Great Read

This book is one great read. I rank it up there with R. McNeal, B. McLaren, and F. Viola's divergent look at the church and culture.

What church is supposed to be

This book is a really good read especially if you are wanting to learn about the small group concept. It is where church is going and from the way the book explains it. this is where all churchs should be.

A Highly Useful Book for Small Group Pastors

When I first began reading Creating Community by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits, I was not impressed. Subtitled "5 Keys to Building a Small Group Culture," the book makes its points by means of simply structured sentences, personal anecdotes, and common-sense business principles. As an "armchair intellectual" who prefers "idea" books to "application" books, I glided through the pages of Creating Community in about an hour. About half way through, I realized that Stanley and Willits were teaching simple principles that I needed to learn and apply in my own ministry. Although I never set out to become a small groups pastor, I have become one for my church. Unfortunately, to be perfectly honest, I do not consider myself a very good small groups pastor. Why? Because I prefer to sit among abstract ideas - the native environment of armchair intellectuals - rather than to walk beside practical realities. I am good at writing curriculum and at personally leading a small group, but I have a hard time managing people and processes. Stanley and Willits offered several helpful insights about how to do the latter. Let's start with the five keys mentioned in the subtitle. They are (1) people need community, (2) leaders need clarity, (3) churches need strategy, (4) connection needs simplicity, and (5) processes need reality.^M