OurColony.net

Excellent

Customer Rating:
After the Bible, this is the best book written for the church today. Bar None. If this book (the ideas in it) would be taken seriously, it will change the church in America - maybe save it from being like the church in Europe. I've recommended it to every single pastor I know.
Rev. Karen Walters

Authentic...

Customer Rating:
This is one of those books that you could read at any pace, but to really nudge out the details of the pages you really have to do alot of reflection. What i really like about the book was it opened up avenues for fresh questions and perspective. I found that by preasenting their concepts of ministry tried with real stories makes the book authentic. I love this. It gave a realistic vibe to it.

Autobiography of an Authentic Church

Customer Rating:
Starting a church based on the principle that people should feel safe to express themselves exactly as they are without any semblance of pretense, Burke wrote No Perfect People Allowed to chronicle how he dealt with the messiness that inevitably follows. The book is at its best when Burke simply relates stories of his interactions with authentic people and talks about how he approached each situation and why, but it stumbles when he starts talking about broader principles and the bigger picture. At the end of the book, Burke laments that the church has historically emphasized pastors as instruments of instruction while neglecting to enlist people with leadership gifts into the role, and one certainly gets the impression that Burke himself is more gifted as a leader than a teacher. His examples of practice are greatly superior to his contextualization of them. For example, while he has a reasonable grasp on interacting with people of the postmodern generation, Burke's short theoretical explanation of postmodernism is atrociously awful and carries the potential to mislead ministry leaders who may not have the academic background to discern how far offbase he is.

Fresh look at "doing church"

Customer Rating:
I was interested in this book because my church is launching a daughter church. The insights that Burke has are so dead on. My husband's Bible study decided to go through the book a chapter at a time, using the discussion questions at the end of each one. The questions are good - really make you think about how the church should look in this culture. I work in a non-profit organization. The entire staff bought the book and we've been using it during staff meetings. This book is accessible, but not "dumbed down" at all.

Wow!!!

Customer Rating:
Great book. I got the book from the library and have been using it for a college class. The book is very good and has actually casued me to rethink some of my ideas about non-christians. There are excellent stories in the book. It reminds me of how Jesus taught; in parables. I have never written a review here, but this book impressed me quite a bit.