Right off the bat, Rainer addresses the methodology issue. Most pastors, myself included, were or are looking for the magic bullet, the one methodology that will change our churches. The author points out that methodology is secondary to intentionality. Just about any methodology will work if diligently pursued.
There are some weaknesses. How in the world can a church with under 100 in attendance be considered evangelistically effective? Sure they may baptize twenty-six people in a given year, but if they continued this for more than one year their attendance would increase to over 100. Perhaps these small churches have evangelistic effective pastors. I would have not included any church in the survey that wasnt evangelistic effective for at least three years. Also, there is another factor that colors this book: only Baptist churches were surveyed. This taints the authors research on such topics as worship. It was no surprise to me that the vast majority of Baptist churches use blended or traditional worship services. The problem is that some unsuspecting readers may assume that only blended or traditional worship services are evangelistically effective. Despite these minor flaws, this is a wonderful book. My only regret is that I didnt read it seven years ago when it was first published.