In their book, ‘The Compelling Community: Where God’s Power Makes a Church Attractive,’ Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop demonstrate that true Christian community can only be achieved by spurring, rousing, stimulating, electrifying, inciting, firing up, and stirring up the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Essentially, they convey that the Gospel must be galvanized if we desire a compelling Christian community in our churches. There is no other way to experience a genuine Christian community.

What I loved about this book is how it differentiates between two types of community—the gospel-plus community and the gospel-revealing community. Through examples, it encourages you to reflect on how your church operates to foster community, showing that the best way to achieve a compelling community is to strive for a gospel-revealing community rather than a gospel-plus community.

They demonstrate that even the world can create a community, but it is not the same without the Gospel of Jesus Christ permeating it. A deeper faith through the Gospel cultivates the seeds to establish a stronger community that can have a greater impact.

They remind us that we are often tempted to create comfort-based communities using criteria like similar life experiences, identities, causes, needs, social positions, etc. These communities focus on aspects of the world that can be used to form connections, but the Gospel is not primarily about that.

We are reminded of Ephesians 2 and 3, which illustrate what a Gospel-permeated community will resemble in its breadth and depth. They challenge us to focus on the Gospel alone for a compelling community.

They urge us not to pursue a gospel-plus community because it could lead us to attempt to do God’s work for Him, ultimately compromising evangelism and discipleship. Only the supernatural community that the Lord creates through the gospel electrifying a church will provide us with a compelling community in which we can take pride. In essence, the supernatural power of God operates through a gospel-revealing community, establishing a supernatural community in contrast to a worldly one. This begins with supernatural forgiveness and love.

We are also challenged to pursue a calling-based commitment in our church rather than a comfort-based commitment. They provide excellent guidance on how to achieve that. We are encouraged to be producers for the Kingdom through the church instead of merely being consumers.

Once they guide us in envisioning a community, they inspire us by showing how to nurture a dynamic community that brings the Gospel to life through God’s Word and prayer. At this point, I found it impossible to put the book down and read through 46 pages of the section on ‘Fostering Community’. My favorite part of the book is ‘Preach to Equip Your Community’. The emphasis on preaching God’s Word through the exposition of Scripture is music to my ears. I appreciated their focus on the importance of expository sermons, where God's Word takes center stage from the pulpit. This approach encourages individuals to apply God's Word in their lives, generates enthusiasm, and motivates them to read it independently.

They also remind us that when a church has a compelling community inspired by the Gospel, it is not just due to God’s Word being preached and received, but also because of the power of corporate prayer to the Lord Jesus. To encourage us, they cite real-life examples of the difference prayer has made in the lives of people when ordinary individuals have prayed. They remind us that the New Testament is filled with corporate prayers that made an impact and invite us to join that adventure through ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. I love the practical applications provided for how God’s Word and prayer can be used in the church to create a compelling community for the world.

Once they establish the impact of God’s Word and prayer for a deeper faith that fosters a compelling community, they demonstrate how a stronger community can create a greater impact by building a culture of spiritually intentional relationships. However, they also caution us about structural obstacles to biblical community that we must recognize.

In conclusion, the book concludes with guidance on protecting the community and its work. I appreciate the thorough examination of addressing discontentment and sin within the church. Once discontentment and sin in the church are addressed, the authors finally show us how we can evangelize as a community and unite for the community of Heaven.

This is one of the best books I have read that addresses deeper faith, stronger community, and greater impact because the galvanizing gospel creates compelling churches and communities.

Even though the book is 220 pages long, you won't want to put it down once you start reading because of the practical applications in each of the 12 chapters. Moreover, you may find yourself wanting to read it more than once and use it as a reference for how to cultivate a compelling community in your church.

This is a book that every pastor, elder, deacon, campus minister, staff worker, and congregation member should read, especially if they are discouraged, so they may be encouraged to be part of a compelling community in their churches. I thank Pastor Jesse McLaughlin of Oakland International Fellowship for giving me this book and encouraging me to read it after he saw my struggles in church.

I realized that as much as I desire our church to be multi-ethnic and diverse, to have multi-ethnic worship, multi-ethnic leadership, and even multi-ethnic food, it cannot be forced. I understand that a church’s compelling community can only be formed supernaturally by the power of God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, revealed in the Word of God and lived out in our lives, starting at our local church. We can never compromise the gospel, but when we collaborate and cooperate with it, we will witness a gospel-revealing community where multi-ethnicity and diversity are seen as fruits of the gospel, because of the Word of God lived out and proclaimed.

Interestingly, Oakland International Fellowship's (OIF) vision states that we want to see OIF become a place where people from all nations grow together deeper in our faith, stronger as a community, and make a greater impact for God from the university area(s) of Pittsburgh to the nations.

 ^“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” (2 Corinthians 5:14, NIV)

“We will lovingly follow the truth at all times—speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly —and so become more and more in every way like Christ who is the Head of his body, the Church. Under his direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly, and each part in its own special way helps the other parts, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”  (Ephesians 4:15-16, TLB)

 ^“ When I think of the wisdom and scope of his plan, I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the great family of God—some of them already in heaven and some down here on earth— that out of his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you the mighty inner strengthening of his Holy Spirit.  And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself. Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes.  May he be given glory forever and ever through endless ages because of his master plan of salvation for the Church through Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 3:14-21, TLB)

Reddy’s Right Rhetoric reviews ‘The Compelling Community: Where God’s Power Makes a Church Attractive,’ recognizing that a galvanizing gospel creates a cohesive, compelling community.