From the Preface: Flipping around the television channels during the holiday season of 1978, I glimpsed a young man sitting on an ottoman in front of a Christmas tree. He was surrounded by children and unopened gift packages and was talking about Jesus. With my thumb on the remote control ready to switch lanes, I paused and waited for the pitch. It never came. I waited for the giveaway. It never came. I looked for the showman's touch, the ego feathers, the bright lambent smile, the disturbing evidence that religion is just humanity's roundabout way of serving itself. Instead I was drawn by the simple charm of an earnest young man who seemed concerned about ordinary people. From the way he spoke, he understood what a lot of young families were going through. After a while he passed around the packages to his children. On a Sunday morning not long after, my wife, Winola, and I paid a visit to the old North Park theater on University Avenue in San Diego to hear Michael MacIntosh preach. What we saw and heard, we liked. We realized that God had endowed him with unusual gifts. As we became better acquainted, we also learned that instead of building up his congregation to mammoth size, he had deliberately sent his associates and church members out to start other congregations in the county, many of which were now flourishing. This was different. This broke the pattern. Instead of creating an empire, MacIntosh was dismantling it. I had to find out more. What I gleaned is the substance of this book. It is a true narrative. Michael MacIntosh and his friends in the ministry are symbols, I believe, of a dramatic change taking place in American church life - a change of which the church is only dimly aware. But he is also in his own right a remarkable trophy of grace. Disraeli once cautioned us to read no history, only biography. Words cannot capture a life, but they can make a good story. I commend this one to you. Sherwood Wirt - from Amzon