Small is Big - Book Review

I was misled by the title of Tony and Felicity Dale’s book Small is Big: Unleashing the Big Impact of Intentionally Small Churches.” In order to convey the book’s theme, the title should exchange the words “intentionally small churches” with “house churches”. Rather than finding inspiration and ideas for effective evangelism for my small church, this book praises house churches and provides stories and illustrations on how they have been successful. While this is not a how-to book on house churches or a theology on the nature of the church, it provides ideas and encouragement in a conversational style along with some resources to consult at the back of the book.

This book gave me food for thought on what it means to ‘do’ church.  The Dales challenge the idea of a church meeting in a common building and propose that the best way to “do” church is in houses or coffee shops.  They give ‘traditional’ churches (i.e. meets in a building that is not a house or coffee shop) a pat on the back throughout the book while also knocking them.  If a member from a traditional church joins a house church, they will need to endure the “detoxing” effects. I truly agree that house churches are a viable way of ‘doing’ church and believe in the simple church concept, but the emphasis of this book revolves around the shallow reproduction of house churches, which the authors themselves illustrate the goal as propagating like rabbits.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for a review.