For a while now I’ve averaged about one book every ten days, yet here we are three weeks into January and I’ve only just finished my first book of 2012. The reason for that is that Max Hasting’s monumental volume on the second world war, All Hell Let Loose, is 748 pages long so it’s like reading three books!
The volume of literature on the last great war is immense, the bibliography to this book is enormous and so it’s hard to say where this single volume work ranks. I also haven’t read many other books so have little to compare it with, but I’m not sure I need to read another.
This book manages something remarkable, it conveys the great sweep of the war, the many differing timelines and events and yet manages to convey what the war was like. This is because the perspective is not that of a Churchill or a Roosevelt, for they are minor characters but having drawn from a myriad of letters, diaries and reports shares what war was like for those most affected by it, mothers, soldiers, sons.
The second world war really was global and immense, the numbers are staggering and hard to comprehend and this book both shattered illusions and educated. I learnt of the 15 million Chinese who died and the Bengal famine which saw nearly two million Indians starve, I learnt that the British army rarely if ever crowned itself in glory and learned how the great powers utterly shafted, screwed and ignored the nation of Poland from first to last.
That more Russians soldiers were shot by the Russians than British soldiers were sot by the Germans, that more Russians (civilians and soldiers) died at the battle of Leninggrad than the Americans and British armies combined for the whole war. The numbers are staggering, nearly 60 million people killed in just six years.
No nation covers itself in glory during war, combatants and neutrals alike. Switzerland, Ireland and Sweden can hardly be proud of their neutrality. France has much to be ashamed of, and there were enough incidents for to prevent Britain and America from too much hubris. America became a great power as a result of this war, the only nation to emerge vastly richer and more powerful while all it’s rivals lay exhausted and in ruins.
Of the three great powers, Britain stood up to the war when all others didn’t. France defeated, America abstained and Russia was an ally to Hitler. Britain really did stand very much alone but too weak to win the war on its own. America paid for the victory. It’s vast industrial might provided for all and proved far too much for anyone else to emerge victorious. Russian on the other hand clearly died for the war. 25 million Russians died, starved, shot, raped and ruined. No country was as willing to sacrifice it’s millions more than Stalin and had they not, Hitler would have taken a lot longer to defeat.
Yet all these facts stand alongside countless story of death, rape, mutilation, despair. The sufferings of the Yugoslavs, Poles, Italians, Chinese, Burmese, Malays and of course the Jews throughout mainland Europe and ordinary people everywhere was horrific and shocking and it is these stories that make this book such a masterpiece.
This is quite a phenomenal book and I’m sure, no matter what I read, it will rank near the top of my reading list come December 2012. That’s a slightly depressing to think I may have already read the best book of the year but at the same time, what a book!
Often with my top ten’s I’ve not read quite enough to make it really meaningful, when half make the list. This time more books miss out and that makes the selection a little more worthy. So what makes a book good? Good writing, interesting ideas, thought provoking, worth talking about, worth recommending and sometimes even inspirational. If a book, even if I disagree with it, manages some or all of these (highly subjective criteria) then it makes the cut. The links to the full reviews are in the titles.
10. Holiness & Mission by Morna Hooker and Frances Young. What I said, “an excellent little book that I will refer to many times I think as I seek to understand God’s heart for cities.”
9. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. “It’s humorous, intelligent and thought provoking and makes for great travel reading which probably explains why it’s sold in its millions”
8. Generous Justice by Tim Keller. I said, “Well worth having a copy on your shelves.”
7. The Road to Missional by Michael Frost. “I thoroughly enjoyed reading and being provoked by Frost who is an engaging and interesting writer and I’d be interested in reading more.”
6. The Translator by Daoud Hari. ”Simply put for first hand insight into the events that took place in Darfur start here.”
5. The Spirit Filled Church by Terry Virgo. “I found the insights on leaders being able to confront with grace, the primacy of prayer in the life of a church and the chapters explaining grace and the baptism of the Holy Spirit to be outstanding and as such places I’d turn to again and again.”
