The Five Spaces, Dustin White. The Brethren Church (ISBN:9781732268180), 2019.

Summary: Understanding the church’s spaces of discipleship, a study of how the church may leverage the different relational spaces we inhabit.

Dustin White, a former church planter, asks the question, how do we account for the stunted faith of so many despite the church’s efforts? Drawing upon the work of social scientist Edward T. Hall on the different relational spaces in which we operate, he proposes that we make the “right moves in the wrong spaces.” He devotes the book to understanding the church’s spaces of discipleship. Specifically, White identifies five spaces, taking a chapter to elaborate each of these.

The first of these is “one to one,” the space of intimacy. By this, White means intimacy with Jesus that arises from carving out time, listening prayer, and study. It struck me as unusual that White didn’t include one to one human relationships, including mentoring or peer to peer relationships.

Secondly, he identifies the space of close relationships with a few, modeled by Jesus relationship with Peter, James, and John. He calls this the “discipleship incubator” space. He identifies three movements of confrontation, incubation, and empowerment. Specifically, White believes this occurs through intentional groups meeting and sharing life over eighteen months or so. During this time, they bless others, eat together, listen to the Holy Spirit, learn from Jesus, and identify where they see God at work in their lives.

Thirdly, he discusses groups of up to twelve, which he describes as “faith collectives.” Home groups are an example of this relational space. But they need to be relational spaces, not dominated by a leader. By contrast, great faith collectives involve conversation over food, information from God’s Word, and mutual encouragement.

The fourth space is the worship space, corresponding to the seventy in Jesus’s ministry. In this chapter, he raises the provocative question of whether churches ought to be any larger than seventy-five people. The reason for this is that such spaces are ideal for connection, inspiration, and equipping, and this is lost in larger groups.

Finally, he explores the “crowd space” involves the “missional expression” of the church. This arises from his assertion that mission is the prime identity of the church. I wish he would have interacted with John Piper’s assertion that worship is the primary purpose of the church. Piper contends mission exists because worship doesn’t. I think holding these together important. White asserts mission involves compassion and measures impact (although he doesn’t specify how this is done). Specifically, he identifies three spaces for mission: neighborhood, work, and “third spaces.”

I discussed this in a book group that included several church leaders. Though compact, the book gave us much to discuss, not least, his fivefold schema for the church’s efforts in making disciples. This understanding of the church’s spaces for discipleship, and that they are relational spaces is a vital contribution.

At the same time, we noted that some of his analogies did not work with chapter content, notably the running analogy in the chapter on worship. In addition, greater specifics on “how do you do that?” would be helpful.

This is an interesting schema and I hope others build on this, if not White, who has pivoted, at least for the present, into a fly-fishing ministry. White offers a fresh proposal, built on the model of Jesus, one worth developing in our churches.