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The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies
"North American evangelicals learned to do church in relation to modernity," asserts David Fitch. Furthermore, evangelicals have begun to model their ministries after the secular sciences or even to farm out functions of the church whenever it seems more efficient. As a result, the church, too often, has stopped being the church.
In The Great Giveaway, Fitch examines various church practices and shows how and why each function has been compromised by modernity. Discussing such ministries as evangelism, physical healing, and spiritual formation, Fitch challenges Christians to reclaim these lost practices so that the church can regain its influence. Pastors, leaders, and students who minister to the postmodern world will find in this book fresh insight that will stir the hearts of many and spark much-needed discussion about the evangelical church.
In The Great Giveaway, Fitch examines various church practices and shows how and why each function has been compromised by modernity. Discussing such ministries as evangelism, physical healing, and spiritual formation, Fitch challenges Christians to reclaim these lost practices so that the church can regain its influence. Pastors, leaders, and students who minister to the postmodern world will find in this book fresh insight that will stir the hearts of many and spark much-needed discussion about the evangelical church.
272 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2005
8 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
David E. Fitch
23 books40 followersDavid Fitch is B. R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary Chicago, IL. He's married to Rae Ann and they have one child, a son Max. He's pastored and participated in many church plants including Life on the Vine Christian Community a missional church in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Most recently he and his family have joined Peace of Christ Church, Westmont, a church planted from Life on the Vine.
He writes on the issues the local church must face in Mission including cultural engagement, leadership and theology. His theology combines Neo-Anabaptist streams of thought, his commitments to evangelicalism and his love for political theory. He has lectured and presented on these topics at many seminaries, graduate schools, denominational gatherings and conferences. Dr. Fitch is the author of numerous articles in places like Christianity Today, The Other Journal, Missiology Evangelical Missions Quarterly, as well as academic journals. He has been featured in places like OutReach Magazine, Anabaptist Witness, Homebrewed Christianity.
He is the author of The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission (Cascade Books, 2011), The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from American Business, Para-Church Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism and Other Modern Maladies (Baker Books, 2005) and Prodigal Christianity: 10 Signposts into the Missional Frontier (Jossey-Bass 2013) with co-author Geoff Holsclaw. His latest book is entitled Faithful Presence: How God Shapes the Church for the Sake of the World. It is due Summer of 2016 with InterVarsity books.
He writes on the issues the local church must face in Mission including cultural engagement, leadership and theology. His theology combines Neo-Anabaptist streams of thought, his commitments to evangelicalism and his love for political theory. He has lectured and presented on these topics at many seminaries, graduate schools, denominational gatherings and conferences. Dr. Fitch is the author of numerous articles in places like Christianity Today, The Other Journal, Missiology Evangelical Missions Quarterly, as well as academic journals. He has been featured in places like OutReach Magazine, Anabaptist Witness, Homebrewed Christianity.
He is the author of The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission (Cascade Books, 2011), The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from American Business, Para-Church Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism and Other Modern Maladies (Baker Books, 2005) and Prodigal Christianity: 10 Signposts into the Missional Frontier (Jossey-Bass 2013) with co-author Geoff Holsclaw. His latest book is entitled Faithful Presence: How God Shapes the Church for the Sake of the World. It is due Summer of 2016 with InterVarsity books.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 20, 2011
This might be the best book I have read thus far, this year. The conceit of the book is that the Church has essentially given itself away to big business, sundry ministries outside the local body, psychology, individualism, and other expressions of modernism. He considers himself a postmodern Christian, but nonetheless, he interacts with the positive elements within Postmodernism, and his solutions are (mostly) spot on.
In other words, the church has given all of its vital ministries to other organizations and movements, and we're at a point where most people don't understand the point of having "church." The reason, he argues, is because the church today isn't actually doing what it is supposed to be doing. He sets about in the book to argue that we must reclaim these areas in favor of the local body of Christ. He couches these solutions in postmodern language, but for those who are familiar with church history, he is really just saying that we should get back to what previous generations in the church understood naturally.
Essentially, he argues that everything mankind does is a ritualized action that trains or forms the human person in certain directions. Consumerism is a ritualized action that turns people into passive watchers, apathetic towards life because things just come along, we consume and discard them, and more comes along. That's a ritual that trains humans to live and think in certain ways. Public education also forms the human heart in certain directions, and he questions the value of that direction. Running the church like it was a corporation or business is a ritual that trains people to treat the church like a business, and turns us into "consumer Christians," waiting for the next "religious" package to consume.
His specific remedies are, most of the time, spot on, and go back to what the Church has always done (this, despite the fact that he believes he is doing something postmodern and "new"). He argues that the Church should have a traditional liturgy and follow the church calender, because these are actually means of spiritual formation - they are rituals in which we are trained to think about the world in submission to Christ's Lordship. The Church Calender is a ritual that trains us to think of God and the Story of Scripture as the structure that gives the world meaning.
