For churches with fundamentalist convictions this is an interesting testimony of church growth and offers useful tips for 'transitioning' your church from small and declining to big and growing. However, for the rest of us it offers much less.

Mega church pastor Brad Powell tells a glossy and rather simplistic rags to riches story of church growth, insisting that the growth he piloted (his church now hosts thousand of people each Sunday) is something every church can do; 'He (sic) just needs His people like you to believe in His power and to embrace His purpose and passion for your church.' Brad begins with an archtypically evangelical story of being brought to his knees at a pastor's conference and, all alone, hearing from God and having the Bible speak directly to him as he received his marching orders.

Brad tells us about his church, Temple Baptist Church in Detroit, one of the largest Baptist churches in the country in the 1950's. He mentions several times that the congregation had lost two thirds of its membership in the ten years before his arrival. He blames it on irrelevant music and worship and tells how he did the difficult work of transforming it into NorthRidge Church. What Brad leaves out is the fact that racial division played perhaps the biggest role in Temple's decline, and that the decision to leave its historic location meant moving out of a declining neighborhood into tony Plymouth, a white middle to upper class suburb where his particular brand of theology would be better received and much better funded. Thus leaving behind a declining area, and its residents, and adding to the Balkanization of the Detroit metro area.

Brad, like other mega church pastors, gives us the impression that his congregation's growth came mainly through new converts, whereas church growth statistics show that more than 90% of mega church growth comes from piquing the interest of other Christians who have either stopped going to church or who, more often, have simply switched churches - which is very common in his evangelical world. Brad rightly points out that there are a lot of Baptists in the Detroit area. His church has had obvious appeal to many of them.

Also common in evangelical circles is the overuse of anecdote and the underuse of academic and outside sources. This book has no footnotes, bibliography or even suggested reading. Like Rick Warren's 'Purpose Driven' best seller, the only go-to literature it commends is more of the author's, in this case, Brad's blog, church website and church address. I expected something with more academic rigor, but again, the tradition isn't known for commending it.

Brad hits home when he talks about church governance models, and the importance of updating them to meet current trends. This is one of the significant reasons dying churches continue to decline. 80% of America's churches are not growing, many of them because they continue to use antiquated organizational models that promote navel-gazing and inhibit change and newness. Temple's transition is a testimony to Brad's leadership and a willingness of its deacons to embrace a new kind of organizational leadership that empowers the laity and gives permission to members to get involved in ministry. NorthRidge members believe they have something vital to share and deserve kudos for allowing that conviction to drive their decision to embrace its leadership model. Would that every church would share the conviction that what they have to offer is worth this kind of sacrifice!

Brad also offers credible advice when he explains how he rooted these changes in mission - to reach the lost. He tells of how he reminded the congregation of the important paradigm that the Church is the only institution that exists primarily for those who are not its members and that doing this kind of mission requires change. He gives a helpful tip when he urges congregations to use 'testimony' of changed lives during the transition - to remind the congregation that the changes they are making are bearing fruit.

However, Brad leaves many of us (me and my more liberal churchmen and women) out of his equation when he implies that a conservative approach to theology must stand at the heart of church growth, as if the only way to grow a church is to embrace his slant on Christianity. Certainly he is aware that many liberal churches are growing and that they also have much to offer in leading others to Christ (by liberal I mean those that read Scripture more flexibly, do not claim a monopoly on salvation and believe, as the United Church of Christ advertises, that 'God is still speaking’).

What left me wanting is any mention of how NorthRidge is making a significant dent in improving Detroit. The biggest challenges this geographic area faces are racial reconciliation, unity among churches and social justice. Half of Detroit's children live at or under the poverty line. What would it look like for a church of this size and influence to partner with an inner city community organizing group and work not just at feeding the homeless (as NorthRidge certainly does, out in the suburbs) but, as Jesus did, taking on a corrupt power system that enables the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer? Mega churches emote images of comfy suburbanites sipping lattes, being entertained by upbeat music and ‘challenged’ by Dr. Phil messages. Sadly, Brad’s story left me with little evidence to the contrary. Shouldn’t growing churches like this provide the leadership and challenge to do the gritty work of reconciliation in the most racially divided region in America?

I received a free copy of Brad's book as a member of a scheme called 'Booksneeze,' that gives away books to those who will review them and post them on their blogs. We can assume that the books made available will be those needing blog publicity because they're not able to carry much weight on their own. This book, at the time of this writing was ranked around 400,000 on amazon.com, and hence, certainly qualifies.