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People are leaving the church J.D. Greear pastors. Big givers. Key volunteers. Some of his best leaders and friends. And that’s exactly how he wants it to be.
When Jesus gave his disciples the Great Commission, he revealed that the key for reaching the world with the gospel is found in sending, not gathering. Though many churches focus time and energy on attracting people and counting numbers, the real mission of the church isn’t how many people you can gather. It’s about training up disciples and then sending them out. The true measure of success for a church should be its sending capacity, not its seating capacity.
But there is a cost to this. To see ministry multiply, we must release the seeds God has placed in our hands. And to do that, we must ask ourselves whether we are concerned more with building our kingdom or God’s.
In Gaining By Losing, J.D. Greear unpacks ten plumb lines that you can use to reorient your church’s priorities around God’s mission to reach a lost world. The good news is that you don’t need to choose between gathering or sending. Effective churches can, and must, do both.
- Sales Rank: #69044 in Books
- Brand: HarperCollins Christian Pub.
- Published on: 2015-07-28
- Released on: 2015-07-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.74" h x .87" w x 5.87" l, .95 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 256 pages
About the Author
J.D. Greear is pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. The Summit Church has been ranked by Outreach Magazine as one of the fastest-growing churches in the United States. J.D. has a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved and Gospel: Recovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, Veronica, and their four children.
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Fulfilling the Great Commission By Sending
By Zach Barnhart
Working in ministry, especially church planting, can be a very difficult process. One of the hardest parts about church planting is that while planting a always seems like doing things to “gain” and “establish” a church, the reality is that oftentimes the church’s real growth starts taking place when it sends, and thus loses, some of its key people and resources for the sake of the spread of the gospel. That’s the premises of J.D. Greear’s book.
The book is split into two parts; part one is about why we send, and the difficulties in sending. Part two lists out ten keys, or “plumb lines” to becoming a sending church. Greear spends a lot of time talking about the importance of mission. More important than the principles of how to send people as a church is the principles of why we send those people. Greear sums up his position on the importance of mission with a quote from Charles Spurgeon in part one: “Every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor” (34). He then, using Scripture, anecdotes, and illustration, paints the picture of how a church can learn to send effectively using his ten plumb lines, the bulk of the book. I’ll spend a few moments highlighting the things I took away and liked, and other things I didn’t.
What I Liked
Gospel-Centered.
Greear started off his plumb lines in the most important way. “The gospel is not just the diving board; it is the pool.” If a church doesn’t start here, the entire course of mission is thrown off, like a broken compass leading us the wrong way. “Believing the gospel,” Greear writes, “leads to becoming like the gospel” (66). There are implications for this line of thinking. When we start to dive into the pool of the gospel, we begin to understand Greear’s second and third plumb lines better, that everyone is called, and that our ecclesiology should be good mix of “missional” and “attractional.” Even despite a church devoted to how we send, I appreciated Greear’s emphasis on how the church is a place for believers to gather and be equipped for the mission of Monday-Saturday. Here’s an excerpt:
Get this: Of the 40 miracles recorded in Acts, 39 happen outside the church walls. That’s 97.5 percent! You can safely conclude from this that the main place God wants to manifest his power is outside the church (94–95).
Practical.
There are plenty of books on the missional movement, but oftentimes these become a bunch of circular, unanswered arguments, relying on visionary language and lofty concepts without digging into “how.” What I appreciated about Gaining by Losing is how authentic and real it feels. Greear’s use of real stories and experiences of his ministry and Summit Church help us get a true picture of how we put these ideas into practice. There are multiple places in the book where Greear stops to list out steps church leadership can take to adopt these plumb lines in their own congregation. This is a helpful step for those who have little direction or counsel to turn to. Another really practical component of this book is the appendices in the back of the book, with detailed steps in developing international missions and domestic church planting strategies. I found these appendices to be some of the most helpful and applicable parts of the entire book!
Unafraid.
