Today we’re reviewing, discussing, and giving away To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City by Eric Swanson and Sam Williams. Keep reading to learn how you can win a free copy.
In To Transform a City, Erick Swanson and Sam Williams call the leaders of local churches to work together to transform their cities, not just spiritually but socially, economically, educationally and more by serving with and within the public, private, and social sectors of their cities.
Swanson and Williams write that for the last 100 years or so, churches in the United States have been internally focused – on personal salvation and growing their number of members. But that is a historical anomaly. Jesus spent much of his time teaching about the Kingdom of God, and that God was already at work making right the wrongs and transforming this broken world we live in. Christianity is not primarily about “saving” people for heaven or building churches, but rather transforming people so that they can transform their communities to look more like the Kingdom of God, where there is peace, freedom, justice, community, health, and less suffering.
The book provides many examples of churches that have joined forces with other churches, government, schools, and social service organizations to transform their communities, and provides guidance for how you can begin to joining together with others to transform your community.
Personal Thoughts
Few books have gotten me as excited as To Transform a City has.
Swanson and Williams cast a vision for both personal and community transformation that is missing from most U.S. churches today. Christians in the U.S. need to hear that we have not just been saved FROM our sins (and are just biding time until heaven) but we have been saved FOR the purpose of joining God in the building of his kingdom here on earth.
A lot of people inside the church in this country are bored because their pastors have cast too small a vision. What is the vision of the typical American church? To grow by 10% To inspire people to become deacons and Sunday school teachers? No offense to the deacons and Sunday school teachers out there, but those roles do not resonate with big-dog leaders, dreamers and risk-takers. Furthermore, a lot of people outside the church have a negative view of Christianity because Christians and their churches have never done anything to serve their communities.
What if instead, our church’s vision was to eliminate homelessness in our community, help every 3rd grader learn to read, make sure our communities are free of crime, transform the rundown areas into places of beauty, create thriving businesses that provide good wages and benefits to employees, and care for our widows, orphans, single-moms, and addicts?
And what if because the ways we loved the people in our communities, people who were hurt and jaded in the past by self-centered churches wanted to know what’s behind all these people who are serving and sacrificing to make these things happen?
Does that get you excited?
If it does, I encourage you to get a copy of To Transform a City. Read it, discuss it with the leaders in your church, and begin transforming your city. And by the way, it’s not just for church leaders, if you’re a leader in business, education, government, or social services, you’ll appreciate the vision, examples, and strategy provided in the book as well.
Discussion
- Do you share Swanson & Williams’ “kingdom theology?” Do you believe God is building his kingdom here on earth and He is transforming people not just for heaven but to join him now in kingdom building?
- If you’re a Christian, does your church have a vision for transforming its community?
- What do you think about churches partnering with other churches as well as secular organizations to have a bigger impact in their communities?
Get a Free Book
If you’d like a free copy of To Transform a City, all you have to do is
- Retweet this post or share it on Facebook, and
- Post a comment addressing one of the discussion questions above (include your Facebook or Twitter usename in your comment so I can connect your comment to your share/tweet).
I’m gonna try something different this time… the winner will be selected Friday at 4 PM Eastern. That’s 3 days from now. If you want to increase your chances of winning you can tweet/share/comment once a day giving you up to 3 chances to win.
Or you can buy a copy of To Transform a City now.
I have always believed that we should manifest the Kingdom now. Even though a lot of times this may get viewd at as the “social gospel”, Jesus has called us to assist in transforming people so that they can transform society. There will always be that tension to do both transform people and places, but I see that it can be done due to the fact that we are co-laborers with God and salvation speaks to the whole man and his condition. The area of call is bigger than just clergy and deacons. We are kings and priests unto the Lord so that means we have a ruling function in some area of influence as well as an intercessory role to walk in. Luke 4:18-19 and Matthew chapter 25 speaks to us being socially involved but of course not at the expense of seeing peopel their need of repentence and accepting Jesus. it’s not an either or it’s both. Our soclai withness and works should point to God(Mattehew 5:14-16). Blessings!!
