Scot McKnight - A Fellowship of Differents: Showing the World Gods Design for Life Together

ENDORSEMENTS FOR A FELLOWSHIP OF DIFFERENTS

Fifty years from now, pastors, scholars, and Christians from a wide variety of denominations will look back say, God used Fellowship of Differents to change the church in America! This is the most important book you may ever read outside of the Bible. The staff of Transformation Church will be reading this phenomenal book.

Derwin L. Gray, lead pastor of Transformation Church; author, Limitless Life

I love this book! Its the theological mac to my social-psychological cheese. The pursuit of unity in the midst of difference is a trek across a minefield. With each step, we must contend with challenges that threaten to send us running back to the safety of similar others. Thats why Im so thankful for A Fellowship of Differents. McKnight draws from Pauls letters to give readers the robust foundation and action steps needed to keep pursuing unity at all costs.

Christena Cleveland, author Disunity in Christ; associate professor of reconciliation studies, Bethel University

For over twenty-five years Ive served as a church planter and pastor of churches that wrestled with being pots of stew (or salad bowls, as Scot McKnight would put it). Pastors in my situation found ourselves sometimes unwittingly in conflict with the so-called homogenous unit principle, that highly pragmatic perspective at work in megachurches whose explosive growth had many of us drooling and sitting at the feet of CEO-pastors. Yet I craved something else: a resource to encourage and challenge us from the Scriptures, affirming our work among people of various backgrounds, different races, ethnicities, genders, and economic groups. McKnight has blended his expertise in the NT and his passion as a life-long participant in the church to address just about every topic we can imagine! I enthusiastically recommend this book!

Rev. Dennis R. Edwards, PhD, senior pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis; adjunct seminary instructor in biblical studies

Pour yourself a cup of coffee and settle into this timely, provocative, and challenging book on what it means to be the church. McKnights conversational style and his perceptive insights to American Christian culture combine with his expert analysis of Scripture to illuminate Gods design for Christian fellowship. An essential read for all who long for the church to live out its calling.

Lynn H. Cohick, professor of New Testament, Wheaton College

A Fellowship of Differents echoes Gods plea for true community: for the church to become the real deal embracing all of Gods different kinds of people, to unite in a wild revolution of equality through Him, to bring visibility to the otherwise invisible. Most importantly, this book shows us how true unity is the only way to achieve Jesus heart for his bride, the church.

Bruxy Cavey, author of bestseller The End ofReligion; teaching pastor at The Meeting House

At a moment when so many are questioning what the church is and wondering if it even matters, McKnights claim that the way we follow Jesus is shaped by our local church more than any other source is a bold, prophetic, and compelling idea. Reading this book gave me a new vision for what my church is and what it could be. It was nothing short of a love affair with Jesus bride all over again.

John Mark Comer, Pastor of Teaching and Vision, Bridgetown: A Jesus Church

A Fellowship of Differents is an impressive achievement: it puts the church in conversation with todays most difficult differences and differents and the church comes out making sense. Scot McKnights work is precisely in step with Jesus famous words: I will build my church. We need this book because all of us different people in the modern church are the ones Jesus has trusted with the keys to the kingdom!

Anglican Bishop Todd Hunter, author, GivingChurch Another Chance

In the context of a rapidly changing world, our ecclesiology must go deeper. In a winsome manner, Scot McKnight brings the teachings of the apostle Paul to life so that we may rediscover what the church is supposed to be. A Fellowship of Differents provides a hopeful and an applicable ecclesiology for the twenty-first century that provides insight into the burden and joy of being the church.

Soong-Chan Rah, Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism; author of The Next Evangelicalism

Ever wonder what Paul would say to the Church today? This is it. Scot McKnight has captured the mind and heart of our beloved apostle, who spent his whole life pursuing one dream, preaching one gospel, sacrificing everything for one beautiful vision: that all people would believe in the Lord because the church this strange collection of humanity united by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit for one purpose is the very body of Christ.

Rodney Reeves, professor of biblical studies, Southwest Baptist University

One of my life values is that uniqueness is better than conformity, firmly believing (though I realize this is strong) that conformity only leads to death. My work with church leaders shows me that healthy thriving churches are not only places of diversity, but they love that about themselves. A Fellowship of Differents will feel like a commendation to churches who already live in this tension, and like a loving and prophetic intervention for those who wrongly worship the god of sameness.

Mark Oestreicher, partner, The Youth Cartel; Author, Hopecasting

Scot McKnight applies a professors mind with a pastors heart to one of the greatest enemies of Gods plan for his church: disunity. Instead of being a salad bowl fellowship of difference and differents, weve segregated ourselves into homogeneous groups so remote that we are virtually invisible to each another. The author doesnt stop by describing this inconvenient truth, but identifies six themes of the Christian life that, when implemented in the church by Gods grace, will help us to love one another and flourish as one people of God. No Christ-follower who cares about the beauty of Christs bride, the church, should miss this masterful guide to creating a fellowship of differents!

Dr. E. Andrew McQuitty, senior pastor of Irving Bible Church, author of Notes from the Valley.

The local church certainly has its failings and therefore, its critics. Most critics are just angry and few are helpful. Scot McKnight loves the local church and because he loves the local church, his words of criticism dont wound as much as they remind us of who we once were, of who were called to be, and who we can yet become. Like a parent showing a child the childs baby picture, Scot McKnight, in his book, The Fellowship of Differents, calls us back to the original dreams of fellowship and transformational love Jesus first intended for us and still intends for us now.

Mike Glenn, Senior Pastor, Brentwood Baptist Church, Brentwood, TN

ZONDERVAN

A Fellowship of Differents

Copyright 2014 by Scot McKnight

ePub Edition January 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-41214-4

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McKnight, Scot.

A fellowship of differents : showing the world Gods design for life together / Scot McKnight. 1st [edition].

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-310-27767-5 (hardcover)

1. Church. I. Title.

BV600.3.M357 2015

262 dc23

2014040112

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible,