Book Review: Gaining By Losing by J.D. Greear

In America, people are leaving the church. Some are doing it for the wrong reasons. Those reasons include the new pastor is not like the old one. The music is too loud. They don't have a "fun" youth ministry. Others leave the church because they have lost their faith in Christianity. They have seen organized religion in all of it's ugliness and want nothing to do with it.

Yet there are some leaving the church for the right reasons. Wait a minute, there is a right reason to leave a church? Other than leaving a church because of bad theology, which is a legitimate reason to walk out of a church, there is good reason people are leaving a church. The reason: they are planting new ones. In J.D. Greear's latest book, Gaining By Losing, he states that in order for the church to grow, the church must send their people out for missions.

Greear says there are good reasons why the church must focus on sending people out in the mission field no matter where it is. First, the increasingly post-Christian society where people will not walk into a church no matter how cool it may look. Second, Greear said, "Multiplication beats out addition, every time." Third, God's presence with those who send. Finally, Jesus promised greatness in a church that sends people. This may sound almost a prosperity gospelish but I can tell you it does not. We see in scripture how the early church continued to grow in spite of opposition.

The majority of the book deals with what Greear calls "plumb lines," which are directional markers for how his church, The Summit Church, builds their ministry in where they want to go in fulfilling the Great Commission. A few of those "plumb lines" include, swimming in the gospel, how to transform your audience into an army, your church doesn't need a missions pastor, and never giving up. One "plumb line" that caught my attention was about the church not needing a missions pastor. I must confess this one took me by surprise because a missions pastor was responsible to help the church be on mission and organizing mission trips and outreach opportunities. What Greear stresses is that every pastor is a missions pastor. Every pastor should be the one who get the church fired up for missions, not just one guy the church hires to do all of that.

All in all, this is a great book for everyone in the church to read. I think many Christians will see that the church was not just meant to bring people to Jesus but also send them out, which is not the case of many churches these days. This will be also an encouragement to churches to send people out in missions. I know for our church, we have lost people over the years who have gone to plant church whether here in the United States or in another country. This is Greear's best book since the one he wrote on the gospel.

Thanks Zondervan for letting me review this book.