4. Love Wins by Rob Bell. There’s no question this was the most debated book I read this year! “This book will be influential, it is raises big questions, it answers them with verve, wit and style even if wrongly and it’s not all bad.”
3. The Great Divorce by CS Lewis. Lewis approaches the same issues as Bell in a completely different way and as ever is masterful with his language and insight. I didn’t have a pithy quote for this one!
2. Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose. I may have been unduly influenced by the TV on this one, but I found this book, “a well written, pacey, gripping story but it’s the men of Easy company who, for all their faults, during the second world war at least, were genuine heroes.” For me, inspirational.
1. Consumer Detox by Mark Powley. I need to be upfront, Mark’s a great friend but that’s not necessarily to his advantage! Anyway, this was the first book I read in 2011 and I probably need to read it again. “In short this is now the book that I would recommend and give to anyone beginning the journey to a deeper discipleship in our materialistic and consumer driven society. Ironically given the subject matter this is a must buy.”
Every now and then some light reading is called for and this came in the handy form of Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman.
The basic plot is that it’s time for the end of the world and the birth of the anti-Christ, unfortunately due to a mix up at the hospital the wrong child is sent to the wrong home, yet the end of the world must come, just not where and how anyone expected.
The main characters are a demon called Crowley and an angel called Azirophale, who over the course of human history have become almost mates. The cast of other comic characters is long and distinguished and mostly entertaining. In some ways the humour has stood the test of time well, it’s only in the little details that the book (written in 1992) has shown it’s age. After all, in the world of mp3 tape cassettes morphing into the Best of Queen loses its edge a bit.
Lurking behind the comedy are some serious points, that humans are capable of grace that amazes angels and terrors that scare demons, that left to their own devices things sort of balance themselves out. The general idea is that good and evil are finely balanced and no one, not even in heaven, knows who will win at armageddon, and that the idea of earth as some sort of cosmic battleground is well just a bit obscene.
I’d read this as a teenager and at the time thought it hilarious, now it’ still funny and frankly should be required reading for anyone who spends just a little bit too much time in the book of Revelation for their own good.
For the past ten years or so I have lived in middle England. Our town had an overwhelmingly white British population, most of whom would be very happy if it stayed that way. Despite having travelled reasonably widely and had the pleasure of learning about different cultures, I never particularly faced the issue of discovering those cultures in my birth nation. The demographics were never really in my favour.
Then this year, we move to a small village in south-east Sweden and the issue that has forced me to think the hardest, are issues of asylum and immigration. Firstly, of course due to the fact that our family are now immigrants. We have chosen to come to this country and make it our home. As a result we are eager to learn the language and the culture, we are proactive and we have the advantage of being educated, white and European.
However, not everyone has ‘chosen’ in the same way to be here and just like in the UK, here in Sweden, asylum and immigration are hotly contested issues. What will happen to Swedish culture, where in a population of just 9 million one in ten residents was born abroad? Is the system fair, tough enough, too tough?
Then there are issues that face Christians who seek asylum. What of the church and the gospel in the country they’ve fled from? Those who can escape often have more means than most and so the church in the homeland is deprived of desperately needed leadership and resources as families seek a safer, better life in the West. Fleeing a country and entering a new one almost invariably involves deception and lies to leave one country and stay in a new one. How does a Christian honour their authorities in either country, how does a Christian speak truth in such cases? And if lies have been told, what does it mean to repent? How do you pastor and lead people in such circumstances.
These, to me, were new questions. Ones I’d never needed to think through and I suspect that in Stockholm, this may come across my path and so now is a good time to prepare. All these questions were the reason I purchased Asylum and Immigration: A Christian perspective by Nick Spencer. Nick Spencer has built a reputation for writing careful and balanced perspectives on contemporary issues such as climate change and now here asylum and immigration. Although it deals with the issue primarily from a British perspective, I suspect that in many places you can simply swap UK for another host European nation.
