Leaders who have lofty dreams that influence the world also have feet of clay. That is one of the interesting conclusions drawn by Elmer Towns in his book The Ten Most Influential Churches of the Past Century. The book looks at 10 of the most significant trends in Protestant Christianity in the past 100 years and examines 10 churches which have been at the forefront of those trends. Just like the leaders of those churches, each of the trends seems to have its strengths and its flaws.
The book starts with the Azusa Street Revival and the spread of Pentecostalism, then moves on to discuss the Chinese house church movement, the Civil Rights movement, the Yoido Full Gospel Church, the Sunday School movement, the Bible-expositional preaching movement, seeker-model churches, Baby Boomer churches, Praise-Worship churches, and media-and-marketing outreach churches.
Lessons about the church which the author draws from his study of these influential churches include:
- God is not impressed with denominational labels or systems of theology
- God understands culture and expects us to live our faith in the culture in which we find ourselves
- Churches have life cycles like all other living, organic things
It is easy for a church leader to develop firm convictions about the one correct way to run a church. This book helps to challenge such convictions by showing many different ways in which churches have been “successful”, but also by shining a light on the flaws in those churches and in the characters of their leaders.