The Dust Off Their Feet: Lessons From the First Church

OK, I will refer you again to a couple of posts from the past. First, remember my post about the guy (JC Oden was his name) that contacted me about reading the two books from The Voice. I wrote a review on the first book, The Last Eyewitness: The Final Week not quite a month ago. Well, the time has come for my look at the second book in The Voice Project, The Dust off Their Feet: Lessons From the First Church.

This book came in a few different parts. The First Section was a retelling of the entire book of Acts by Brian McLaren. Much like the last book was with the Book of John, it was written as if Luke was actually telling the story. The Second and Third sections were a series of commentaries on the Books of Acts and its relationship to the church of today.

The Second section specifically dealt with the church of Acts and how it was an evolving church. The original church struggled to change from a group of mainly Jewish believers to a group that was open to and exceedingly more focused on the Gentiles, just as Christ had promised would happen. How were the Jewish leaders to go about accepting the Gentiles? What parts of the Jewish Law did they need to follow? Did they need to be circumcised? Did they need to become converts to Judaism? How attached to the old synagogues and Jewish customs did the new church, with both Jews and Gentiles, need to be?

The third section dealt with the evolving church of today. How are we to do work in this changing world of ours? How is the "post-modern" church to remain connected to, and yet independent of the traditional churches that have played such a major role in the past?

What I loved about the retelling of the Book of Acts is that I was more excited about the Book of Acts than I was the retelling of it. The life of the book seemed to be there. It was a definite story that moved from a focus on a group of Jewish believers in Christ to a focus on a church that God was forcing to move further and further out into the world, away from the Jews and towards the Gentiles throughout the world. It's exciting to think that Luke, who wrote Acts, writes at the beginning of his second book that these are still the workings of Christ. His work didn't stop when He left earth for heaven. It continued on, only now it is through the work of this young, growing, stumbling church.

This book was a good read for me. The 2nd and 3rd sections had essays on church planting, church growth, megachurches, discipleship, field work, cross-cultural work, Paul, Peter, Stephen, and more. I recommend the book! Again, borrow mine, give it a read.

The Dust Off Their Feet: Lessons From the First Church by Chris Seay and Friends. Check it out.

Later guys,
Matt

P.S. Remember, you can read the first couple of chapters from each of the books at www.hearthevoice.com.