I recently finished reading “Letters the the House Church Movement” by Rad Zdero. This is the first book authored by Zdero which I’ve read. To be honest, I was disappointed in this book. First, the book feels like a collection of disjointed fragments. Due to the nature of the material (a collection of letters), this shouldn’t be surprising I suppose. However this feeling existed even within many chapters.
The most worth while chapters in the book are the ones which only contain a single letter on one topic, such as what house churches do, apostles, and women in church. In effect, these function more like articles on their respective subjects than as letters. There is some good material in this book. Nevertheless, there are better resources for all of the information contained in the book.
Unfortunately, I feel that many of the other letters compiled in this book have little value to a general audience. These letters only show one side of what is in many cases a conversation. This makes the response less valuable since the reader doesn’t fully understand what is being responded to. In some cases, the letters address a specific, unusual (I think) belief, such as the ones written to a person who believed the institutional church is “mystery Babylon”. I can see little value in these letters unless you just happen to be in conversation with someone over the same subject. In another case, Zdero includes a short letter in which he invites several leaders to a conference in which he is speaking. The inclusion of this letter baffles me as I can’t see how it might be of value to anyone outside its original context. It’s for these reasons I give the book a fairly low review.
