Joel Comiskey

I’m not a church planter, and I’m not familiar with the world of model-based church planting approaches. However, when Planting Churches that Reproduce showed up unexpectedly in my review pile I decided to read it in any case. Some of the terms appealed to me – simple church, house church etc. Having been a part of fulfilling fellowships that operated in homes I was eager to hear what the author had to say about these approaches to body-life.

So, while Comiskey is writing to an audience somewhat different than what I represent, I still found his book to be interesting and inspiring in terms of the potential for small, cell and home based methods of fellowship. Sometimes the language was more model-heavy and aptitude-heavy than it was Christ-centric, but Comiskey does make it clear that without Christ nothing is going to go well, and there are always exceptions to models and aptitude tests.

Comiskey draws upon his personal experiences as a church planter, as well as the successes and mistakes of others to explore some best practices for establishing reproducing fellowships. This is a very well referenced title that - while brief - covers all of the basics and provides a great deal of material for further study in the appendixes and bibliography for further research.

Anyone called to plant smaller churches that aren’t so much program based, as they are people based will find much here to help them get a solid start. The cell and celebration model (or networked house churches) is one that my husband has expressed when envisioning an ideal church, so I was excited to read that this model is actually being practiced elsewhere.

Reviewed at quiverfullfamily.com… (altro)