a group of Christians who assemble as an earthly embassy of Christ’s heavenly kingdom to proclaim the good news and commands of Christ the King; to affirm one another as his citizens through the ordinances; and to display God’s own holiness and love through a unified and diverse people in all the world, following the teaching and example of elders.

(p.26)

That sounds like a long, complicated statement, but it’s really more of a nutshell theology of the church. Each chapter of the book deals with one phrase, providing a brief overview of why these components are essential not only for healthy churches, but also for daily Christian living.

Why the Church Is Still God’s Plan for Modern Believers

Rediscover Church is not intended to be a comprehensive study of the church. Instead, it aims to whet the reader’s appetite for the feast of truth, strength, and support God has provided through the local church body.

It’s useful to understand that Hansen and Leeman’s experience of church in their context may not be the same as that of believers in other contexts. In the introduction, for example, the authors talk about the types of struggles believers faced as the corporate body during the pandemic. They speak to those who may have stopped coming because they don’t see the need for in-person gathering when we have a virtual option, as well as those who may feel unsafe or uncomfortable at church due to various types of political and social disagreements.

While we may not all have experienced the exact scenarios they describe, we can certainly relate to the experience of fault lines being exposed and disagreements coming to a head as people spent more time on social media and less time with each other in person. In the end, the pandemic and related issues have served to reveal tensions in our churches and in our own hearts that were already there, but may not have been as visible.

And that’s exactly when we need the loving support of our Christian brothers and sisters the most. If you don’t see each other on a weekly basis, it’s much easier to misread a person’s heart. It’s also less likely that loving confrontation will take place when a brother or sister hurts someone, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

The body is a fellowship of differents. We are not alike, and we need each other. We have not been gifted the same way, and that’s how God intended it for our good. We confess the same belief in Jesus Christ, but we enjoy a diversity of experiences. This is God’s vision for the church that we must rediscover.

(p. 109)

As with any book that isn’t the Bible, the teaching in Rediscover Church is stronger in some sections than others. The chapter on church membership, for instance, used examples from the Old Testament that are better understood as representations of salvation rather than membership in a church (the Ark and the Garden of Eden are two that come to mind).

Still, the majority of the book successfully achieved its goal of highlighting the critical importance of church involvement and membership in an age where the church is increasingly seen as an anachronism.

We hope that Rediscover Church will be a helpful resource for you as we walk through some of these same topics in our Sunday morning study of the church in Acts. You may also find this book to be a useful tool in conversations with people who have questions about what church is, why it’s important, and why in-person attendance is not only valuable, but essential.

You can find Rediscover Church at the Resource Center in the lobby on Sunday (some free copies are available) or order it online! For a more in-depth and nuanced discussion of these and other issues related to the function of a healthy church, we recommend Mark Dever’s excellent book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church.

You can find more information about Calvary’s position and policies on church membership in our Bylaws.