I was recently asked if I would be interested in reading a book titled, “The Rabbit and the Elephant” as part of a virtual book tour. I am always interested in books about church growth and church planting, so I agreed to take part in the process and write a review that I would post on my blog.

I have chosen my Church Growth Consulting site because I feel that the book has some great insights into church growth and church planting issues. I started the book with a little skepticism, because I pastor what the book might call a “legacy church”. However, as I dug into the book, the author’s (Tony and Felicity Dale) painted a picture of what “simple church” looked like and I felt as though it opened up a lot of new avenues for me to ponder. I don’t personally see the “simple church” idea as a complete replacement for “legacy churches”, but I can see a lot of potential for them to work side by side in the harvest field.

Chapter 13 provides a great discussion on Luke 10 principles. When Luke 10 is looked at in light if the “simple church” process it seems to really fit well. I also enjoyed reading the chapter called “Stories From the Harvest”. The story about the “Church at Table Number Two” reminded me of some of my own missionary/church planting experiences. We had started churches that met in funny places and we gave them names to match. One of them was called “Light Bulb Church” because we started that church by stringing an electric cord with a light bulb in the center of it between two apartment buildings that were about fifteen feet apart. We had another church we started we called “Garage Church” because they met in a garage.

One of the biggest advantages I found in reading the book was the challenge to not get stuck in our definitions of what a church “is”. I have gotten used to starting small groups and home groups and affinity groups in my area with the idea of gradually assimilating the people gathered into our existing church. I am now thinking that the goal doesn’t need to include those people ever stepping foot in our church building. The goal is just to meet people where they are and get them o step into the Kingdom.

“The Rabbit and The Elephant” by Tony and Felicity Dale is a worthwhile addition to your reading list. It is a quick read and flows well. It also includes some interesting statistics from George Barna. One of the statistics that jumped out at me was that “the average Protestant church probably sees no converts in any given year”. That really shocked me! I hope you will read the book and I would be interested in having you comment about your thoughts as well. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the book, you can use the link below.

The Rabbit and the Elephant: Releasing the Mega Impact of Micro Churches By Tony Dale, Felicity Dale & George Barna / Tyndale House

We are starting a couple of new blogs for web ministry here as part of our church growth consulting site.  One of the new sites is Church Growth (www.churchgrowthblog.com) and the other is Church Planting (www.churchplantingblog.com).  These site are being developed to research the latest ideas and principles in the fields of Church Growth and Church Planting.  They will also provide opportunites for people involved in the process to find support and share encouragement with one another.

It will take some time for these sites to begin to get traffic from the search engines.   Our initial focus with these sites will be doing the hard work of making them search engine friendly.  Once we begin to see some movement on the search engines we will change our focus and begin to set the sites up to fulfill the purpose we are creating them for, advancing the Kingdom of God.

We beleive these site will work well with the Church Growth Consulting site, the Church Web Master Online site, and the Web Ministry Online site.  We encourage you to visit all of our sites and pray that they will be a blessing to you.  If you have any questions feel free to contact us at any time.