He criticizes the expository sermon (though in reality, he is protesting against the "three alliterating points" sermon), and demonstrates that this can actually mask hidden agendas by letting the Church believe it is being objective in expositing the Scripture. Instead, he argues that we should simply be telling and re-telling the Story of Scripture, and the "life applications" will emerge naturally.
There were a few things I disagreed with, but these tended to be small things his church is doing in applying some of the principles of the book, which are themselves sound. An example: as a means of building community, a person wanting to convert to Christianity must commit themselves to Christ, and then go through a long period of catechizing (like six months or a year) before they can become baptized. This is horrible! Sure, the ancient church did this, but they were wrong to do it. This is a ritualized action that tells you that God only wants you in his family if you have an extensive amount of knowledge about Him and the Bible. No, no, no, it is the other way around! The example in Scripture is that if someone wants to be baptized and become a Christian, they're baptized on the spot, and then go and learn about all the rest of that stuff. THAT emphasizes the grace of God, who welcomes even the most ignorant into His fold and under His protection and care.
All in all, though, a great book. Read it and be challenged.
In other words, the church has given all of its vital ministries to other organizations and movements, and we're at a point where most people don't understand the point of having "church." The reason, he argues, is because the church today isn't actually doing what it is supposed to be doing. He sets about in the book to argue that we must reclaim these areas in favor of the local body of Christ. He couches these solutions in postmodern language, but for those who are familiar with church history, he is really just saying that we should get back to what previous generations in the church understood naturally.
Essentially, he argues that everything mankind does is a ritualized action that trains or forms the human person in certain directions. Consumerism is a ritualized action that turns people into passive watchers, apathetic towards life because things just come along, we consume and discard them, and more comes along. That's a ritual that trains humans to live and think in certain ways. Public education also forms the human heart in certain directions, and he questions the value of that direction. Running the church like it was a corporation or business is a ritual that trains people to treat the church like a business, and turns us into "consumer Christians," waiting for the next "religious" package to consume.
His specific remedies are, most of the time, spot on, and go back to what the Church has always done (this, despite the fact that he believes he is doing something postmodern and "new"). He argues that the Church should have a traditional liturgy and follow the church calender, because these are actually means of spiritual formation - they are rituals in which we are trained to think about the world in submission to Christ's Lordship. The Church Calender is a ritual that trains us to think of God and the Story of Scripture as the structure that gives the world meaning.
He criticizes the expository sermon (though in reality, he is protesting against the "three alliterating points" sermon), and demonstrates that this can actually mask hidden agendas by letting the Church believe it is being objective in expositing the Scripture. Instead, he argues that we should simply be telling and re-telling the Story of Scripture, and the "life applications" will emerge naturally.
There were a few things I disagreed with, but these tended to be small things his church is doing in applying some of the principles of the book, which are themselves sound. An example: as a means of building community, a person wanting to convert to Christianity must commit themselves to Christ, and then go through a long period of catechizing (like six months or a year) before they can become baptized. This is horrible! Sure, the ancient church did this, but they were wrong to do it. This is a ritualized action that tells you that God only wants you in his family if you have an extensive amount of knowledge about Him and the Bible. No, no, no, it is the other way around! The example in Scripture is that if someone wants to be baptized and become a Christian, they're baptized on the spot, and then go and learn about all the rest of that stuff. THAT emphasizes the grace of God, who welcomes even the most ignorant into His fold and under His protection and care.
All in all, though, a great book. Read it and be challenged.
July 4, 2011
"Evangelicals often preach that what the culture needs is absolute truth, but what the culture needs is a church that believes the truth so absolutely it actually lives it out."
This book annoyed me at times with its repetition and form (and so postmodernism tells us...), but that annoyance could not overcome my delight with Fitch's diagnosis of the evangelical church's ills and the treatments he offers for that disease. The lack of an evangelical ecclesiology has troubled me for some time and he offers reasons why the deficiency exists, tied to a give-away to modernity, and real ideas about how to overcome that giveaway and create true community. Mostly he talks about the church as a true body of Christ and points to the necessity of having it central in our Christian practice, our handling of Scripure, our worship, and our social justice. We meet God together and we need to meet the larger world together as well, or else our Christian faith will have little influence over our living in modernity.
