Hugh Halter is a well-regarded church planter, pastor, consultant and missionary to the United States. He builds and maintains a network of missional church communities called Adullam in Denver, Colorado. He has street cred. He is not just a talker, he is a doer.
Halter's book, Sacrilege, is an interesting take on the Jesus story and what it means for the church in the present age. His pithy and trenchant stories are not as much grist for the mill as much as they are food to sustain those who are striving to lead intentional communities particularly if they come out of the evangelical traditions of church planting. I say this because much of what Halter is discovering has been present within the mainline traditions for sometime. The Emerging Church movement has actually freed the mainline and some questioning evangelicals to discover new freedoms and new ways of preaching Christ that don't necessarily follow the paradigms of the past. As such, people in Halter's world often will accuse some of his communities of committing sacrilege. Halter, like many of my Lutheran tribe, will turn to the Scripture and respond, "Oh, really? How so?"
This is really just a book of stories from a pastor who is on the ground. There are six footnotes to the whole thing and one of them is from a book about Bono so that means there are five footnotes. I would use the book to open up discussions within existing communities or if a leader is seeking to get people to dream about church lived an other way. It is good stuff but not necessarily a lasting tome for the library.
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