Finding Organic Church by Frank Viola is probably about the closest a book will ever come to providing a “how to” for simple, organic, house church gatherings. This is both its genius and its downfall.

As millions of people across the country and around the world leave the institutional church—you know, the one with the buildings, paid pastoral staff, and weekly schedule of church services and Bible studies—they often don’t know what to do with themselves after leaving. Viola’s book, Finding Organic Church, is a good guide to help them find or develop a community of like-minded people with whom they can live and worship.

While I haven’t read everything on the subject, I know of no other book like it on the market, and it really helped answer some of my own questions and provide me some direction as I seek to follow Jesus by loving and serving others in my community. The book provided a fairly clear picture of Viola’s experience with the organic church and the Scriptural basis for this model.

I think the book is a good starting place for anyone like myself who has left the Institutional Church and is trying to answer the question, “What next?”

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Bonar Crump is an aggressive blogger, and his book, Throwing Hammers – The Separation of Church and Self follows the same approach. It is edgy, squirm-in-your-seat, good writing.

He certainly has something to say, even if you don’t like how he says it. Frankly, however, I think he writes what a lot of people think and feel, but do not have the courage to say. Well, Crump says it. And with gusto.

Like what? Well, cover the eyes and ears of your children, here are some examples:

The deceptions of the Christian community never cease to amaze me. Incantations, rituals, robes, hymns, sacred readings, holy relics, holy writings, holy gestures, holy shit…” (p. 17).

We’ve created a system of healing which is completely off-limits to anyone that might be bleeding, infectious, or near death. We’ve segregated ourselves from those we can help the most. We’ve erected so many barriers between our hospitals and the outside world that we have become irrelevant! WTF indeed… (p. 35).

Why do we tolerate pricks within our churches? I’m not talking about among the folks being ministered to—I’m talking about within the ministerial branches of our churches (i.e. pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, nursery workers, etc.). …If you area prick and you are making life difficult for the rest of us then you have to pack your shit and go! We’ve got enough problems around here meeting people’s needs and teaching them how to love their neighbors without you setting such a piss poor example! (p. 59).

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