Go To Church, Change the World: Christian Community as Calling
By Gerald J. Mast (reviewed by Peter DeHaan)
Despite a trend to the contrary, the premise of Gerald Mast’s book Go To Church, Change the World is that church involvement is not a tradition to throw aside, but a practice to embrace.
With a calling to be in community, Christians should not abandon church, but to persist in pursuing it.
“Going to church,” he reminds, “is nothing more and nothing less than two or three gathered in the name of Jesus and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, around the Word of God…”
Gerald divides his treatise into five parts, each one proclaiming an action of faith: discovering truth, respecting life, serving others, living in community, and becoming priestly.
With pleasing symmetry, each of these five sections sees a three-chapter exploration, moving readers from one aspect of church commitment to an associated expression of church activity to a corresponding application to the world.
Along the way he shares personal stories of his family, church, and associates, as well as from history and the Bible. These serve to nicely illustrate the points he makes.
As a college professor with a PhD, Gerald’s approach is academic, but his writing, although formal, is most accessible.
Being in a church community offers much to Christians engaging faith, not in isolation, but in concert with one another. Read Go To Church, Change the World, to be encouraged in this practice.
[Go To Church, Change the World: Christian Community as Calling, by Gerald J. Mast. Published by Herald Press, 2012, ISBN: 978-0-8361-9564-4, 189 pages.]
Read more book reviews by Peter DeHaan.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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