Be inspired to grow in your love for and commitment to your local church as you understand what it means to belong to God’s family.
God calls us to be "devoted to one another in love" (Romans 12:10). What does this look like for us today? How can we be the kind of church member who makes a real difference?
This timely and engaging book by Tony Merida explores what church is, why being part of it is exciting, and why it’s worthy of our love and commitment. He sets out eight privileges and responsibilities of a church member: to belong, to welcome, to gather, to care, to serve, to honour, to witness and to send.
Whether you're new to your local church or have been attending for some time, this book will re-energise you with God’s vision for the local church.
A discussion guide at the end of book makes Love Your Church a great resource for reading with other church members.
Intro: Family
1. Belong
2. Welcome
3. Gather
4. Care
5. Serve
6. Honor
7. Witness
8. Send
Outro: Love Your Church
| Contributors | Tony Merida |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 9781784986094 |
| Format | eBook |
| First published | June 2021 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | The Good Book Company |
The kind of book that I want to put into the hands of every person in our church. It reads like a conversation with a wise friend over a coffee, patiently walking us into a compelling vision of what Jesus wants our church to look like. Each chapter comes loaded with practical and easily implementable next steps.
It’s easy to say grand things about the church as an abstract concept. It’s possible to propound a high view of ‘the church’, all the while having a relatively low view of the actual churches we go to. This book is a pastor’s call to love ‘the church’ by loving our churches. Through eight short, punchy chapters, Tony encourages us to embrace all that God has for us in the motley crew that makes up the local church.
Jesus loves his church—his bride—enough to die for her. Often we can take our church for granted, be lukewarm or lazy (going through the revolving door of church life on someone else’s push). Yet to belong to the people of God is a great privilege and responsibility. Tony Merida shows us from the Bible the why and how of loving our church. His message is clear and urgent, because loving our church will have value into eternity.
These studies are frustrating. The bible passages are treated very superficially, usually only 2 or 3 questions on the passage out of around 10-12 total questions, and then often only selected parts of the passage.
The questions are quite leading, seemingly with assumptions behind the questions that are hard to find in the passage. This makes for quite "agenda'd" studies.
Sometimes it is impossible to know what the questions are getting at as there are no suggested answers for the leader, and it is not clear what part of the passage (if any) they are referring to.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis on the obligations of church members and little on the obligations of church leaders.
Good for ideologues, not so good for Bereans.
We are still using this in our home group. I thought a chapter a week but we have spent 3 weeks in chapter 3, gathering. So provoking, so challenging. A marvellous resource, reminds me of six ways to love your church (Mathias), but more. Please consider this for your kin.
This book helped shape a biblical view of the body of Christ in our church plant! We used this awesome book along with worksheets, videos, etc. for our in-home discipleship groups! Easy to use, very biblical content, concisely and practically written, and my favorite thing: action steps at the end of each chapter! Thank you Tony and TGB!
Our church uses this book for our new members class and it's been well received. I love the accessibility for all levels of readers, but without losing content quality. Great work, as always, by Tony Merida. And the customer experience The Good Book Co offers can't be topped. Thanks!
This in an excellent, gospel driven book with content that gets to the heart of each chapter heading without being overly scholarly or intimidating for the average church member. The only thing I would have personally liked to see as a charasmatic would have been an awareness of the life of the spirit in the church, although I do love that the chapters on caring and serving are given the context of the fruit and the gifts of the spirit.
Excellent resource for such a time as this as we emerge from Covid restrictions and some 'back to church' persuasion.
I was not expecting to be this encouraged or convicted from this book. Tony Merida has written a book that is a true gift to the local church.
His exhortation of Scripture, information, encouragement to his reader, and practical applications at the end of every chapter leave me excited to love my church more.
This book is so needed (especially in the American church) and I pray it greatly blesses local churches around the country!
There is a really wonderful selection of books, encouraging people with a deep faith who want to study more, but also for those in the questioning area of their lives. They cover every aspect of the Christian life, children included. Prices are competitive. If you can’t find it here, you won’t find it anywhere.
