Stuart Murray Williams & Juliet Kilpin, Grove, 2007What is it? Juliet and Stuart (both members of the Incarnate Network) reflect on what it is like to plant churches in the inner city and run a mission agency with no money.
Who are the authors?
Check out their Incarnate Network profiles Stuart Murray Williams and Juliet Kilpin
Content and style?
This booklet does what it says on the tin (well the cover) it is a "concise exploration" of Urban Expression and Church planting in an inner city context.
How did you respond to it?
In the Christian sub-culture church planting has a kind glamorous appeal. When a church is known as a planting church it is held in high regard by those around it. The truth is that planting churches is hard work, weather your planting in a sub-urban, rural or inner city context. I like this booklet because it gives a little window into the hard work and long term nature of church planting in the inner city context.
"[Some] expect Sunday morning gatherings with hundreds swarming to an expression of alternative worship equipped with Powerpoint and large screen. Instead they might find a small gathering of recovering addicts eating together, praying for and supporting one another." ...comments like that make the book an inspiring as well as informative. Sometimes that authors seem a little frustrated with some of the models that are used to plant churches and they obviously have a desire for Suburban churches to see the hidden work of inner city church planting.
Who you would/wouldn't you recommend it to? Why?
It is a straight forward book, anyone could read it. Although there is an academic bias to the book it is written in Stuart's accessible style. It was fun trying to guess which bits were written by Juliet and which by Stuart!
Summing up
As well as a description of Inner City Church planting and the Story of How Urban Expression came about, there is also some general background information on Church Planting in the UK.
Rating: 4/5
