“Anyone can start a Free Grace Movement in their region with little to no money. I am here to walk with you through the process.”
This is the opening to Joe Filer’s new book, Reproducing Grace: Starting a Free Grace Movement in Your Region. It is also an introduction to verbiage and perhaps even a new mindset that could be pivotal in bringing positive change to a movement. Note that Filer does not speak of “the Free Grace Movement” as a greater movement that either does or does not have a presence in your locality, but rather he speaks of “a Free Grace Movement” as something that could potentially begin anywhere. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
A bit about the author
Joe Filer is a spiritual entrepreneur. He has started several ministries, including: a youth group in New Jersey, an evangelism ministry across New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, two church plants in Utah, an outreach to the AUB polygamy cult, three youth ministries in Utah, Washington, and Texas, a youth center, several children’s programs, and an outdoor ministry program. He is also a member of IFCA, so you can count on him to be a consistent dispensationalist who holds to inerrancy and grammatical-historical hermeneutics.
A bit about the book
The book is written in informal language and lays out a ten-stage process for church planting. Each chapter is dedicated to a stage and is broken into four parts: 1) Paul’s Precedent 2) Modern Implementation 3) Prayer and Spiritual Warfare 4) Planning and Action Steps.
Each of the ten stages has a chapter and they are listed as follows:
Stage One: Cultivating a Heart for a Free Grace Movement
Stage Two: Commissioning
Stage Three: Planning – Goals and Demographics
Stage Four: Confirming Your Target Area
Stage Five: Making Contacts
Stage Six: Communicating the Gospel
Stage Seven: Strengthening New Believers
Stage Eight: Gathering Believers Into Fellowship
Stage Nine: Developing Leaders, Continuing Outreach
Stage Ten: Organizing, Reproducing, and Coaching
Features that set this book apart
The structure of each chapter is excellent. Filer begins with the Pauline precedent. He pulls from several examples from Paul’s ministry, but he basically sticks with Paul. I bring this up because some books on church management appeal to some story from the Old Testament that has nothing to do with churches outside of tangent applications, or if the authors are feeling extra holy, then they might use Jesus instead. Paul was a church planter, so Filer is wise to stick to Paul’s example. Then he moves on to the modern implementation, but only after looking at Paul’s example. Filer also has a list of things to be praying about at each stage and then provides a checklist that gives this book the manual feel.
The chapter on Stage Nine (Developing Leaders, Continuing Outreach) has a noteworthy discourse on spiritual discipline. This is a topic that I have seen abused far too often, either by tyrant pastors who weaponize spiritual discipline or by others who neglect spiritual discipline altogether. Filer brings a good balance to the doctrine by giving the biblical reasoning for the “who,” “why,” and “how.” Discipline is relevant in the leadership development stage, as well-meaning church plant movements can become overly ambitious and send those who are not yet spiritually mature to do work that is outside of their league.
Another thing that can’t be overlooked is that Filer shares our Free Grace soteriological background. Since salvation is entirely by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, one would anticipate that a local Free Grace Movement would have some philosophical differences from other church planting movements. A proper Free Grace understanding of Christian maturity should be one of a grown and growing fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Some non-Free Grace churches might have a more achievement-salvation system wherein once a member is involved in x many ministries throughout the week, he is officially ‘converted’ and the church can now focus on getting new butts in the pew (such churches would certainly word it differently, but that is what it boils down to). It is evident in Filer’s system that grown and growing Christians can and should pour into church plants, rather than becoming a settled consumer.
Rating
If you want to plant a new church or if you want to get your church thinking about church planting, then this is a good book for you. It doesn’t claim to be a one-size-fits-all, but it is bound to have some wisdom for the guy who is thinking about starting a church or, better yet, a church planting movement. The book is scheduled for release in January, 2021 and will be available on the Freedom Church Movement website and Amazon for $10.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Apostle Andrews
