Embodying Our Faith: Becoming a Living, Sharing, Practicing Church, By Tim Morey

Embodying Our Faith

Becoming a Living, Sharing, Practicing Church

by Tim Morey
Foreword by Eddie Gibbs

Embodying Our Faith
paperback
  • Length: 197 pages
  • Published: November 30, 2009
  • Imprint: IVP
  • Item Code: 3729
  • ISBN: 9780830837298

*affiliate partner

"Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Mohandas Gandhi famously critiqued the contemporary church with this pithy phrase. The challenge ever since has been for the church to look more like Christ.

Tim Morey had this challenge in mind as he oversaw the planting of Life Covenant Church in Torrance, California, and he keeps it in mind as he coaches other church planters in the Evangelical Covenant Church. In this book he brings his experience, combined with research and theological reflection, to help your church cultivate the irreducible qualities of an embodied apologetic: a community that is revealed by its faithful to be experiential, communal and enacted.

"Authority in our postmodern culture has been transferred from those people who merely talk about things in academic vacuums to those people who express their ideas in action and cultural engagement. Tim Morey is a leader who not only writes about how the church can witness to the gospel in this culture but demonstrates, through his own experience and the experience of his church, how we can enact it in a relevant, authentic and very biblical way. He is the sort of leader that I give authority to, and the picture of the church he paints and embodies is the sort of church I want to be a part of."

Adam S. McHugh, author of Introverts in the Church

"Tim Morey isn't just writing about embodied faith. He and the community he has formed are demonstrating a new, creative, missional way of life. Be prepared to be both inspired and challenged by the mission-focused faith that is at the center of Tim's community and at the heart of this important book, calling us beyond ourselves in the service of Christ."

Tom Sine, author, The New Conspirators

"In this wonderful book, Tim Morey not only makes the case that the church is called to live missionally right here in North America, but he does a fabulous job laying out what the vision and structure of such a church would look like. Using his experiences as a church planter and years of deep thinking about missional living, Tim paints an enticing picture of what it means to incarnate our witness in worship, community and mercy ministry, that is, an embodied apologetic that can bring real transformation to individuals and the culture around us. This is an exciting and helpful book."

Jim Belcher, author, Deep Church

"How can the church stay both biblical and relevant for a postmodern generation that is mostly unreached, unchurched or dechurched? Tim Morey answers that question not from the ivory towers of academia (though he has certainly done his homework there!), but through a real-life ministry that is relational, missional and incarnational. This book should be read by anyone who longs to see the church thrive in the twenty-first century.

Mark L. Strauss, professor of New Testament, Bethel Seminary--San Diego

"Tim Morey is a disciple who is becoming like his master, Jesus of Nazareth (Luke 6:40). As a fellow ECC church planter, it has been my honor and joy to watch Tim's church-plant ministry grow and develop here in the South Bay of Los Angeles. He has learned his lessons well, because he himself has lived them well. First and foremost, Tim Morey embodies his faith. I am so thankful he has taken the time to pass on what Jesus has taught him!"

John Teter, senior pastor, Fountain of Life Covenant Church, Long Beach, California

"Tim Morey is a missionary to our culture. In Embodying Our Faith he demonstrates a robust commitment to sound biblical principles, practically applied, as the church produces disciples of Christ in a postmodern context. Illustrated with stories from a true pastor's heart, this book is one of the best examples I have seen of contextualization--applying the changeless truth of the gospel to the deep spiritual needs of a changing culture."

Dr. John Hutchison, professor of Bible exposition, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and founding member of Life Covenant Church

With the established church having negligible impact on the postmodern generation, and with the postmoderns writing off the church as irrelevant and unnecessary, a concilciatory voice is needed. Tim Morey may be that voice. Pastors, church planters, and young adult leaders will appreciate this work.

David Mundt, Retailers + Resources, January 2010
More

CONTENTS

Foreword by Eddie Gibbs
Preface
Introduction: Unreached, Unchurched and Dechurched
1 Show and Tell: Why We Need an Embodied Apologetic
2 Same Wine, Different Skin
3 Living Out God's Mission in Disciplemaking
4 Disciplines of Disciples
5 Experiential Faith
6 Communal Faith
7 Enacted Faith
Notes

More
Tim Morey

Tim Morey (DMin, Fuller Theological Seminary) is founding and lead pastor at Life Covenant Church in Torrance, California. He serves as a church planting coach for the Evangelical Covenant Church and as an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary.