The Coffee Shop That Changed a Church: Discovering the Net Effect by Steve R. Parr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
First off, full disclosure: Steve Parr is a friend. I’ve heard him speak on his “Why They Stay” research several times, and brought him to my church so they could hear it too. I’ve led conferences with him, used his material to train my leaders, and so forth. So you could for sure write off this review as biased.
That being said, this is a wonderful book. The trope of using a narrative story to teach practices and principles is either time worn and effective (see Andy Stanley’s “Communicating for a Change” or John Kotter’s “Our Iceberg is Melting”) or time worn and hokey (see Art Rainer’s “The Money Challenge.”) Steve’s narrative, about a struggling pastor who begins to meet with an older pastor and learns how to be a more intentionally evangelistic church, is actually a really good story. The only place it got hokey was when said older pastor recommends a book from “a friend of his” and it turns out to be ONE OF STEVE PARR’S BOOKS. Come on, man!
I would recommend this book to any pastor who is interested in leading his church to be more evangelistic. And knowing the results Steve himself has had, I can tell you that it really works. Which, by the way, is half of the title of the real book, written by Steve, that the fictional pastor recommends: Sunday School That Really Works.
Shameless, I know.
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