2019 World Magazine Book of the Year Short List
2019 The Gospel Coalition Book Award
2019 Send Institute's Top Ten Church Planting Related Books of 2019
Kevin De Young's Top 10 Books of 2019
Jesus loves small, insignificant places.
In recent years, Christian ministries have increasingly prioritized urban areas. Big cities and suburbs are considered more strategic, more influential, and more desirable places to live and work. After all, they're the centers for culture, arts, and education. More and more people are leaving small places and moving to big ones. As a ministry strategy, focusing on big places makes sense.
But the gospel of Jesus is often unstrategic. In this book, pastor Stephen Witmer lays out an integrated theological vision for small-place ministry. Filled with helpful information about small places and with stories and practical advice from his own ministry, Witmer's book offers a compelling, comprehensive vision for small-place ministry today.
Jesus loves small places, and when we care deeply about them and invest in them over time, our ministry becomes a unique picture of the gospel—one that the world badly needs to see.
สารบัญ
Foreword: Ray Ortlund
Introduction: My Small-Place Story
Part I: What Are the Small Places Like?
Small Places Are Better and Worse Than We Think
1. Taking a Fresh Look at Small Places
2. Why Small Places Are Better Than We Think
3. Why Small Places Are Worse Than We Think
Part II: How Can We Minister Fruitfully in Small Places?
Developing a Theological Vision for Small-Place Ministry
4. The Source and Goal of Small-Place Ministry: A Shaping Gospel and a See-Through Church
5. Strategic Isn’t Always What We Think
6. Small Is Usually Better Than We Think
7. Slow Is Often Wiser Than We Think
8. Fruitful Small-Place Ministry: The Circle and the Arrow
9. Battling Joy Killers in Small-Place Ministry
Part III: Should I Be Ministering in a Small Place?
Reasons Not to Do Small-Place Ministry, Reasons You Should, and Reasons to Consider
10. Good and Bad Reasons Not to Do Small-Place Ministry
11. Good and Bad Reasons to Do Small-Place Ministry
12. Common Reasons to Prioritize Big-Place Ministry
Conclusion: Pray Big, Trust God, Work Hard
Acknowledgments
Notes
เกี่ยวกับผู้แต่ง
Ortlund (Ph.D., Unversity of Aberdeen) is senior minister at Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He has pastored churches in California, Oregon and Georgia and was formerly professor of Old Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He is also the author of A Passion for God (Eerdmans).