Spencer begins with a survey of the political landscape and the ways in which, depending on which media outlet or newspaper is preferred, the public views the issue. The more interesting section comes in the middle where he outlines the role of the immigrant (or alien) in the Bible and what the Bible teaches about nationhood. A few point stand out, the most obvious being that ancient Israel was commanded to care for the vulnerable alien and that in the Bible, they often take centre stage. Jacob and family became economic migrants to Egypt, from which they later needed rescuing from slavery. The book of Ruth is the story of an economic migrant into Israel. Mary, Joseph and Jesus were asylum seekers back in Egypt. The early church was founded with an incredible diversity on the day of Pentecost and so on.
It’s easy to think, especially in an ancient nation like Britain or Sweden, how temporary nations are. In my lifetime alone we have seen the death and birth of many nations. No more Soviet Union but plenty new nations, some with more historical claims of nationhood than others. No more Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Yugoslavia. East Timor and South Sudan are our newest nations and others aspire to it, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Palestine for example. Who knows in the next decade will we see the end of North Korea? So, nations still come and go and with them and the increasing ease of transport comes the mass movement of people. Invariably this is a movement from poorer less secure nations to safer, richer ones. What responsibilities do these richer nations have and how much of a risk is mass immigration to their prosperity and security?
In the final section, Spencer attempts to take the principles of the second section and make some observations about the government policy. As, Spencer is aware, policies are and asylum policies in particular are subject to the whims of government and are often short term, so he is careful not to venture too far out on that branch and keeps his proposals tentative and guarded.
This reads like a policy report and so doesn’t address the issue from a pastoral perspective, or from a broader church/mission perspective. Yet as an opening read on the issue, the second section will prove to be a valuable resource and basis for further thinking.
I’m rapidly becoming a big fan of everything Tim Keller writes (I previously reviewed Counterfeit Gods) because, well, he just seems to make so much sense.
In Generous Justice: How God’s grace makes us just Keller explores how the motivation for acts of compassion and justice are rooted in the grace of God to us in Christ. It’s this connection that makes this book stand out from many of the other books on social justice.
Keller has four main groups in his sights as he writes; those keen on social justice but unclear of the gospel connection, those clear on the gospel but wary of social justice, those who are keen on mission as social justice but gone soft on the cross and lastly those who think Christianity like all religions ‘poisons everything’.
In many ways there really is little difference between what Tim Keller is saying here than say what Jim Wallis says in A Call to Conversion but Keller goes a bit deeper and connects in a truer way to the heart of the Gospel. Many authors start from the needs of the poor and then work backwards to the Bible looking for reasons why we should do something. Keller comes to similar conclusions but from a very different starting point. He starts with the Gospel message and then works out the implications of that and seeks to show that you can not, not have social justice if you’ve understood the gospel.
The one area where Generous Justice is a bit thin on the ground is personal stories and illustrations which is a bit surprising because I don’t think Keller or his church are short of them. A few more would have given just a bit more real life insight into some of the solutions Keller was suggesting.
However, Keller also knows his core readership will come from American evangelicalism, a group not always known for their commitment to social justice and in this volume he teaches the how and why of social justice using language they can grasp and understand. More importantly he connects it to the thing they are most concerned about: the gospel.
Well worth having a copy on your shelves.
I recently watched for the second times the magnificent Band of Brothers mini-series (for what it’s worth one of the most remarkable pieces of TV drama I’ve ever seen) and decided to follow that up by reading the book of the same name.
This is the third of Stephen Ambrose’s World War Two books I’ve read (Pegasus Bridge and The Victors being the others) and this has a very similar feel to it. Ambrose relies on oral testimony to piece together the action and the constant dialogue with those that were there give the book real authenticity, personality and grittiness.
Band of Brothers tells the story of one company, Easy, of the 101st Airborne from their training to their first action on D-Day to their capture of the Eagle’s Nest in Austria. It really is a remarkable story and some of these men did remarkable things.
