Organic Ministry to Women--A Kregal Book Review

**UPDATED REVIEW 10/20/2019** I did finish reading the book. While previously I didn't think that I would be able to finish it, I had some time this week and weekend to give each topic some thought. While many who agree with the transformational model probably will enjoy this book, my original thoughts towards the book stand. I was excited to get the book and especially excited that the book was geared towards women. My disappointment started as I began reading and came across the question "Is Jesus asking us to change?" I think this is a loaded question; especially in that Jesus asks us to change, but His words don't change. I can tell you that this book focuses a lot on leadership and teams/committees. I think the book has some potential, especially in our "Purpose driven society" and our post-modern megachurches--however, in our smaller rural congregations, seeing how we can implement things is quite harder. I can't say that I recommend this book, unless you are in a larger church or you have loads of ministry geared towards women. At present, after reading the entire book, I can say that my original thoughts stand, the book is too liberal for me, but somewhere out there is a ministry that could benefit from the book. 

I get excited over books that I think will help me grow in ministry and I was completely excited when I read the title of the book. At first, I thought “YES! This is a great book, we can teach women by using traditional methods and it will work! Finally authors who agree with me.” I stopped reading by page 30 due to the question “Is Jesus asking you to change?” It goes on to talk about how our methods of traditional preaching aren’t reaching postmodern women. Yet study after study shows that when we change our methods of preaching and teaching from traditional to secular we are not meeting the needs of the church. The threat to the church isn’t our traditional teaching, according to Timothy Lawless it is “A number of problems face the modern, western Church, including loss of faith in the Church as an institution, the growing influence of liberal theology and mainline denominations, the cultural shift to postmodern philosophical and religious views, and the rejection of absolute propositional truth.”

Since I didn’t read in-depth past page 30 and only skimmed the topics, I can tell you that the book discusses various models to ministering to women. Models that they [the authors] think are working, yet when you research them through various online sources you see that they are declining. This book is geared towards colleges wanting to set up small group ministries which are also outlined in Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church. Small groups are fine, but you risk denigrating others who are not in your clique. 

I had high hopes for this book; my expectation was a book that would address what we are doing right. Instead I found models that I had read in other books, or have experienced for myself and the failure of how those models worked. I continued to skim through the book, but never found a model that I felt would work for my rural NC congregation. In my researching, what I found instead is that even in our postmodern age, young women are joining more traditional, liturgical denominations—notably the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox branches of the faith. This trend is deeper than denominational waffling: it’s a search for meaning that goes to the heart of our postmodern age. The postmodern generation is seeking a holistic, honest, yet mysterious truth that their current churches cannot provide. Where they search will have large implications for the future of Christianity. Protestant churches that want to preserve their youth membership may have to develop a greater openness toward the treasures of the past. One thing seems certain: this “sacramental yearning” will not go away.

So while the book may have some benefit to local college campuses in helping set up small groups, it doesn’t provide any real lasting solutions to ministering to women. 

This book was provided to me by the publisher for a non-biased, honest opinion.