Formation in Faith: The Congregational Ministry of Making Disciples

by Sondra Higgins Matthaei

Read the Introduction
The ministry of congregations is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Behind that simple and seemingly self-evident statement lies a problematic reality, however. While congregations know that disciple making is at the heart of their identity, they often have trouble understanding how to go about it. Apart from such traditional Christian education ministries as Sunday school, too little formal thinking or planning goes into the task of forming Christians in the faith.
In this book Sondra Matthaei casts a vision in which congregations open up their life of faith to others as an invitation to connect the universal longing for authentic relationships and deeper meaning with the church 's practice of faithful discipleship. As folks enter the church 's communion of grace, Matthaei challenges church leaders to utilize the gifts of every member and lays out a plan to help congregations grow in faith and communion with God and creation, including the context and goal of such ministry, deciding what to teach and who shall teach, and attendant relationships, structures, and practices.

132 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Terri Milstead · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to glean from this. Hoping the paper that is loosely based on my reading of this will help me understand. Sadly, this is not a new experience for me with my school books.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I was very disappointed. It’s not that the points the book makes are bad. It’s that there are so few, and the book is mostly filled out with quotes that seem like they are supposed to be significant but really add nothing to the book. I don’t think you’ll miss much by skipping this book.

[Brett Marko · Rating 1 out of 5]

Have you ever had a book that almost got a great point but never quite gets there? This was that book. Reading Matthaei's book was very frustrating on so many levels. One of the writing aspects that made for such a difficult read was how she introduced the people she was citing or quoting. It would begin by saying "Gordon Fee says,". You had to resort to asking yourself who this person was and why are they a source to be quote. The work cited list in the back helped but wasn't a guarantee on identifying who the person was. Just a couple of extra word like, Gordon Fee, a Christian commentator says gives us an idea of if this person is a poet, a developmental psychologist, a theologian, or whatever. Plus Matthaei rarely introduced an idea, she just jumped right in.

The other aspect of the book I found incredibly frustrating about the book was how she kept circling around using the same catch phrases and buzz words she had picked up in her studies without ever really floating a plausible thesis. She bills the book as a book that will help people to figure out how to help people grow in their faith by creating a ministry. It was over halfway through the book until she postulates a thesis based upon buzz words of servant ministry, being go-betweens, and other assorted terms. The part of this book that made one want to rip their hair out was that I believe she came so very close to trying to answer the question how do we grow people in their faith.

The problem I discern with this book on theological grounds is that she has a very skewed view of what it means to "make disciples". The other problem is she tries to attack the question of how do we make disciples and grow people in their faith from an institutional viewpoint rather than a cultural one. The result of these two problems produces a book that fails to answer any questions at all. The problem is that people come to Faith based upon God's calling and their acceptance. The verse she cites for making disciples comes from Matthew 28:19 which says that they are made through baptizing them in the name (authority) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that we teach them to observe all that Jesus has commanded. But becoming a disciple is just the first part of the spiritual journey. Matthaei actually does a good job hitting this point and the importance of building relationship with God and those around us. The problem with her book is that she fills it up with attempts to explain the hierarchy of the church while makes a stab at non-hierarchical servant ministry right on the heals of explaining what an deacon and elder, that the book is horribly disjointed and very confusing.

Plus I am of the belief that one can only grow in faith through living out relationships with other and experiencing life in community. Instructional teaching can help us to know tradition and about the bible and about why we need to grow in faith but it can''t grow us in faith. Faith is caught not taught. It is caught in relationship and Matthaei makes some good points on this ground.

One last thing is that Matthaei's book is extremely tainted with very feminist ideals. I agree with her points that people are seeking true relationship and authentic community and search for deeper meaning but that isn't just going to be learned by them feeling "heard". While listening to people is important Matthaei gives us a quote that "In the beginning was not the Word, in the beginning was the Hearing" . Didn't quite get that one.

In the end, Matthaei makes some wonderful points but I could not recommend anyone to read this book.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

let's say 3 1/2 stars...some good information - but I'm not sure I need to be told 1,000 times that the goal of faith formation is loving God and loving neighbor! Felt like I was reading in circles...what parts I wasn't struggling to keep my eyes open through....
Some mostly good information though..

[Jeff Bobin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an academic work with good outlines on the how to of a congregation in a disciple making process but is somewhat dated and based on old methods.

There is good basic material here but you may have to work a bit to pull it out.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bibliographies of recommended readings at the ends of each chapter are worth the purchase price.