Yet Ambrose doesn’t simply recount war stories from old soldiers but pieces them together to form both a gripping narrative but also insight into the war from the perspective of the ordinary soldier and his commentary on many of the decisions prove that war is always a waste of human life. It chronicles the action as well as the boredom, the heroics and the cowardice, the just cause and the lust for blood, the discipline and the drunkenness. It’s well rounded and despite clearly seeing the men of Easy company as heroes doesn’t always hold back from calling failings for exactly what they were.
At the beginning of this year Dick Winters, one of the main characters in this book, died. His generation, the generation that fought this war have nearly passed away. With their passing go some truly extraordinary characters who thrown into an incredible situation showed remarkable strength, guts and determination. In so many ways I hope we never have to experience what these men went through, and in other ways it shaped them profoundly and what shapes us is far less profound.
Yet for some of them the war and the army broke them and of course many simply did not survive. We ask an awful lot when we ask our young men and now women, to not only die on our behalf but to kill.
Band of Brothers is a well written, pacey, gripping story but it’s the men of Easy company who, for all their faults, during the second world war at least, were genuine heroes.
Preaching Christ by Edgar Andrews is a classic example of not judging a book by its cover, or for that matter its layout and design inside the cover because that, like the cover, is terrible. I almost didn’t read this book, I just assumed it would be awful, so bad is the production on this book. No small miracle then, that this is actually a very useful little book.
Edgar Andrews is better known as an international expert in molecules and author of Who Made God? and once I made that connection I began to sit up and pay a bit more attention.
His conviction is made clear by the title that the ‘only preaching that really counts is that which centres on the Person, work and glory of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God’ (p5). He then unpacks what he means by preaching, what it means to preach Christ and that Christ can and should be preached from the Old Testament, the New Testament, to unbelievers and believers alike and basically every time you preach.
We preach the atonement, God’s grace, the unsearchable riches in Christ, repentance and faith (in Christ) and everything that is the full counsel of God, but at the heart of all if it is not linked to Christ is likely to slip into moralism and empty religion. I found much encouragement here and a useful reminder that too much preaching can talk about Christianity but not Christ and I very much enjoyed reading this simple direct and helpful call to, whatever else I do, preach Christ.
The book began life as a series of articles in the Evangelical Times and so each chapter is short and easily read but contains much treasure. The whole book itself is only 80 pages long but if you were looking for something to get you started on the road to Christ centred preaching then this would be an excellent place to start, just don’t be put off by the cover.
Sometimes reading books suggested to you by others proves to be a real blessing and other times it puts you into a predicament because you don’t like the book. It’s taken me a while to figure out which category this book falls into.
I have many friends who are and have been greatly impacted by the ministry of Bill Johnson and Bethel Church in Redding, California. In fact my mother-in-law is currently spending a year at Bethel Church and so I respect them and what God is doing in their lives. So as Bill Johnson says you need to ‘chew the meat and spit out the bones’. Sadly When Heaven Invades Earth is more spare rib than rump steak.
First let’s spit out the bones.
#Bone 1: Language. There are a few issues I have here. One is that although I recognise all the words I don’t understand many of the sentences. There’s a church culture and a theology that lies behind it that I simply have no comprehension of. For example:
“Burning within my soul is a piece of the original flame from the day of Pentecost. It’s been handed down generation after generation.”
Is he talking about the Holy Spirit? A piece of the original flame? There were plenty more of those.
Then there’s an awful lot of ‘invading’, ‘colliding’, ‘warring’, ‘infiltrating’, ‘plundering’ going on. It’s all a bit Kapow, Thwack, Sock, Wham, Bam. I don’t know if that’s the reality or not but why God has to invade His own earth and infiltrate governments that He presides over or why anything would ‘collide’ into God is a little beyond me.
Lastly on language this is writing by soundbite. I’m fairly sure there couldn’t have been a sentence more than about 15 words long. It’s all pithy, punchy stuff but after 189 pages you’re just longing for some half decent writing. Bill Johnson may have authored any number of books but he’s no writer.
#Bone 2: Some of it is just silly. OK, here are two examples of what I’m talking about.
