Have you ever read a book by George Barna or Rick Warren or Lyle Schaller and wished you could condense the material for your church leaders?

In Rethinking the Church (Baker, $11.99), James Emery White provides little new or original material, but he makes the concepts more accessible than do the gurus. White, a Southern Baptist pastor, writes that Rethinking the Church is not just another book about church growth. True, the book does not cover church growth per se, but it does speak to the issues that lead to growth. White challenges the reader to keep the church current in a rapidly changing world.

God who leads
In Rethinking the Church, White's methods and terminology are similar to those in Reengineering the Corporation, a popular business book a few years back. I found his questions to be more valuable than his answers:

• What is the purpose of the church?
• What is the mission of the church?
• Whom are we trying to reach for Christ?
• What determines whether the church is alive and growing?