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The Connecting Church 2.0: Beyond Small Groups to Authentic Community By Randy Frazee



In The Connecting Church 2.0, Randy Frazee explored the configuration of the church in today’s times and how over the years it has changed dramatically. This version of the book is a revised edition. Randy Frazee begins the book by introducing characters Bob and Karen. They have two children and both spouses work busy filled jobs. Like most Americans, they struggling with having enough time during the day to get everything completed. Most nights they fix frozen meals because they don’t have the time to cook and prepare proper meals. Sometimes they even are bringing home work. They attend a small group that meets every other week. They are wanting to have deeper friendships and more meaningful relationships. But the small group setting just isn’t enough connection to make lasting relationships. They are longing and looking for more but they don’t know how to obtain it.

 

Randy Frazee pointed out that God has created us for community and connection with other people. He backed this up with research on the importance of community. One study at the Ohio State University Medical Center revealed that marriage improves your health, boosts immune systems, and you heal faster from sickness. Having intimacy in our marriages is more important than we may realize. Another study conducted has shown that males that provide and take care of their children have attachment hormones and they bond to them. Positive relationship is what all of us long for but many of us struggle to find people we can be real with, hang out with, and share our deepest secrets.

 

The book stated that God is consisted of three persons known as the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He desires to know each person He created intimately. Adam was created from the dust of the earth and God knew that it wasn’t good for man to be alone. Some of us like to be independent and we believe that we can survive in this life without letting anyone know the real us. Connecting with others require risk that not everyone is willing to take. God has written the book of Acts to prove that we need others and community.

 

The book covered “Five Characteristics of Community Around a Common Place”. Some of these included frequency, sharing meals, availably, and more. The book also included ways and suggestions on how to create an authentic community and reach out to your fellow neighbors.

 

I would recommend this helpful resource to anyone who are longing to find noteworthy relationship with your neighbors and community. Time have changed and most of us don’t even know our neighbors names. I can honestly say this was talking about me because I don’t know many of them. I live on my own land so it’s a little bit more challenging to find people to start a friendship with. But really I haven’t tried. The biggest concept that I found myself agreeing with was the author’s findings on how important uniting with others truly is. I thought the suggestion of inviting people over to share a meal, pray, read the word, pray together, and serve our neighbors was immensely beneficial. I believe that Randy Frazee is living what the book preaches and I would love to be able to experience the deep connection among my neighbors that he has. This book will change churches and communities for the better if we apply the principles presented. Authentic communities are something most of us are looking for and it’s been around us the whole time and it’s still possible to have deep friendships! This book will inspire you to reach out to others, get to know more people, and develop a community. If everyone would form a friendship and create a community of believers with their neighbors imagine, how much the world would be happier and fulfilled.

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy of The Connecting Church 2.0, then check it out on Amazon.com:

 


 

“I received this book for free from Cross Focused Reviews / Zondervan for this review”.

1 comments:

Andrew,

Thanks for contributing to the blog tour.

Shaun Tabatt
Cross Focused Reviews

 

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