“When we are smeared with God, it rubs off on all we come into contact with…” (p135)
Well, I’m just a little bit uncomfortable with talking about God in the same way as I do grease. You get smeared with oil if someone anoints you, to say that when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit they are ‘smeared with God’ is well, just a bit silly. That’s confusing the action with the meaning.
And
“We are to be a witness of God. To give witness is to ‘represent’. This actually means to re-present Him.” (emphasis original p119)
No, Bill it doesn’t. That’s simply not what the word means, sorry about that. Represent and re-present are two different words meaning two different things.
#Bone 3: Theology. Of course language often betrays our theology and some of what I’ve already said is theological. However, on the basis of this book I think there are genuine questions about how Johnson understands the person of Christ, the Trinity, Scripture, the Holy Spirit, the church, eschatology and spiritual warfare and money. So, just a few minor areas of concern then.
To take one example he functionally elevates personal revelation above scripture and makes it the key to successful interpretation. We have enough trouble working out what scripture means without everyone claiming their personal experience the key to successfully interpreting the Sermon on the Mount.
#Bone 4: Bridge burner not bridge builder. If I wasn’t convinced about the gifts of the Spirit for today and I was reading this book to try and understand what was happening, I think I’d come away incredibly offended and not because of the conviction of the Spirit. Johnson argues (p81) that the spirit of the anti-christ is at work in churches that are cessationist, that those who do are of a ‘religious spirit’ which is demonic.
Now I happen to think that cessationism is wrong along with infant baptism and an egalitarian view of leadership for example. I don’t think that those who hold those views are essentially influenced by the devil and the anti-christ. I just think they’re wrong, but let’s sit down and chat it over. Hard to do that when the bloke opposite thinks God has his back and the devil has yours.
There’s more but to carry on just makes me feel hyper-critical and we’ll miss the good stuff that should be chewed on.
#The Meat
I’ve no wish to believe anything other than the miracles Johnson writes about actually happened. I’m sure those people were healed and healed by the power of the name of Jesus. His ministry and His church has seen more people healed than I’ve met and who am I to be churlish about that? No, there’s something there that is good and I’ll praise God for that.
Secondly, there is a genuine concern for the poor and vulnerable. There were sufficient mentions in a very understated (unlike the rest of the book) way of care and compassion. The opening story alone of the wedding is wonderful and challenging. I absolutely applaud and desire to see more of this.
Thirdly, there is a deep passion for God, for an intimate relationship with God and a recognition that we need God. Amen.
Fourthly, real conviction that prayer and seeking after God is fundamental. If anything stood out, it was this. The rest of his teachings were so-so at best, but I think the key is this. He prays, his church prays and they pray a lot for God to be at work and He does. I don’t know why God blesses people whose theology is up the creek except that I’m pretty sure if He didn’t he might never bless me.
Lastly, an expectation that the Gospel is powerful, that God is powerful, that the future is bright and not bleak and that we can hope for healing, deliverance, freedom and grace to triumph in the lives of many.
God is at work, lives changed and the power of God is clear. I’m just not sure I’m any the wiser about how to see that happen after reading this book.
What should church life be like? What values and principles should be evident to any observer? How should a church be led and who by and what gifts should we be looking for?
These are the questions that Terry Virgo addresses in The Spirit-Filled Church: Finding your place in God’s purpose. As the founding and father to the Newfrontiers family of churches this is a clear and accessible explanation to the way Newfrontiers has attempted to answer those questions. As a, largely, contented member and leader within that same family of churches it should be no great surprise to learn that I am in agreement with the positions taken. However even though it all seems ‘obvious’ to me, it was still a pleasure and a benefit to read the reasons so clearly articulated.
Terry makes the case for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and our need of it, the ongoing work of praying for the sick and other supernatural gifts; for churches committed to the teaching of and obedience to the Word of God; for churches that know and live out lives of grace, that are generous and compassionate to the poor; that love the presence and praise of Jesus and where genuine friendships are built. He also makes the case for anointed and appointed eldership that works freely and willingly with apostolic teams.
