Gospel Community

I am reading a book right now called Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis (the 2 founders of the Crowded House Ministries in the UK). The book is basically all about shaping churches around the gospel and community, which community in itself must be gospel centered as well, because without the gospel, no community. They have a part that explains the failure of churches in the UK when it comes to gospel centered churches, but I believe this can relate to the majority of churches in America as well. Here it is, word for word, let me know what you think:

"The reason the UK church is not effective in mission is because we are not making disciples who can live well for Christ in today's culture and engage compellingly with the people they meet....Jesus has a 'train and release' strategy, while overall we have a 'convert and retrain' strategy." In the last twenty years, it claimed, we have produced plenty of creative evangelistic materials, but little to help Christians connect their faith to the whole of life. This has created a sacred-secular divide: "the pervasive belief that some things are important to God--such as church, prayer meetings, social action etc. -- but other human activities are at best neutral -- work, school, sport, leisure, the arts, rest, sleep." As a result:

The vast majority of Christians have not been helped to see that who they are and what they do every day in schools, workplaces, or clubs is significant to God, nor that the people they spend time with in those everyday contexts are the people God is calling them to pray for, bless, and witness to. So we pray for our Sunday services but not, for example, for schoolteachers working 40 hours a week in schools among children and adults who on the whole don't know Jesus. We pray for oversees missionaries but not for Christian electricians, builders, shop assistants and managers in our own towns.... We have simply not been envisioned, resourced and supported to share the Good News of Jesus in our everyday contexts.

Pretty good stuff huh? You guys and gals should check the book out, it has blown me away. The authors close this specific chapter with this:

"We need non-full time leaders who can model whole-life, gospel-centered, missional living. It means thinking of our workplaces, homes, and neighborhoods as the location of mission."

I really like that. My own personal opinion is that the Church's biggest failure has been pushing people to invite people to church, instead of preparing them to share the gospel with people. Romans 1:16 says the gospel is the power of salvation, not the Church. We are to live out the gospel, for God uses the gospel alone to save, not our unique ways of getting people in a worship service. I hope this made everyone think like it did me.