Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come

This weekend I finished reading The Shaping Of Things To Come by Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch. In this book Australians Frost & Hirsch lay out their critique of the Western church and present their thoughts on how the church is to reshape herself (identity, leadership, mission, governance, etc.) for today's postmodern culture and context.Frost & Hirsch say some good things in this book. I found their critique of the predominant "attractional" church model in the West to be fair and helpful. Some of their proposals for how to re-shape how we do church were also helpful. Yet, overall, I disagreed with much of the church critique and proposed body of Christ re-shaping presented by Frost & Hirsch.Like Frost & Hirsch, I'm very much committed to exegeting and understanding culture and context so as to best incarnate and express the gospel as a church. Yet  when  cultural exegesis  eclipses the exegesis of Scripture, there's a problem. I thought just such an eclipse transpired in nearly every chapter of this book. Nonetheless this book made me think. It's often the books that I disagree with the most that cause me to think the most. I'm thankful I read it. Here's my favorite quote from Frost & Hirsch, a great quote that expresses a truth we should all latch onto in considering how to reach people's hearts with the gospel:

"Missionaries and leaders do well to learn that people are motivated by their deepest pleasures, and if we can connect these to God, we will have established a vital bridge into the lives of ordinary people."