In each chapter Terry teaches, laying down his thinking through biblical examples and supplements these with personal examples. Whether you agree with Terry’s workings out or his conclusions on these various subjects that can be no doubt about the warmth and affection with which Terry holds the church. The book wins you over with its gentle insistence that, ‘wouldn’t it be great if the church, your church, was like this?’ It’s written in such a way that it’s hard not to find yourself saying, ‘yes it would be great’ or even ‘it is great, isn’t it!’
This is a clear presentation of a movement’s vision and values; a vision of how a church and all its members can get caught up with the will of God, the ways of God and the worship of God and what a local church might look and feel like as a result. How would I use this book? Primarily I’d give to anyone who was interested in joining my church or wanted to know more about our values and if they weren’t reading people then I’d use this to talk things through with them. This is a superb resource for that.
Personally I found the insights on leaders being able to confront with grace, the primacy of prayer in the life of a church and the chapters explaining grace and the baptism of the Holy Spirit to be outstanding and as such places I’d turn to again and again.
The word missional has been around for a while and everyone assumes they know what you’re talking about even if you’re talking about very different things. This is why Andrew Wilson can write about the Missional Muddle.
It’s an issue that is not lost on one of the architects of all things missional and the author of The road to missional: Journey to the center of the church, Michael Frost. So Frost writes,
“We now have missional conferences, missional church planting schemes, and all manner of missional programs. This is not to mention the fact that books on the missional paradigm are becoming a dime a dozen. So much so, in fact, that one author recently suggested to me me that the term missional is a bit old hat these days and that the shelves are sagging under the burden of missional church literature. Better, he advised, to use a different, more appealing title to engage potential readers. Ten years ago it never would have occurred to me that being missional would become hip, let alone that it would become passé.”
I’ve read a few authors cited by Frost as missional; Martin Robinson, Stuart Murray & Dan Kimball and I was aware that Ed Stetzer is becoming increasingly widely read among Newfrontiers leaders but I’m not sure I’d read a book that directly addressed the idea of a missional church before. At least not one good enough to stick in my memory.
So I’m going to let Frost define the terms for us beginning with, ‘what is mission?’
“Mission is both the announcement and the demonstration of the reign of God through Christ. Mission is not primarily concerned with church growth. It is primarily concerned with the reign and rule of the Triune God. If the church grows as a result, so be it.” (p24)
A missional church then, is a church that realises this Missio Dei and has a ‘wholesale and thorough reorientation of the church around mission’ (p16).
As a result mission cannot be reduced to simply spoken evangelism or acts of kindness and compassion. It’s a bold attempt to transcend the old evangelism vs social justice debate, because to be missional is to declare that Jesus is Lord through what you say and what you do. It’s evangelism plus, so to speak. But if you think it’s just another word for doing some more evangelism, Frost says, you’ve missed the point.
The good news according to Frost is that our God reigns and rules through Christ and so whatever you do that alerts people to the fact of the rule of God is missional. The weakness of the book is that while it affirms this alerting of people by both ‘announcement and demonstration’ (p35) almost all the focus and the examples are on ‘demonstration’. So, if you are from a church that is concerned about the ‘announcement’ part of the equation you will find The Road to Missional a bit on the flimsy side, but if you were from a church that is looking for affirmation of the ‘demonstration’ side to the equation then there is much to love and encourage you.
For example, in the chapter on evangelism Frost, rightly in my opinion, talks of the need to declare Christ not just as Saviour but also as Lord. So he says that evangelism requires ‘a radical reorientation’ and that should ‘involve the decision to acknowledge the reign of God through Christ and submit oneself to live under it’. I agree.
Again, Frost spells out a presentation of the Gospel that replaces the ‘four spiritual laws’ with this: designed for good, damaged by evil, restored for better and sent together to heal. Again all well and good but, for me, there was a missing descriptor.
