Product Description

Christians today are on a rescue mission. Each of us is called to get involved in God's plan to make disciples. A former California lifeguard, Neil Cole weaves together his personal experiences of saving lives with biblical principles for how to make and multiply disciples. Cole shows how to create Life Transformation Groups that can help a Christian grow in a safe and transparent relationship with one or two other spiritual pilgrims. Full of heroic and even humorous stories, Search and Rescue captures readers' imaginations and hearts and doesn't let go until they want to make a difference and know how to go about doing it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35492 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

From the Inside Flap
A Tool for Rescue Neil Cole has discovered a simple and powerful tool for accomplishing the task of making and multiplying committed disciples. He calls this method the Life Transformation Group (LTG). The LTG is a group of two or three people who meet together weekly for three essential disciplines: confession of sin, steady intake of Scripture, and prayer for others who need Christ. The genius of the LTG is that it is simple and transferable, making it naturally self-proliferating and an appropriate tool for any cultural or church context. Outlining this system, Search & Rescue will benefit pastors, church leaders, and anyone interested in fulfilling the Great Commission.

From the Back Cover
The world needs heroes. Are you one of them? Church planter and pastor Neil Cole knows about saving lives: he is a former California beach lifeguard. In Search & Rescue, he takes the lessons learned from that experience and applies them to our mission of rescuing people from darkness and leading them into the kingdom of God. Cole presents a passionate and moving plea to continue the work of rescue, along with a simple, proven plan for doing so: the Life Transformation Group. "Simple, uncluttered, apostolic, organic, and eminently doable. I heartily recommend this book to you."--From the foreword by Alan Hirsch, author, The Forgotten Ways and The Shaping of Things to Come "Neil has written a much-needed book. More than raising up pastors and church leaders, the key issue today is raising up disciples if we want to see lives changed and radical transformations take place in our society. What Neil recommends makes a difference."--Bob Roberts, pastor, NorthWood Church; author, Transformation, Glocalization, and The Multiplying Church "Search & Rescue actually works. Neil Cole's network of friends and co-workers is the fastest-growing informal fellowship of believers in the Western world. Why? Because it instantly attracts every person who desires an exciting role as a genuine hero in the greatest adventure of our time."--James Rutz, author, Megashift "In this practical book, Neil gives you everything you need to start patrolling your own beach if you want to get serious about lifesaving efforts."--Reggie McNeal, author, The Present Future "Warning! This is not another self-help book; it will challenge you to save others' lives. If you read it, believe it, and do it, God will use your life to change the world."--Jaeson Ma, lead director, Campus Church Networks; author, The Blueprint "Cole makes Christian disciple making come alive. A captivating story that is solidly biblical and down to earth, with practical application. Right on target!"--Robert E. Coleman, distinguished professor of evangelism and discipleship, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; author, The Master Plan of Evangelism

About the Author
Neil Cole is the founder and executive director of Church Multiplication Associates, which has helped start more than a thousand churches around the world. He is seen by many to be the founder of what is known as the organic- or simple-church movement. Cole is the author of Organic Church and lives in Long Beach, California.

Customer Reviews

Deja Vu
I love everything by Neil Cole, and this book is no different. If you've never read anything by him, this is the book to read.

However, if you read Cultivating a Life for God and/or Organic Church this book will be full of deja vu. Aside from numerous new stories about life guarding, this book is basically just an updated remix of these two previous books.

Nevertheless, though I have read his other books, I was still glad to read this one because it helped remind me of the important concepts that Cole presents.

Great reminder on discipleship fundamentals
I was introduced to the principles in the 2nd half of the book earlier in my church planting journey. I only wish I paid closer attention back then. I simply didn't have the maturity and perspective to see disciple-making at the core of church planting. Despite having two seminary masters' degrees and being a favored student in my church planting classes, four years into my first planting experience I came to the shocking realization that I didn't know how to make disciples outside of "preach it; program it, and they will come."

