Matt Rhodes, No Shortcut to Success: A Manifesto for Modern Missions

Abstract

The book No Shortcut to Success: A Manifesto for Modern Missions critiques numerous aspects of the CPM paradigm and presents an alternative and historically endorsed approach to church planting among the unreached. While raising several valid concerns, the book also contains numerous weaknesses which undermine its essential premises. The book falls far short of the title’s claim to offer a path to “Success” and a “Manifesto for Modern Missions.” Instead, it desperately attempts to undermine actual reports of significant “success” in modern missions: the movements that are demonstrably “establishing Christ-centered churches that are sufficiently mature to multiply and endure among peoples who have had little or no access to Jesus’s message.”