Moore, Starting a New Church

This is the first book I read for PESM this year. Ralph Moore is the founder of the Hope Chapel Movement, and he plants churches in California and Hawaii (I know - that's called 'call envy'). I found myself alternatively loving this book for it's quick tips and practical ideas and hating it for it's focus on growing the church by putting butts in seats. Here's some stuff I highlighted:

>p.39 "If there is one predictor of success...in church planters, it has to be that the good ones are voracious readers. Well-read people tend to be able to find solutions to any problem and they always seem to have a fresh supply of ideas."

>p.144 "I preach without a pulpit...we meet between services at round tables under umbrellas in a courtyard. The setup resembles a large starbucks. This is intentional because our target audience for evangelism is still under 30...we work hard to look and feel different from any other church in our community."

Then I stoppped underlining. I have two MAJOR objections to this book. The first is that he gives his doctrine of tithing by comparing it to the doctrine of marriage. One is a sacrament, the other is not. This is ridiculous. the other is that Moore calls the baby boomers the "first postmodern generation" when what he means is the boomers are the first consumption based generation. postmodernism is wildly different than consumer driven culture. What he describes is clearly the latter.

Good try though...