One of my favorite sections of the book is in chapter eight, a chapter that illustrates the primacy of discipleship. Greear spends a lot of time explaining why every Christian is born to reproduce, and then answers key and common objections against this idea. Greear does not shy away from Christians and churches who try to compartmentalize missions (see next chapter: “Your Church Doesn’t Need a Missions Pastor”). An unashamed approach to the gospel and thus to missions is important for evangelicals to get around.
Here’s some of my favorite one-liners:
“Love on display is our most convincing apologetic” (128).
“Every spiritual gift serves the larger purposes of making disciples. The gifts are varied, but the mission is the same” (141).
“It is not through our success that God saves the world, but through our sacrifice. He calls us first to an altar, not a platform” (20).
What I Didn’t Like
Faulty Exegesis.
There were a few places where I felt Scripture may have been misinterpreted or misapplied. In the introduction, one of Greear’s foundational verses for the book is John 12:24, and talks about how the seed that dies in the verse is ultimately a picture of what churches do and how they operate. To me, however, this verse is specifically and explicitly about the seed of Christ and His substitutionary atonement. Although I don’t necessarily disagree with the principle Greear is outlining, I don’t think this is the text to base it off of.
There are a couple of other places where I am questioning the interpretations of Biblical texts. From Luke 15 and the story of the Good Shepherd, Greear explains that numbers are important because of the one sheep that left the flock. To me, this isn’t a defense of numbers, but quite the opposite — the underemphasis on numbers (there were 99 sheep there after all) for the sake of only one. I also didn’t make the connections of how we should be attractional according to the passages of Exodus 19:5–6 and 1 Peter 2:9–11; 3:15. I felt that these texts were much more about us going that us drawing.
I’ll be clear here: I felt like “faulty exegesis” was definitely the exception and not the norm in this book; these were a couple of the main areas that stuck out to me, but overall I felt like Greear did a great job with basing his ideas off of proper Biblical interpretation.
Impractical.
I know I just said this book was practical, and though it was, in a sense it also wasn’t very practical. Greear’s continued reliance on anecdotes from his own church is certainly encouraging, but can be very difficult to relate to. These stories are taking place in a congregation of over 8,000 people, and in our current congregation of 170, there were times I was struggling to figure out how to apply certain things in this book to our own church body. For example, in chapter eleven, a chapter that discusses risk-taking in ministry, Greear begins to outline the numbered goals their congregation has for planting churches. This was definitely encouraging, but I struggled to figure out how our church could set such a goal right now. There are multiple places where Greear’s retelling of what Summit Church does do not translate to smaller, younger congregations.
Language.
Although I enjoy and learned from this book through and through, there were a few parts where I felt like the language was funneling me into some confusion, or even disagreement with conclusions. Most of them I feel are matters of language. Here’s a couple statements I found myself putting question marks beside:
“The good news is that making disciples is fairly easy” (137).
“Diversity is not just about the music…at the same time, diversity is about the music” (170).
“Get comfortable with being scared. We have a Master who not only has commanded us to risk, but also promised us that as we do so, led by his Spirit, he will multiply our investments in the harvest of his kingdom” (188).
There is a potential danger, in my view, to miss the difficulty and sometimes the failures that happen in these processes. Oftentimes, disciple-making isn’t easy, especially for laypeople. And where has God promised to “multiply our investments” every time?
Should you read this book? Definitely. Although I don’t agree with all of Greear’s conclusions, if you are serving in church leadership, or want a better understanding of why and how churches should be sending-focused, this book will absolutely be a helpful resource to you. It is a gospel-centered, compassionate, and bold call to make our churches fulfill the Great Commission faithfully. Summit Church is able to do what it does in large part because of the leadership that has helped communicate these principles in a big way to the church body.
When we’re ready to part ways with key leaders and key resources, we’re ready to watch God work. Not always in a big, flashy way, but surely in a special way. This book is encouraging, equipping, and motivating. Be ready to be challenged by this book to pursue a sending mindset in your life and church!
