“Center Church” by Tim Keller – A Review

"Center Church" was published in 2012 by Zondervan.

Tim Keller’s Center Church is a must read for anyone desiring to do ministry in America or anywhere in the world in the 21^st century. The world is rapidly changing, and what is necessary is not abandoning orthodoxy in the midst of a changing culture but meeting people where they reside with the truths of the gospel. It will always be the great task of any believer to find the balance between ministering to the needs of people yet confronting them with the word of God that penetrates to divide soul and spirit.

Keller’s book is divided into three major divisions termed Gospel, City, and Movement. There are then eight parts below the major divisions which are termed Gospel Theology, Gospel Renewal, Gospel Contextualization, City Vision, Cultural Engagement, Missional Community, Integrative Ministry, and Movement Dynamics. 

The book begins by Keller illustrating how a church correctly builds a theological vision to reach people in a particular context. He writes that there is a middle space between doctrine and practice, “the space where we reflect deeply on our theology and our culture to understand how both of them can shape our ministry.” He calls that middle space, the “middleware” between “hardware” and “software” using technological language, to describe how churches actually implement their doctrinal beliefs into ministry.

Theological vision is important. He defines theological vision as “a faithful restatement of the gospel with rich implications for life, ministry, and mission in a type of culture at a moment in history.” Churches are established with the purpose of restating God’s truth to the community they reside. 

The challenge is some churches, if not most, struggle with faithfully restating the message of the gospel with rich implications. Some may faithfully state the message, yet may find it difficult to see the rich implications for life and community. Some may grasp the idea of the rich implications for life in a particular culture, however lose hold of faithfully restating the message. What Keller desires to get across to his readers is how to do balanced ministry emphasizing the truths of Scripture and its implications on culture. 

Keller carefully articulates the intricacies of doing balanced ministry centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ. He takes time to describe what the gospel is, what is not the gospel, and why the gospel is significant. He says the gospel “is news that creates a life of love, but the life of love is not itself the gospel. The gospel is not everything that we believe, do, or say. The gospel must primarily be understood as good news, and the news is not so much about what we must do as about what has been done.” 

In the story of the gospel, God enters into the world he created to bring them back into fellowship. The theme of the gospel is Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration, and Keller writes it “has supernatural versatility to address the particular hopes, fears, and idols of every culture and every person.” The wonderful news of what God has done through Jesus Christ for the world is that he has made it possible for humans to be restored into the image of Christ if we choose to believe.

Keller’s book was personally encouraging to me because of its immediate relevance to ministry. There is a spectrum where Christians implement their theological vision. We can be so dogmatic that we are repellent to the culture where we reside or we can be so relevant to the culture that we are indistinguishable from the culture. The challenge is faithfully restating the gospel where we live as we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to live counter-culturally.

The gospel speaks to many aspects of life in spiritual, emotional, physical, relational, mental, financial, and vocational health. There is a need for a renewal in all these facets to be centered around the one who makes a renewed image possible, Jesus Christ. In ministry, we must remain extraordinarily focused on the truths of God, and his desire to reach people. God affectionately desires people to know him, and he has shown to go great lengths for people to know him while never compromising his character; that will be the challenge for us for the years to come. We must have the desire to see people come to know God through a relationship while never comprising the truths of who God has revealed himself to be in his word.

Next Keller talks about the city where life takes place. He describes that the city is humanity intensified where the very best and worst of humanity is realized. He writes that throughout the Bible, there is a tension between the city’s God exalting promise and its man-exalting shadow. The city throughout Scripture is described as a place built on selfishness, pride, and violence. However, God instructs his people to be the best citizens seeking peace and loving the citizens as they grow in number. In the end, Keller writes the “relationship between the people of God and the pagan city becomes a key aspect of God’s plan to bless the nations and redeem the world.” Jesus before he ascends, tells his disciples “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The gospel has now penetrated thousands of cities worldwide.

There is a great significance for ministry in the city, especially in America. Keller writes, “If the church in the West remains, for the most part, in the suburbs of Middle America and neglects the great cities, it risks losing an entire generation of American society’s leaders.” He illustrates how it has never been so important for evangelical Christianity in America to minister in the cities. 

The gospel must reach the city through believers who have a deep commitment for the city not necessarily to build great churches. Keller writes, “Christians in cities must become counterculture for the common good,” which means they have different values than the city, but are also committed to the wellness of the city. Believers must effectively engage the culture with the intention of carefully balancing different approaches to reach the culture.  Keller writes “The biblical material calls for a balance not of compromises but of ‘being controlled simultaneously and all the time’ by all of the teaching in Scripture.” As believers, we must learn to do ministry within the culture upholding biblical values while blending cultural and biblical insights in practice.

In the last three parts of the book, Keller describes Missional Community, Integrative Ministry, and Movement Dynamics. In Missional Community, he writes about the missional church that has as its major part witnessing to the world about Jesus Christ. For the Church to be missional, the members must be equipped for missional living where they reside becoming informal missionaries and good neighbors. In Integrative Ministry, Keller discusses the balance of ministry fronts, and connecting people to God, one another, the city, and to the culture. The main point of these chapters is that the church must emphasize five points in ministering, that is 1) worship, 2) instruction (discipleship), 3) fellowship, 4) evangelism, and 5) service (acts of mercy and justice and also integrating faith and work).

In summary, how a church implements their theological vision is significant. What I enjoyed most about Keller’s book is that it is saturated with the grand narrative of Scripture, and a careful understanding of history and anthropology. The book is filled with many ideas that could be at times overwhelming. However, I think Keller has puts into understandable language what many believers are struggling to understand about the balance between God's word and culture. I believe all ministers and church leaders in this generation need to read this book to understand the past in order to faithfully minister in the future.

K. D.