Center Church

Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City

By: Timothy Keller

Narrated by: Tom Parks

Length: 22 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

Many pastors struggle to translate their theological beliefs into fruitful ministry in the places they are called to reach. It’s not enough to simply know what to believe (theology), or on the other hand, how to do ministry (methodology) - they need something in between. They need help thinking about ministry in a culture that no longer believes Christianity is a force for good, let alone the source of ultimate revealed truth in the person of Christ.

This unabridged audiobook, a collection of 12 essays by Timothy Keller, outlines a theological vision for ministry that is organized around three core commitments:

• Gospel-centered: The gospel of grace in Jesus Christ changes everything, from our hearts to our community to the world. It completely reshapes the content, tone, and strategy of all that we do;
• City-centered: With a positive approach toward our culture, we learn to affirm that cities are wonderful, strategic, and underserved places for gospel ministry; and
• Movement-centered: Instead of building our own tribe, we seek the prosperity and peace of our community, as we are led by the Holy Spirit. A theological vision creates a bridge between doctrine and expression, a balance between cultural engagement and countercultural distinctiveness.

Written by a practitioner for practitioners, Center Church will provoke serious reflection, creative adaptation, and decisive action. It can be used by groups or individually and includes questions for discussion and reflection.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2012 Timothy Keller (P)2012 Zondervan

Helpful Overview, But Too Many Abstract Claims

Positives: Tim Keller's, book Center Church, as the title alludes seeks to provide a centered/balanced approach to Gospel ministry. He talks about the extremes on a number of different sub-categories of ministry; such as: friendship vs. spontaneous evangelism, contemporary vs. modern worship services, culturally adapted vs. culturally challenging messages, etc. Overall he provides a helpful, critically thought out large scale overview of ministry. He is charitable to many views and perspectives, and seeks to accurately show how they relate to one another. Negatives: Keller's attempt to find the pros and cons of every perspective on every issue at some points in the book makes things feel less nuanced (what he is going for) and more muddled and perhaps over simplistic. Every perspective seems to be both right and wrong almost in equal proportions on every issue. It at times feels like something is true simply because it is between these two perspectives (see middle ground fallacy). In finding pros and cons with every ideology he sometimes ends up characterizing certain groups (while he usually doesn't). For example, he more or less states that conservatives/republicans do not care about the poor as much as they should and they often put too much blame on them for their circumstances. This however is a democratic trope of conservatives. On average conservatives give more than liberals to charitable organizations. Additionally people like Thomas Sowell, have shown how large scale intervention is not the best way to help poor people in the long term. Keller also draws narratives of how things are with little appeal to any empirical evidence of what he is saying. He talks about attitudes of "the white church," with little evidence that race is a unifying factor between churches that happen to be predominantly white. Because little support is given for some of the large scale narratives he discusses it is hard to know what is objective and accurate, and what is merely his own perspective.

Best church planting guide I’ve ever experienced

Excellent, complete guide for planting Gospel-centered churches and welcoming city wide Gospel renewal. Incredibly inspiring, insightful, and challenging. A must read/listen for anyone wanting to see Gospel renewal in their city or town through the church.

Excellent.

This book addressed every element of basic church life. I highly enjoyed the section on the contextualization of the Gospel. I also very much enjoyed his perspectives on how many churches should be planted in our cities.

Wisdom for Urban Churches - Deep, Wide & Practical

Any additional comments?

I am a pastor in New York City and an admirer of Tim Keller's preaching and writing, though I've only attended Redeemer Presbyterian Church a couple of times. This lengthy book reads as a carefully assembled notebook of the accumulated wisdom of Keller (and his team) in building one of the most thriving and paradigmatic churches in New York City today. It shows clearly the depth and clarity of thought and the faith put into practice that is embodied in Keller's work. It rightly rejects the idea that others can simply take over the Redeemer model and replicate it. Rather, Keller leads the reader to think substantively about the many elements that are part of the life of an urban church with a strong center in the Gospel. It ranges widely from the content of preaching and theology, to issues of interaction with secular culture, to diversity in worship styles, and many other topics.
While I think that the book will be most relevant to those who are directly involved in ministry, it will also provide a thoughtful journey through urban church life to anyone who reads it.
Tom Parks does an excellent job reading the book. I highly recommend it.

The single greatest book on church planting I’ve ever read

Keller uses balanced, thoughtful candor to beautifully and robustly describe the weight, mindset, arguments, challenges, motivation, practices and heart behind gospel-centered church planting.

I finished this book feeling exactly as Keller describes in his closing lines: excited and terrified. But all in all, I’m hopeful for the future of churches and the gospel in my generation!

Finally wise words for the pastor of our day!

The difficult book lays out the panorama of ministry rooted in the gospel. It is challenging and encouraging.

Very informative

Would you listen to another book narrated by Tom Parks?

Possibly. He's great for reading informative books and is very easy to understand. he also reads at a great pace.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no. the book is over 20 hours long.

Center Church

Loved the books it was very interesting and informative. I'm ready to get busy and practice what I just learned!!!

Fantastic though I read this kind of book next tim

Loved every minute of what I was learning and how I was being moved, but it was a lot to take in just listening. Its definitely something I would rather read.

The textbook

This is the Epic textbook on gospel-centered Ministry. I recommend it as a foundational and reference read.