His chapters address measurement of success (and why numbers without sanctification do not count), evangelism (beyond rational choice to living out our salvation), leadership (from CEO to servant), worship (from lecture hall and concert to a living body that forms us for the Christian life), preaching (from expository preaching with applications to narrative preaching and communal response), justice (from social justice detached from us to living the justice of God in community), spiritual formation (from therapy to confession), and moral education (from character education to catechism and communal formation). He is bold and direct in his commentary, writing snappy and thoughtful prose, at least in snatches. Some of the chapters engaged me more than others and some of his conclusions were more helpful than others. His orientation toward community and tradition is central overall and I both like and am challenged by much of what he says. I want my church to be more like the church he describes.
The book's two tasks are: "(1) to examine the ways we have 'given away' being the church to modernity by allowing its influence to individualize, universalize, syncretize, and commodify the tasks, truths, and even the very salvation we have been given as a people from God through Jesus Christ, and (2) to offer practices to evangelicals by which we may receive back being the church, the people of God ruled by Jesus as Lord in resistance to such modern influences."
This book annoyed me at times with its repetition and form (and so postmodernism tells us...), but that annoyance could not overcome my delight with Fitch's diagnosis of the evangelical church's ills and the treatments he offers for that disease. The lack of an evangelical ecclesiology has troubled me for some time and he offers reasons why the deficiency exists, tied to a give-away to modernity, and real ideas about how to overcome that giveaway and create true community. Mostly he talks about the church as a true body of Christ and points to the necessity of having it central in our Christian practice, our handling of Scripure, our worship, and our social justice. We meet God together and we need to meet the larger world together as well, or else our Christian faith will have little influence over our living in modernity.
His chapters address measurement of success (and why numbers without sanctification do not count), evangelism (beyond rational choice to living out our salvation), leadership (from CEO to servant), worship (from lecture hall and concert to a living body that forms us for the Christian life), preaching (from expository preaching with applications to narrative preaching and communal response), justice (from social justice detached from us to living the justice of God in community), spiritual formation (from therapy to confession), and moral education (from character education to catechism and communal formation). He is bold and direct in his commentary, writing snappy and thoughtful prose, at least in snatches. Some of the chapters engaged me more than others and some of his conclusions were more helpful than others. His orientation toward community and tradition is central overall and I both like and am challenged by much of what he says. I want my church to be more like the church he describes.
The book's two tasks are: "(1) to examine the ways we have 'given away' being the church to modernity by allowing its influence to individualize, universalize, syncretize, and commodify the tasks, truths, and even the very salvation we have been given as a people from God through Jesus Christ, and (2) to offer practices to evangelicals by which we may receive back being the church, the people of God ruled by Jesus as Lord in resistance to such modern influences."
May 27, 2017
David Fitch is becoming my go-to thinker on matters of ecclesiology. Before reading this book, my favorite book on how to "do" church today was the previous book I read by Fitch! He's seriously that good at this stuff.
In 'Giveaway' he does a deep dive into how thoroughly the Evangelical-American tradition has been steered and co-opted by Modernism. He systematically, chapter-by-chapter dissects how we have happily given away (hence the title) our crucial practices to organizations other than the church. Every single chapter held a significant insight, or a new stretching thought, for me, which is saying something, based on how much I read.
Overall, Fitch is a brilliant guy who really *gets* the post-modern situation we are in (frequently, you find one of those two characteristics in current pastor-theologians, but rarely do the two come together), and I am so thankful for his work. It has already had a profound impact on me as a minister, and I can't recommend this one highly enough.
In 'Giveaway' he does a deep dive into how thoroughly the Evangelical-American tradition has been steered and co-opted by Modernism. He systematically, chapter-by-chapter dissects how we have happily given away (hence the title) our crucial practices to organizations other than the church. Every single chapter held a significant insight, or a new stretching thought, for me, which is saying something, based on how much I read.
Overall, Fitch is a brilliant guy who really *gets* the post-modern situation we are in (frequently, you find one of those two characteristics in current pastor-theologians, but rarely do the two come together), and I am so thankful for his work. It has already had a profound impact on me as a minister, and I can't recommend this one highly enough.
December 19, 2021
This book is challenging, convicting, and inspiring! This is a hard-hitting book, but the vision of the church is so compelling that it’s worth any discomfort one might experience in reading it. I appreciate the boldness of this book, and found it very practical in the midst of the deep theological and philosophical underpinnings.
October 17, 2018
Great peek at some of the underlying issues going on in evangelical circles today.
October 25, 2011
When my professor first assigned this book, I thought, "Oh, great, Emergent Church propaganda." I was in no way excited about reading this book. However, I was very wrong in my initial assessment of this book and believe it is one of the most thought-provoking and insightful books that I have read this year.
Although Fitch says that he is sensitive to the emergent church, I would not classify him as an Emergent. Rather, he wrestles with being the church in a post-Christian, postmodern society without diluting the truth of the gospel.
