I wouldn’t normally be the type to start writing a positive review before completely finishing a book, but I’ve been enjoying Frank Viola’s Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity immensely.
Viola is not merely a theorist. In 1988, he left what he calls “institutional Christianity” and began meeting in “organic churches”.
Organic churches are not the latest vegan trend. They are local gatherings mapped to what we read in the New Testament. They seek to practice Christianity as it was practiced in the first century, minus any details that were merely a product of the culture(s) in which the early church grew and thrived. The result is a church that, at least on paper, seems both relevant and authentically “New Testament” in ways I’ve never seen before.