So while I agree that ‘evangelism is then much more about announcing the lordship of Jesus than the sinfulness of the unbeliever’ it is also about my sinfulness and my unbelief. Somewhere between restored for better and sent to heal, I need to repent. I really do. Every sinner on their way to sainthood does. I genuinely don’t think there’s another way to become a disciple of Jesus than to ‘repent and believe’. I think Frost would agree, but I just wish he’d spelled it out.
There is so much here that I agreed with and loved; I loved the focus on Jesus; the focus on genuine community, peace and reconciliation, sharp questions that help you become aware of who your neighbour is, an emphasis on discipleship, an everything agenda that sees value in the life and work of everybody and not just church workers. I found myself agreeing and wanting to be increasingly ‘missional’.
Having said all that, here are a few observations where this vision of church is missing a few important things. There was little mention of the role and place of the Holy Spirit in the life of the disciple or in the life of the church, so read The Spirit Filled Church by Terry Virgo along side this.
As a discussion on the centre of the church and what it means for a church to be missional there was also little on the role, place and structure of leadership for a church. Whether this is because missional can be super-imposed on any denominational or leadership structure or because it favours a flatter, more democratic approach to church life I’m not sure. Yet leadership remains crucial, I can think of several missional endeavours that failed or are failing for one very simple reason: poor or vague leadership.
These issues notwithstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed reading and being provoked by Frost who is an engaging and interesting writer and I’d be interested in reading more.
As a child one of my favourite books of all time was a children’s version of Pilgrim’s Progress but I have to admit that before reading John Bunyan: The Christian by Gordon Wakefield my knowledge of the great author was a bit, well, basic. I knew he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, of course, and I knew he wrote it in jail (or gaol!) and that he was from Bedford. Which, fairly accurately sums up the extent and limit of my knowledge of the man credited by Rudyard Kipling no less, as father of the novel. So reading this biography really was an education.
Matthew Paul Turner is a product of American evangelicalism, something that turned out not to be a complete blessing. In fact, it pretty much shipwrecked his faith. Like many young men he regularly got stuck with internet pornography, simply tried harder to get himself free and like a fly stuck in a spider’s web, the more he struggled the more stuck he became.
Provocative Faith: Walking away from ordinary is his journey of faith away from surface, shallow faith that is marked by legalism to a more grace filled, deeper, more real relationship with God through faith in Christ. This sort of faith, by its very nature, is provocative to others because it’s marked by joy and trust. It’s written with honesty, self-deprecating humour and a passion for something authentic.
At the end of several chapters there are small interviews with friends of MPT and it’s these that are the hardest hitting. The conversation with the couple who struggled to conceive, the woman abused in her childhood struggling but finding the strength to forgive, the guy who lost his job and marriage because he had an affair, the pastor who has buried teenagers; all demonstrate either the shallowness of what MPT wants to leave behind or the real faith that he hopes we will discover.
However, I did have a few issues with the book. In his chapter on our longing for community MPT basically holds up Friends as a good example of community and then describes his nearest experience to finding it. Well, that’s setting most people up to fail at community. There are no old people in friends, there are no children in friends, there are no people with proper jobs and responsibilities, there is no purpose, there are no difficult people and no one new can join the group. Friends is a rubbish community.
MPT also ends up with a slightly more gospel-centred version of the American dream with chapters such as Participate in God’s dream for you that propagates the myth that we are all somehow destined for greatness, all participants in heaven’s version of the X-Factor. MPT says, “I believe the dreams that God has for us are just as grandiose, ridiculous and exciting…I believe each of us has a God-calling on our lives that only we can accomplish.”
Sounds nice. Only for most people, that just ain’t true. Unless by that he means, dependably and faithfully raising children, holding down a job, serving in church in ordinary ways, not giving up through the ups and downs of life and just being obedient in the next thing that God asks you to do given that it might be something quite small. Simply put, not all of us are called to be world-changers. All of us are called to ‘lead a quiet life’ (1 Tim 2:2). I’m not saying you’re not special or that God has no plans for you, but we can easily get confused with examples like Billy Graham. He was exceptional in the outcomes of his ministry. All of us can be faithful and upright as Billy is and was but maybe not all of us, in fact most of us, won’t be exceptionally successful.
