Are you in a church that seems so incredibly busy that nothing seems to get done? Are the people in the church weary from activities? Do the ministers rarely get a break from their seven-day-a-week responsibilities?

If you've answered "yes" to any of the questions above, welcome to the crowd. Many churches today are becoming busier—and less effective...

When our team talks about a simple church, we have a very specific definition. It is a congregation designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth...

The beginning of the simple church revolution is to decide what your church really needs to reach people for Christ and to move people to become more devoted followers of Him. The tough task is to eliminate everything else that makes no difference in this process.

Start with defining your process of disciple-making. Align all that your church does around this process, and get rid of the programs and ministries that don't facilitate or nurture that process.

I love how it challenges churches that suffer from what the authors call "ministry schizophrenia." Simple Church calls all church leaders to articulate a clear process for spiritual growth, and to streamline all ministries and programs in keeping with that process...
Simple Church is a great, easy-to-understand concept that many churches need to hear. But the process of implementing it is not all that simple. My fear is that the difficulty of the process will get lost on readers who are looking for a quick fix for their ministry.

For example, one of the tenets of the Simple Church approach is "focus." According to the authors, this means "saying no to nearly everything" in an attempt to pare down the number of programs to those that are truly effective for the church's discipleship process.

My concern is that some leaders will simplify this tenet to merely chopping or eliminating programs. But it's one thing to chop a bunch of programs in an effort to simplify. It is another thing entirely–and far more difficult–to create a culture where simplicity is the prevailing mindset. Creating a culture is never simple. It takes months and years of cultivation, protection, and constant care.

The philosophy is simple. The process is not...

I am saying that it is far too easy for ministry leaders to look for the next quick fix, instead of doing the arduous work of praying, casting vision, building consensus, and developing an organizational culture that moves consistently toward that God-given vision. For this work, there is no substitute, and no simple solution.

From a Christianity Today review by Howard Snyder: link

The book's rather narrow definition of discipleship, with scarcely a mention of justice, and its limited research base should be noted. But this useful, brush-clearing book could help churches of any size move beyond mission statements to real mission.

Simple Church was an easy read, even with the statistical data that the authors decided to throw out, but still left me wanting. It was good to examine whether our church would be classified as “simple” or complex and I believe that consensus was that we need to be “more simple” even if we are already simple. We have a clear purpose statement and seek to align all of our ministries behind this purpose, yet as a large church, we still must resist the temptation of doing more. Bigger is not always better and more is not always best. Rather, we are to focus on what we do and do it well. I am excited about this next year as we have made a commitment as a church family to focus on Sundays and Wednesdays to make them the best that they possibly can be. Not a novel idea, but one that will help us each achieve a simple focus. However, Simple Church, although it does not claim to be the next church-growth model, seems to be simply a formulaic model for doing church. There is a glaring lack of biblical support for the “simple” model given in the book. Not that there is not biblical evidence that can be used to support how the church ought to be simple in its focus, but this evidence is not given in Simple Church. It is not void of scriptural references, but it seems to rely on the survey data that the book was complied around, rather than a biblical approach to how Christ sees His Church and how it ought to function. The subtitle, “Returning to God’s Process For Making Disciples” is therefore misleading as we are not called to return to anything other than statistical analysis.

Perhaps both a strength and a weakness of the book is that it does not tell one actually how to implement this. The implementation is left to the imagination of the pastors who will have to make it happen. It is implied that simple design means using small groups. This need not be so. Other models for simple design could be focus on a worship service and then visitation by the pastor. This model has been successful. Elders (deacons or other lay leaders) follow the example of the pastor and visit those in need. Another model that I have seen used is the Navigator model of one-to-one discipleship. I have never seen this used as a sole means of discipleship but I think it could be done in a simple design church. While the book has a strength in not actually offering a design outright, it also has a weakness in not seeing a variety of simple designs. The authors point to one certain design to follow, that is the small group church, rather than simply discussing design features that make a strong design and listing a variety of examples. A variety of designs should be listed in the updated for future versions of the book. Also, churches in other cultures should also be addressed as well as churches in other periods of history. Adding these to the research, not the illustrations, could help to make the book transcend the immediate context of today.