Secondly, you have a valid point that Doug shouldn’t discredit every other method.

Finally, I’m glad you aren’t letting that keep you from seeing the good stuff he has to say.

“it’s more about your hunger as an individual and as a group maybe, than about the church’s mode of operation.”

My issue is not with Doug’s choice of modes. I embrace the mode and hope it becomes the rule rather than the exception. It just irks me a bit when we dismiss all other “modes” as ineffective.

It’s not small groups per se, and it’s not the preaching as talking-head-from-platform. Maybe it’s “effective” for those who engage the sermon (or the podcast or the book) in a way that at least mentally you’re going back and forth with the material. There might not be a real conversation, but you’re taking it in, chewing it up, pushing it back, getting something back, etc. There’s a give-and-take in the individual that wants to do that.

But where it’s ineffective is in letting those who want to sit to just sit. They listen without ears that want to hear, perhaps, and leave with nothing changed. Just a thought – they think they’re changed, or at least better off for coming and sitting, but there’s no real transformation other than they leave maybe a little more deluded and diluted than before.

Then it’s more about your hunger as an individual and as a group maybe, than about the church’s mode of operation. Back to Doug’s book, if the mode changes to make the effective part more likely, is that a good thing? In a real give-and-take, rather than the virtual kind that happens in most churches here, does it make it more likely that you as an individual will be challenged and transformed on some level? Will the best stuff rise to the top? Will consensus be enough motivation to actually do and not just be a hearer?

I love pushing back, don’t you?