Review of “Coffee Shop Conversations,” by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher

“Chipmunks remind us of the way we used to approach evangelism,” write Dale and Jonalyn Fincher, “treating people as mission projects, scurrying out to them only to hurry back to the safety of our den. For several years, we’ve been growing into a new way of conversing that is helping us listen without scurrying away.”

So, the couple wrote Coffee Shop Conversationsto show fellow believers how to “make friends for the journey and to talk with humble confidence about God without sounding pushy or feeling befuddled, infusing even the briefest interaction with meaning.”

I like it, but I’d like to like it better.

I share the heart of the authors: I’ve often pointed out to our congregation that we need to be a “beachhead church” rather than a “bunker church.” (An example of my teaching on this topic is in this three-part series here). So, when I see authors who provide an example and guidance for “beachhead” living, I’m a fan.

I particularly commend the “7 Manners of Loving Discourse” from chapter 2. It’s a great tool for those learning to engage others in faith conversations. It’s worth the price of the book, and hopefully the authors can condense it down to be published as an article somewhere.

But, as I said, I’d like to like this book better. It was disappointing for them to stray away from evangelism into "egalitarianism."

Broadly, there are two views of gender roles in the church: the “complementarian” and the “egalitarian.” Jonalyn sounds like a recent convert to egalitarianism, and I know it's hard for a convert to not talk about what has grabbed her heart. But it was off-topic in a book that promised to be about faith conversations.

If I were writing a book on how to have spiritual conversations and I took the time to detour into my new love of Ron Paul and all things libertarian, someone would need to tell me I had wandered off subject. That’s what an editor could have told the Finchers about their forays into egalitarianism.

The debate between egalitarianism and complementarianism is worth having. But the Finchers should have decided what they wanted their book to be about: persuading more Christians to be egalitarian in their churches, or persuading more Christians to talk about Jesus with their neighbors. In the end, their book is not a useful resource in my own (complementarian) congregation. I don’t like the loaded way that complementarian Christians are characterized, and I don’t like the implication that only egalitarian Christians have the leverage to be relevant witnesses to twenty-first-century Americans (an implication belied by the inconvenient reality of rapidly-growing complementarian churches).

But though I can’t recommend their book as a training resource for my congregation, I can’t stress this enough: In the end, this is a couple that provides personal examples and guidance for how to talk with our world about Jesus. I will always, always applaud that.