Note: I received this book for free through Cross Focused Reviews. I was not required to give a positive review and all opinions are my own
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Helpful, But Has Some Weaknesses
By Shane Lems
One of the newer church planting/missions book on the market is J. D. Greear’s Gaining by Losing (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015). The book doesn’t give the details of church planting, but it does tell established churches some basic principles for and motivations to plant churches. There are two main parts to this 253 page book: first, a sort of introduction; second, Greear’s ten “plumb lines” for sending/planting. There are also two appendices that give more detail about missions and church planting.
The Good:
There are a some strengths to this book. First, it is clearly gospel centered. The main point of the book is that the gospel is central in the Christian life and in church planting/missions. It was also a good reminder for Christians and churches to be outward focused; Greear clearly stated over and over that churches must be evangelizing at home and abroad. We can never forget that!
The Not-So-Good:
There were some weaknesses to the book as well. In my opinion, there was too much humor (some cheesy, some seemingly forced) and too many stories about Greear and the church he pastors. I realize these critiques are small and subjective, but for me they did detract from the book.
I do have some bigger and less subjective concerns about the book as well. First, Greear started the book with a sort of building block of his methodology based on a debatable interpretation of John 12:24. Typically that verse has been understood to be referring to Jesus’ death and the fruit that it brings (the salvation of his people). Greear, however, says that verse is about taking our “hands off of what little portion [God has] given to us, ‘die’ to our control of it, and plant it into the world” (p. 16). “Jesus presents a very clear choice: preserve your seed and lose it; plant your seed for his sake, and keep it through eternity” (Ibid.). “Life for the world comes only through the death of the church” (p. 20). In a word, Greear says that we have to give away our resources (die) plant seeds (plant churches/share the gospel), which is what Jesus talks about in John 12:24. This interpretation is debatable, and therefore from the outset I was hesitant to accept Greear’s application of the text. So the whole book for me started off on the wrong foot. (There are a few other places where I thought some texts were misinterpreted and misapplied as well, but I don’t have the space here to explain them all.)
The second critique I have of this book is that it is sort of a guilt trip. In fact, it reminded me of David Platt’s book, Radical. Greear does refer to Platt from time to time, so there are parallels. I realize Greear said he was trying to avoid the guilt-trip aspect of evangelism, but it was there in back-door form. For example, he writes, “Failure to risk our lives to the fullest potential for the kingdom of God is as wicked as the most egregious violations of the laws of God” (p. 181). “When is the last time your sacrifices for the mission made someone question your sanity?” (p. 59). “…You can’t really call yourself a follower of Jesus if you don’t see yourself as sent” [a missionary] (p. 34). By the end of the book it felt like Greear was saying that all churches/Christians that don’t evangelize in a full-out, risky, petal-to-the-metal way are sinning.
Third, there were a few theological aspects of the book that I thought were shaky. Greear’s continued emphasis was that the church’s/Christian’s main duty, #1 reason for existence, was to evangelize. Certainly that is high on the list, but isn’t our chief end to glorify God and enjoy him forever ? Missions is incredibly important, but we won’t be evangelizing in our heavenly homeland; we’ll be glorifying and enjoying God! For me, the book was lacking in the area of eccelsiology; in fact, Greear didn’t really mention elders or deacons. Perhaps that is one big reason why the book didn’t sit well with me. His book reminded me of some Acts 29 material I’ve read in the past. Further, since Greear’s church has well over 1,000 people in attendance each week, I’m not sure his principles and methods would really work or fly in a smaller church of 70 (which is around average in America).
Finally, and as a side, I have to point out some trendy jargon that I tripped on: “Believing the gospel leads to becoming like the gospel” (p. 66). “Ask her [my wife] what she does, and she’ll say she is a missionary to the unreached people group known as ‘the Greear children'” [not exactly biblical; see the covenant theme in 1 Cor. 7:14] (p. 72). “The future belongs to churches that send” (p. 176). “Gospel-saturated people become visionaries” (p. 193). Some of these phrases sound good, but they don’t always make sense.
