From The Ground Up: New Testament Foundations For The 21st Century Church

By J. Scott Horrell

A back-to-the-basics look at what it means to be the church - defined by the New Testament instead of culture or tradition. Veteran pastor, professor, and church planter, J.Scott Horrell, suggests that the customs, patterns, and structures of our churches may actually be barriers to what God 's purposes for the Church really are.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0825428912
• ISBN13: 9780825428913
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Kregel Academic & Professional
• Length: 109 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.3" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Good Book to Take Us Back to a Right Understanding

Horrell's book is a very short "primer" on the New Testament model for doing church. It is simple in its overtones, well grounded in Scripture, and convicting as we think about how the churches we see today don't necessarily draw all their practices from New Testament teaching. Horrell adequately makes the point that we tend to draw much of what we do from tradition and even an Old Testament way of doing things. I would like to have seen a little less repetition - he makes the main points several times - and more concrete examples of how a return to this vision might play out. There are some, including a fascinating look at how one church does communion, but I would love to see Dr. Horrell apply his prodigious intelligence to the topic of extended application. (I have had Dr. Horrell's class in seminary, and he is very credible with experience internationally, in various church settings, and at the seminary level.) This book, I think, will blow some doors off the reader's understanding and really get him/her thinking. For that, I think it is a brilliant, short "essay" on how we could think differently about how we "do church."

A Timely Book

This is a great book that challenges the cultural traditions of today's western churches. Not that all cultural traditions are necessarily bad, but when these traditions become understood and taught by many to be absolute doctrine, we get very close to becoming modern day Pharisees. Dr. Horrell floats a notiion that our churches of today model the Old Testament temples much more than the early New Testament church. This premise is well supported by many examples. Great work. Oh, how the world needs the church to function as the body of Christ.

Required for Church Planting

This work is tremendously helpful for the present day church planter. With all of the planning, praying, and advice out there, this book provides focus to what really matters. The theology behind every church plant must have the solid foundation built on Scripture and history. As church planter's in France, My team and I will be reading this book every year when we evaluate whether we have inadvertently moved off of our "ecclesiological moorings." Thank you, Scott, for this important and timely book.