In his assessment of various aspects of the church (e.g. evangelism, justice, spiritual formation, etc.), he thoroughly deals with Scripture, philosophy, modern culture and church history. Although his readers might not agree with every thought and practice, you cannot help but appreciate his thoughtful struggle to understand how to develop followers of Christ who are actually becoming more Christlike and how the local congregation can accomplish this without becoming a megachurch.
I would recommend this book to any pastor who has embraced the idea that the megachurch is God's vision for the church; for any minister who wants to discern how to live out the gospel in postmodern times without diluting the gospel; to any seminarian who sees him(her)self going into ministry.
This will certainly be a book that I come back to and recommend to many people
Although Fitch says that he is sensitive to the emergent church, I would not classify him as an Emergent. Rather, he wrestles with being the church in a post-Christian, postmodern society without diluting the truth of the gospel.
In his assessment of various aspects of the church (e.g. evangelism, justice, spiritual formation, etc.), he thoroughly deals with Scripture, philosophy, modern culture and church history. Although his readers might not agree with every thought and practice, you cannot help but appreciate his thoughtful struggle to understand how to develop followers of Christ who are actually becoming more Christlike and how the local congregation can accomplish this without becoming a megachurch.
I would recommend this book to any pastor who has embraced the idea that the megachurch is God's vision for the church; for any minister who wants to discern how to live out the gospel in postmodern times without diluting the gospel; to any seminarian who sees him(her)self going into ministry.
This will certainly be a book that I come back to and recommend to many people
September 8, 2009
The first chapter is AWESOME! Then the bait-and-switch. The author claims to be "evangelical" but really isn't all that strongly evangelical. He is more marked by being post-modern. Which is fine! Just because one comes from and still loves fellow evangelicals doesn't mean one is evangelical. He is really more emergent and post-modern.
Further, the author goes through and bashes the absolute worst of modernity. Like that's hard to do. He uses arbitrary standards for what is a "good" church - all of them quite post-modern.
So what's the point of looking at modern evangelicalism from a post-modern point-of-view and saying "You don't do it like I think you should." DUH!! That's why you didn't plant a modern, evangelical church, Mr. Fitch!
FOR ONCE would someone write a book that speaks to Evangelical Christianity in a way that doesn't resort to "I like my list of important things more than yours - and mine's better 'cause I said so!"
Once again, I have ZERO respect for the Ph.D. in-itself.
Further, the author goes through and bashes the absolute worst of modernity. Like that's hard to do. He uses arbitrary standards for what is a "good" church - all of them quite post-modern.
So what's the point of looking at modern evangelicalism from a post-modern point-of-view and saying "You don't do it like I think you should." DUH!! That's why you didn't plant a modern, evangelical church, Mr. Fitch!
FOR ONCE would someone write a book that speaks to Evangelical Christianity in a way that doesn't resort to "I like my list of important things more than yours - and mine's better 'cause I said so!"
Once again, I have ZERO respect for the Ph.D. in-itself.
August 17, 2009
One of the best books I read all year. Basic premise is that the evangelical Church - because of its love affair with modernity - has given away what makes it a distinctive counter-cultural community. Uses lots of postmodern insights to deconstruct the narrative of modernity (particularly the insights of theologians Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, and John Millbank). But includes more than critique. Also includes helpful suggestions for recovering the identity and mission of the Church through distinctive practices. Some chapters were stronger than others (and I didn't agree with everything), but on the whole was well worth the time and effort.
April 20, 2009
I didn't totally agree with his ideas for change, although I wasn't opposed to any of them...but I did agree with assessment of modern church culture and its dangers!
Also, the first half of the book was far more compelling and better argued, I thought - although it might just have been more relevant to my experiences (having not home-schooled a child, for example).
Also, the first half of the book was far more compelling and better argued, I thought - although it might just have been more relevant to my experiences (having not home-schooled a child, for example).
December 29, 2015
Relatively poor writing, and somewhat repetitive, but the general idea is good: we need to reclaim the mission of the church--our understanding of the church as the people of God, created and sustained by him, for the sake of God's mission in the world. Fitch helpfully shows how that grand a vision of the church's purpose works itself out in particular "realms" of human experience.
April 16, 2009
I highly recommend this book to Christians who are wondering what is wrong with the church today and what can be done about it. I find myself reading and rereading several chapters. The thing that makes this book unique is the author starts with theology and goes to practice.
July 26, 2014
Having seen the effects of the modernist evangelical approach to ecclesiology, I found the author's perspective absolutely refreshing. It is my hope that many more leaders and Christians read this important work. Then put it into practice.
August 31, 2008
This gets to the very bones of what a church should be, an absolute must for any church planter or any minister trying to missional.
August 27, 2013
Horrid! Bad writing, uses outdated language, reductionistic and over simplified. No nuance and draws false dichotomies everywhere.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews