Reframing Spiritual Formation: Discipleship in an Unchurched Culture

Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking, Editing Lacking
Review: Edward H. Hammett, in his book "Reframing Spiritual Formation," presents a thoughtful view of the effects of postmodernism and the growing percentage of "unchurched" people on the modern church. He speculates that it will not be possible through current, or traditional means to reach unchurched peoples in our society. He theorizes that there must be substantial changes to our understanding of what church is if we are to grow into the 21st century.
The structure of the book is excellent. The author makes good use of subheadings and bullet points to place emphasis on his major points. He also makes good use of charts, which were generally placed well, so as not to be distractive while reading. The book is laid out in a logical manner, with small, easy to digest chunks. This is not to say, however, that the content is shallow. The author makes some very profound arguments for what the future of discipleship, and church in general, should look like.
My only major complaint about the book is the grammar. It really should have been edited better, some of the grammatical flaws are serious enough to be distracting, because they force you to stop and figure out exactly what the author was meaning. For such a well written book otherwise, with obvious thought and insight into the subject matter, it was disappointing to see it have so many easily fixable flaws.
Overall, I gave this book a 4 because of the serious and distracting editing flaws. Otherwise, judged strictly on content, it is a 5.

Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking, Editing Lacking
Review: Edward H. Hammett, in his book "Reframing Spiritual Formation," presents a thoughtful view of the effects of postmodernism and the growing percentage of "unchurched" people on the modern church. He speculates that it will not be possible through current, or traditional means to reach unchurched peoples in our society. He theorizes that there must be substantial changes to our understanding of what church is if we are to grow into the 21st century.
The structure of the book is excellent. The author makes good use of subheadings and bullet points to place emphasis on his major points. He also makes good use of charts, which were generally placed well, so as not to be distractive while reading. The book is laid out in a logical manner, with small, easy to digest chunks. This is not to say, however, that the content is shallow. The author makes some very profound arguments for what the future of discipleship, and church in general, should look like.
My only major complaint about the book is the grammar. It really should have been edited better, some of the grammatical flaws are serious enough to be distracting, because they force you to stop and figure out exactly what the author was meaning. For such a well written book otherwise, with obvious thought and insight into the subject matter, it was disappointing to see it have so many easily fixable flaws.
Overall, I gave this book a 4 because of the serious and distracting editing flaws. Otherwise, judged strictly on content, it is a 5.