I almost want to apologize for being so critical of this book! When I got it in the mail, I was honestly excited to read through it. But as the chapters went on, I was let down more than a few times. Some of the book is good and helpful, for sure, and at the end of the day despite my criticisms I’m thankful that Greear preaches Christ and gets the News out.
(Note: this book was provided for me by Cross-Focused reviews; I was not compelled to give a positive review in exchange).
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Why a Sending Church is the Key to Successfully Fulfilling the Great Commission
By Craig P. Hurst
When you ask a pastor about their church, his answer will tell you a lot about what he thinks a church is and what defines a successful one. A lot of pastors, for one reason or another, will mention the size of their church. Size is often a barometer for success but the numbers do not tell you the health of that success. Size can indicate that a church has been successful at bringing people in (attraction) but it does not indicate how successful you have been growing them once in (discipleship).
There are many books on ecclesiology that address why the size of a church does not tell you the health of a church. These books will rightly focus on discipleship development as a more biblical way to assess church health. There are many characteristics of a health church. Its focus on missions is one of those.
In Gaining by Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches that Send, pastor and author J. D. Greear focuses on the sending aspect of a church as a means of measuring its success in building healthy disciples of Christ. In this book Greear uses the example of his church and ministry lessons as a vehicle for helping churches see that the future growth of the (C)hurch is found in a local (c)hurches focus on sending its disciples out to plant more churches.
As the subtitle indicates, Greear believes that churches which send their resources and people out of their midst are the ones that are contributing the most to the growth of the church. “I believe that churches that give away both their people and their resources are the churches that will expand the kingdom of God into the future.” (17) So a churches ability to grow the kingdom “lies not in your ability to gather and inspire your people at a weekly worship meeting, but in your capacity to equip them and send them out as seeds into the kingdom of God.” (17) This is what we call gathering to scatter.
While the book is chalk full of ministry advice and wisdom, there is one element of the book which is threaded throughout from start to finish: the ability of a church to send lies in its ability to make disciples. It is essentially fulfilling the Great Commission. “The Great Commission,” says Greear, “is not a calling for some; it is a mandate for all.” (80) For example, in discussing the growth of the church in the book of Acts, Greear notes that “the gospel’s most powerful advances in the book of Acts come via the hands of regular people.” (102) God has gifted some people to preach, teach, lead, etc. but they are few in comparison to the rest of the congregation. But the purpose in the gifting of some with those things is to serve and disciple the rest so they can minister as well.
But it is not easy to invest in the lives of people only to send them out. Read the following excerpt to get an idea as to the sacrifice churches and church leaders must be willing to make in order to be a sending church:
I was sitting around a table listening to four church planters for the year give their report on whom they are taking with them to launch. One is planting in Washington, DC; another in Wilmington, NC; and two are planting local;y, both less than twenty minutes from our home campus. One is taking 15 of our members; another, 23; another, 20; and one, more than 50. As they went through their list of Summit-member recruits, I heard the names of elders, big givers, key volunteers, skilled musicians, and personal friends.
As the third church planter started on his list, a small lump formed i my throat. I honestly couldn’t tell if it was a lump of sadness or joy. I think it was panic. Had we really committed to this? When each of the first two planters had gone over their lists, it had felt like two punches ion the gut. Now this third guy was winding up for the knockout blow.
‘Sending’ preaches more easily than it is executed, you see. Our church will look different next year when these men and their teams leave. Their absence will leave significant gaps. (189)
The success of the Great Commission depends on churches sending and scattering from its gathering disciples who are willing to go and make more disciples. These are the churches that will see the size of the kingdom grow and not just their own local body.
Gaining by Losing is a must read for all Christians, especially church leaders serious about fulfilling the Great Commission. Greear will challenge you to think about how your church functions. This book is a call to see a growing (C)hurch through the eyes of sending (c)hurches.
I received this book for free from Zondervan through Cross Focused Reviews for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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