Concentric Circles of Concern by Thompson

Concentric Circles of Concern by Thompson

Introduction

The authors of “Concentric Circles of Concern” are, original print: Oscar W. Thompson, revised edition: Thompson R. Carolyn and Claude V. King. Oscar Thompson instructed seminary students in personal evangelism prior to dying of Cancer in 1980. While Oscar Thompson had begun to work on Concentric Circles of Concern it was actually his wife Carolyn who compiled the manuscript of the first edition after the death of Oscar Thompson in 1980. Claude V. King revised the original version of Concentric Circles of Concern with the permission of Carolyn Thompson. Claude V. King served on the staff of an evangelistic church prior to attending seminary in New Orleans.

Discussion

This book focuses on the importance of relationships in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and how when people see the genuines of your faith through a relationship it can be an effective witnessing tool. In the introduction Claude describes how he noticed that, as part of an evangelical church staff, he was able to lead people to make a public profession of Christ but encountered a certain level of difficulty when trying to lead these same people into a local body of “Christ where they could grow”, (Thompson, pg 1). Chapter 1 begins with a story of a father and son whose relationship is broken because of the son's wish to attend seminary and go against the desires of his father for him to continue the family tradition.

The story culminates with the father accepting Jesus after arriving at the door steps of his son's seminary. Through a broken relationship that needed fixing a father was brought to the Lord. The author goes on to say that the most important word in the English Language is relationship and discusses the significance and associations of “Right Relationships” and “Broken Relationships”. Claude says that right relationships leave you prepared for life and if you think back at all the good events that have occurred in your life you can tie them into being in a proper relationship of some sort where as in contrast broken relationships do just the opposite and are associated with bad memories for the most part.

Claude goes on to say that every broken; business, friendship, home is a broken relationship, (Claude, pg 10) and if these relationships could some how be restored then society's most complex problems would be solved because right relationships set the conditions to eliminate these problems before they are problems. Claude then goes on to explain his purpose for writing the book, which was to help the reader experience the blessings of restored relationships.

In this book author speaks on how the gospel moves through relationships with the example of Andrew bringing his brother Simon (Peter) to Jesus who was used mightily by God in the early church years, the example of the woman at the well and how she through a relationship with the town's people communicated that she had found the savior and many more examples ...