Book Review: The Rabbit and the Elephant, Why Small Is the New Big for Today’s Church by Tony & Felicity Dale, George Barna.
First, may I say this is the best house-church book I have read, and I have read a dozen or so! I’ve highlighted half this book! I love the author’s excitement and the stories were overwhelmingly encouraging. The spiritual gift of exhortation from the authors was in full affect while reading this book. I appreciate the honesty of the authors as they told their struggles to help bring this biblical movement to America. Whether you agree or disagree this is just a great book and I was fascinated by every page.
A little about the authors: Tony and Felicity Dale were trained as physicians at Barts Hospital in London, where they pioneered simple church concepts while in medical school and later in the East End of London. Now living in the United States, they are actively engaged in church planting. They founded House2House magazine and have authored several books, including Renewing the Mind, Simply Church, and the Getting Started manual on planting house churches. They live in Austin, Texas. George Barna was born in New York City and later worked in the Massachusetts state legislature and as a pollster and a campaign manager. Introduced to Jesus Christ during his grad school years, he moved to California where he worked in media research and then as an executive in an advertising agency. George and his wife, Nancy, founded the Barna Research Group in 1984. To date, Barna has written more than 35 books, predominantly in the areas of leadership, trends, spiritual development, and church health.
Let me share with you a little from this gem of a book. The title of the book and how they start it out is the story of the elephant and the rabbit being locked in a room for 22 months and how many offspring would come out after is amazing. Of course we would have only 3 elephants (mom, dad, and baby) but we would have millions of rabbits!! That was in the introduction of the book as analogy of simple church.
The first chapter goes into the story of how they struggled spiritually moving from a growing house church revival in England to coming to Texas and waiting 9 years before God began to work. They called it “God’s wilderness training school”. I personally can relate to this story and I think millions of pastors and church leaders can relate to that time of silence where you feel like “God has abandoned us” pg 5. I recognize their explaining the premise of the New Testament Church as not an event to attend or a place to go to on Sunday morning but a “vibrant community of Jesus followers, a 24-7 Kingdom lifestyle.” Pg 6. They further explain it as “simple, vibrant communities of believers who are meeting in homes, offices, campuses, or wherever God is leading them.” The authors give it another analogy as being like a liquid church “a type of church, that, like water, is seeping into every crack and crevice of our culture.” Pg. 37 They write of a re-forming church from “an event-based institution to life- and relationship-based” pg. 30.
In chapter 6 “a radical church life”. They speak about legalism and grace. “The grace and love of Jesus operating inside us causes us to want to do what legalism or shame-based religions says we ought to do.” I would like to be honest, for me there were a few concerns with the charismatic flavor of the book. I would disagree with their interpretation of how the Spirit works individually and collectively in community. I feel that any cessationist or noncharismatic should read this book to understand this movement. I am in favor of this phenomenon and am personally transitioning our traditional church into an informal book of Acts missional community. If you are wanting to transition, I would put this book at the top of your list!
Chapter 13 was my favorite!!! I will be using this and teaching the “Luke 10 principle” to our church family. Getting this biblical principle down is priceless and well worth the price of the book! Please read this book…you will leave encouraged and excited about what God is doing in our country!!!
Jason Rigby
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