Cole's books have been a God-send to me to help me think about disciple-making as Jesus and Paul did it, and also to help me think about biblical values like multiplication and reproducibility. Search and Rescue is his most updated treatise on the fundamentals of disciple-making that provides us with an updated example of his movement's disciple-making tool (the Life Transformation Group) that is being used all over the world. Whether people in urban Western settings to people in the African bush, thousands upon thousands of men and women are using this simple, reproducible tool to make more and stronger disciples everywhere. It seems to me the closest thing to what John Wesley and the Circuit Riders used to disciple those were coming to Jesus en masse: leaderless, simple, obedience-oriented, and reproducible. I see their value, not only as a student of history, theology and mission, but also as a practicing pastor/church-planter. We introduced LTGs organically into our church community and began watching people start to do crazy missional things like ministering to day workers, the homeless, under-performing elementary schools. Cell group material and scads and scads of expository sermons never activated these same people into such action that have been sustained for nearly two years to date.

I wholeheartedly recommend this for anyone who is looking to get back to the basics and learn from someone who is a proven disciple-maker and has learned from some of the best thinkers on disciple-making movements from a biblical and missiological perspective -- be it Roland Allen, Thom Wolf and church planting guru, George Patterson. Anyone looking for the next cool and trendy program or strategy will be utterly disappointed. Anyone looking, however, to launch movements of Jesus-followers that spread like a virus would do well to read this book.

Search & Rescue Struggles to Stay Afloat

Neil Cole's Organic Church was an overnight success. I have referred back to several times for organic church principles that have shaped Austin City Life. However, Cole's newest book Search and Rescue: Becoming a Disciple Who Makes a Difference struggles to stay afloat.

The hyper-sensitive Calvinist shouldn't judge the book by its cover. This is not an Arminian tirade on Calvinist failures at mission, though recent research appears to support such conclusions. Using the metaphor of "search and rescue", Cole is not trying to make a statement regarding Total Depravity, that we are alive and afloat in our sin, versus dead and drowned in depravity. Rather, Cole uses his lifeguard experience as an illustration of how the church should make disciples, which includes "seeking and saving the lost". And here is his where the book begins to drown.

Part 1

The book is littered with pictures and inundated with stories from Cole's lifeguard days in California. I'm all for a good illustration, but Cole takes this way too far, dominating the entire book. Not only is this filler, it obscures some of his helpful comments on discipleship. In addition to riding the wave of lifeguard stories, in the first half of the book, Cole also attempts to surf 2 Timothy for discipleship principles and insights. Unfortunately, he offers mainly superficial observations and poor exegesis, particularly his comments on why we should not follow the reward structure of farmer/athlete/soldier in 1 Timothy 2 at a motivation for discipleship. He doesn't seem to get Christian Hedonism. However, it's great to see him addressing the notion of motivation in discipleship, in which he deconstructs religion and other forms of external motivation, pointing to the gospel as "that which transforms the soul" (97). You can skip the first four chapters of the book and go straight to chapter five, where he develops his insights from Organic Church on building the church by multiplication, not addition. If this is new to you, its worth reading about in either book.

Part 2

The second half of Search and Rescue is self-admittedly a rework of Cultivating a Life for God, which rehearses the story and structure of Life Transformation Groups (LTGs). These groups of 2-3 are formed around three practices: 1) Confession of sin 2) Reading lots of Scripture 3) Praying for the lost. They are simple, reproducible, and strategic. Before I came across Cole, I had been doing something similar with friends for several years. I really like the simplicity and reproducibility of the LTG concept. Cole has inspired me to implement my own version--Fight Clubs--in our church. A summary of LTGs is found on page 175.

Conclusion

Cole's strength is questioning the status quo. He doesn't do a lot of that in this book. However, when he does it is refreshing and edgy. Like saying that we slow down the obedience of disciples when we run them through content heavy discipleship material. Or that the Early Church met in accountability groups. Or that when pastors talk about Greek and Hebrew from the pulpit they separate themselves from the flock and distance the church from the Bible.

All in all, the book isn't worth buying, especially if you have read Cole's other stuff. I've shared most of the nuggets and purchased it in hope of finding much more. In fact, the richest paragraph in the book comes from Alan Hirsch's preface:

It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity the other side of complexity." Simple answers, offered without taking into account the vast intricacies of human life in an infinite universe, are close to being out right worthless to any human being in need of real truth that addresses real, live situations. Simplicity this side of complexity simply doesn't fit or resonate with our condition and is not worth a dime. However, when simplicity presents itself beyond the complexities that we all face, and it takes into account the nuanced and often perplexing situation we find ourselves in, the these truths are worth all that we own.