Christ In Y'all

After finally finishing Neil Carter's new book, Christ In Y'all: Following Jesus Into Community, I was left feeling a little disconnected. I kept waiting for everything to come together at the end but it never did for me. In the introduction, Carter states that the purpose of his book is to explain how he ended up having church "in a living room with 25 people, among whom [he has] no special place", despite the fact that he is a seminary graduate.

Carter uses statistics to support the fact that many Christians are looking to get away from the traditional church model, and he gives five reasons why it may be happening to so many individuals. He lists that the church is becoming too impersonal, members are becoming burned out, boredom with ritual is becoming the norm, abuse from other church members will always hurt, and selfish apathy has overtaken any kind of social consciousness.

Because of this trend of breaking the tradition, Carter believes there needs to be a rediscovery of the gospel. It boils down to the fact that the "life of faith wasn't designed to be lived out solo." This is a wonderful idea, but I think it could have been said just as succinctly in one or two chapters instead of the 194 pages that Carter uses. It seemed as if every chapter I read was simply more of the same I had been reading throughout the whole book. I felt like at times I was simply wasting my time reading through the same ideas over again.

Despite this repetitiveness that I sensed, Carter had some good things to say. Occasionally it sounded as if he was down on any type of church other than a small house church. Near the end of the book, however, he made a statement that I really like: "I don't really think it matters how they meet, where they live, or when they gather. The important thing is that they learn to find Christ as their all, and that they learn to express that in ways that can be seen and heard and touched" (pg. 173). That is very well-said, and I think the book would be much more enjoyable if it could be condensed into a much shorter version. The same good points Carter makes could certainly be made just as well.