God's New Community: New Testament Patterns for Today's Church - Softcover

Beynon, Graham

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844740781 ISBN 13: 9781844740789

Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press, 2005

Synopsis

A practical explanation of New Testament teaching about 'church'.

About this title

About the Author

Graham Beynon is Associate Pastor at Knighton Evangelical Free Church, Leicester. Previously he was involved in pastoral ministry in Cambridge.

From the Back Cover

Underneath its glossy and confident surface, our society is fragmenting. The problem is growing; some people are becoming more isolated, and though they are warm and well fed, it's cold comfort to those who need love and understanding as well as a couple of square meals a day. Others are not exactly lonely, but keep to their own little cliques. Wherever you go, people form gangs; youths on street corners, old folks in day centres, yuppies in wine bars, ramblers on hilltops. We learn to live in our own little subculture; we live by its rules and think with its prejudices. Sometimes the cliques gang up on each other. Everyone is working to a different self-centred agenda; behind the scenes, society is disintegrating. Isn't it about time someone thought of a way of reintegrating people, before it's too late? Wouldn't it be great if you could get people of widely different ages, attitudes and outlooks to meet and communicate and learn to love and value each other? How wonderful it would be if children could grow up in a large extended family that includes the rich as well as the financially excluded, black as well as white; a place where class distinction or racial prejudice simply don't matter? If such an energetic mixed community committed itself to serve those who do not yet belong, imagine the impact they would have!

Communities like this exist: they are called churches. Churches are a great idea, they are God's idea.

But the trouble is, the twenty-first-century mind is clogged with misinformation about the church. `A church', a friend of mine once said, `is a building with a fundraising thermometer outside, proof positive that they are only after your money.' Christians are often no better informed and so the church fails to be all that it could be - a community of people transformed by the gospel, whose purpose, no less, is to transform the rest of society by faithfully proclaiming that same gospel.

This book is important because the church today is failing to be all that it could be. There is an urgent need to get a thorough understanding of God's blueprint; the text of Scripture itself. This book is important because it takes you through the seminal passages of Scripture that should inform our vision for our churches and because it encourages us to develop a truly Christian mind on the subject of the church.

The author is well qualified to be your guide. He knows his Bible better than almost anyone I know, and he belongs to a superb church where the things he teaches are believed and practised - I should know, I was once their pastor and they taught me more than I ever taught them. Graham Beynon's deep knowledge, passionate commitment and practical involvement have equipped him for the job; you won't get a better teacher than that! Study this book and use it to teach others - before it's too late!

Dave Burke
Bethany Christian Centre
Houghton-le-Spring

Edition details

• Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844740781
• ISBN 13: 9781844740789
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 137