You got it, Dominique! Great comment!
“Christianity is not primarily about ‘saving’ people for heaven or building churches, but rather transforming people so that they can transform their communities to look more like the Kingdom of God, where there is peace, freedom, justice, community, health, and less suffering.”
That’s an idea I could get behind. The only thing I’d add is that the church doesn’t often enough work with people and businesses to meet the community’s needs in partnership with the church, organizing and empowering teachers, managers, around a shared goal.
It’s a big challenge because so many attempts to work together get bogged down in theological debates…
Hey Marcus, thanks for commenting. I agree completely on both points. The book addresses both as well. Churches definitely can do a better job of partnering with local businesses. And it’s a shame that churches allow differences in theology to prevent them from working together towards a shared vision for the kingdom of God.
Your comments thing doesn’t like me, it didn’t accept my comment last night. So I’ll say something again.
I think it’d be great to see churches in the area partnering together to serve and change the community. Currently however there is only maybe one church in the area that sort of does outreach outside of their building..none of them really seem to believe in community outreach here which is sad. It’s part of my dream to see my home church serve outside the building in the community and then maybe get other churches on board too.
Hey Becky, I’m glad to hear this is your dream. Just because your church and other churches in your community aren’t doing this yet, doesn’t mean it can’t happen. In fact, maybe God wants to use you as a catalyst to transform your city.
Have you ever shared this dream with your close friends at church? Maybe you’d find 5-6 friends who share your dream & together you can serve at community center or homeless shelter. Maybe one of you has friends at another church who could join you to do a trash clean-up day.
Every great movement starts with one person with a vision and a passion to make it reality. 🙂
Thanks Paul, I have shared part of this dream with a few others at my home church who believe like I do..we’re sort of a dead church (though not many believe or admit it) but believing one day we’ll be alive and on fire for God again. They are also the ones I’d share this part of the dream with when I get the chance.
You have some great ideas. We are in a very small town though so we don’t have homeless or community centers and most places and parks are really clean but we could come up with some other creative ideas like partnering with the community for events or shoveling driveways to name a few.
I’m going to start by emailing our pastors and maybe the head of the mission team too about it..I think that is where I’m supposed to start.
Sounds good, Becky. I would just encourage you though not to wait for the pastor and head of the missions team to take the lead. Maybe they will, but more it’s more likely they won’t do anything… except say ok if you offer to take the lead. 🙂
OK. Going for another chance to win the book! Here’s another way the church can partner with the secular community around it: here’s a movie called “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers” (http://lordsaveusthemovie.com/) that some of you might have heard of.
They have screened it at college campuses and then done Q&A’s with the director (a partnership of a local church member-sponsor and a secular school) and in churches. Also, since the movie closes with a look at a movement to help homeless people, you could use this movie as a rallying event on the eve of a large social outreach (food pantry work, etc.) that both people of faith and also secular people in the community could collaborate on.
Cool! Thanks for posting the idea!
Alrighty, I’ve assigned a number to each comment and then randomly selected a number using random.org. And the winner of To Transform a City is…
Marcus Goodyear
Congrats Marcus!
Thanks to every who commented/shared/retweeted. Thank you to Zondervan for providing me with a copy of the book to review and one to giveaway.
If you didn’t win, you can pick up a copy on Amazon at: http://ow.ly/3QC7e
Wow. I never win anything! Thanks for hosting such a great survey of the book, Paul.
Have you ever considered joining the high calling network?
My pleasure. I’m glad the theme of the book resonates with you.
Actually, I joined last week. 🙂
Paul – thanks for sharing this. I just posted links on all my social network platforms. Warm wishes, – Nadine
Thanks Nadine. I thought the multi-sector approach to transforming cities would resonate with you. 🙂