Noah Filipiak, a reader in Lansing, Michigan, wrote us to describe the impact that Plough’s new title Called to Community is having among members of a Christian community development group in the city. He reports:

We all live in the neighborhood and meet weekly at the garden project building in the park to discuss Called to Community [edited by Charles E. Moore, Plough, 2016]. The book’s perspectives have been invaluable to us. Most of us are used to the typical American church model based on individualism. Called to Community has helped us see how most of the definitions we use for church today come from American values, not from biblical values. We all agree with these concepts, but it’s a challenge to figure out how to apply them.

Similarly, Mark Smith began reading the book with a small group of friends near Philadelphia; their seeking is already developing into unanticipated forms of community:

I’m finding that it’s confirming what I already know to be true. We’ve been exploring the thought of living communally or as the early church. People have been called to this expression of faith for centuries, but what might be unique is the way or the magnitude in which it’s happening today. It’s exciting.