If you are looking for a thoroughly blokey and unapologetically politically incorrect story about starting and growing a church, then you need go no further than Mark Driscoll’s Confessions of a Reformission Rev: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church. The first chapter raises a number of questions defining types of churches, such as traditional/contemporary/emerging, liberal/evangelical, and attractional/missional.
The rest of the book describes the story of the growth of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, and the different dynamics which applied at each stage of growth. The church started in 1996 with 10 to 20 people showing up each Sunday evening for services, “a dysfunctional small group of Christian college kids and chain-smoking indie rockers”. As the church started to grow, a family with young children showed up, and it became clear that, while young people were the prime target group, the church had to cater for a broader range of people.
The book describes the challenges faced in locating suitable venues, dealing with opposition and mistakes, and starting and stopping particular ministries, as attendance grew to hundreds and then thousands. Not many readers will want to plant a church just like Mars Hill, but all church planters can benefit from reading about the steps taken, problems encountered, and how they were overcome.