I imagine that for most Christians, 2020 has been a strange and difficult year. Months without any physical worship together as the Lord’s people. Returning to public worship under restrictions, making the most of a ‘new normal’ that sometimes doesn’t feel normal at all.

We miss church! We miss being the church. But could we explain why we miss it? Are we able to explain to someone who is a non-churchgoer or a new Christian why church is so important to us?

That is where Garrett Kell’s book is so helpful. He takes us back to first principles to give clear, biblical answers to questions like: ‘what is the church?’ ‘what is a true church?’ and ‘why do I have to go to church?’

Each chapter follows the story of Brian as a new Christian just beginning to attend a church and full of questions. There are illustrations, key verses, and memory verses that will serve to make this a useful book to consider working through with a new Christian or someone considering church membership. (One important caveat is that Kell writes as pastor of a Baptist church so that his sections on baptism and church government would need some explanation from our perspective).

I found this to be a very helpful book to read during this current restrictions, providing a compelling reminder that the Church is God’s people who love and need God, and love and need each other.

James Ross, Buccleuch Free Church