This book is OK but I’m not sure I’d be any clearer how God frees me or how to live free after reading this. I think I’d just give them something by Terry Virgo on Grace instead. It does articulate the experience of growing up in an evangelicalism infected by legalism and the resulting weakness of faith this results in, it’s one I can personally identify, with but it comes up short with some of its solutions.
Debra and Frank Green have been leading a remarkable prayer movement in Manchester, England that has since spread further afield through Redeeming our Communities. City Changing Prayer: Insights from Manchester’s impacting city-wide prayer movement is the story of their journey from gathering half a dozen people in their front room to pray to gathering thousands of Christians from across the denominations to pray together for their city.
The Green’s come from an evangelical charismatic background and in the UK those aren’t always the most obvious places to look for fruitful ecumenical initiatives but this prayer movement turned out to be something quite special.
There are numerous practical lessons to learn here: from how to organise and run large prayer meetings with people from different church backgrounds so that prayer happens and not actually sink to the lowest common denominator to building trust between church leaders (which often proved to be the biggest obstacle) and how to involve city leaders from politics, education and police.
In fact it is the way they gathered the church to constructively engage with the civic leadership of the city that I found the most helpful and inspiring. In a secular post-Christian society civic leadership can often be suspicious and ignorant of the church, fearing us to be God-botherers with a narrow moral agenda and whose intolerance runs contrary to the leading values of the day. This constructive approach builds positive partnership, dispels fears and again puts the church as a constructive contributor to city life. As someone soon to move into a major city, this was an excellent insight to gain.
However, the book can’t really live up to its title (not that that’s necessarily the authors fault) but while the church may have changed and indeed many wonderful things have happened in Manchester supported by and contributed to by this prayer movement, it would be hard to argue that Manchester itself has significantly and measurably changed. So has it changed the city? The honest answer must be ‘no, not yet.’ Of course, we wouldn’t buy a book titled ‘Great prayer meetings in a city’ or ‘how to build ecumenical prayer movements’ so I understand the issues.
The book is also pretty well loaded up with Christian jargon and if you’re sceptical of any charismatic phenomena (such as evidenced during the Toronto Blessing) then there are any number of opportunities to be exercise due caution yet they steer away from the silliest theological ideas that evangelical charismatics have had and mostly embrace a solidly evangelical understanding of prayer, that when we pray with faith God hears and changes both the church and the situations being prayed for.
The book is readable enough while never being exactly gripping, describing as it does the slow process of relationship building and running prayer meetings but for those who are committed to building prayer across churches for a city then this is a good book to read.
This small book (just 87 pages plus discussion questions) examines Jesus’ parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal son from Luke 15. The first two parables get a chapter each and the last one gets four chapters looking at the lost son, the gifts, the elder brother and the celebration.
It’s readable and accessible and that’s about it really. Unfortunately for Moore when it comes to the parables he has some pretty stiff competition and this falls way short of the standard set by Tim Keller in the Prodigal God for example.
The points Moore makes are all OK but they’re a bit bland and forgettable. The illustrations read like the ones you find on sermon illustration websites (which I used in my first year or so of preaching and then stopped. Preachers you can usually do better). It’s thought of the day stuff but with a dose of American sugar and pie.
‘Have you heard the story about the pastor who looked out of his study window and saw that a little kitten was stuck in a tree?’
I sure have Rev Moore and so it goes.
The points he makes are alright and nothing to complain about – God does after all want us to be like him and be forgiving and gracious and no He doesn’t want us to be like the elder brother and so on. But those points aren’t really worthy of a book are they, if they’re not presented in a way that catches the heart, that exposes the sin, that draws me to Christ? Well, I didn’t think so.
I don’t know who I’d give this book to or what insights they’d gain from reading this instead of just thinking a bit longer about the parables themselves. So there’s nothing much wrong with this book but nothing that makes it stand out either.
John V Taylor wrote Enough is Enough in 1975, the year I was born, which makes it an ageing book but in many ways a prophetic book.
He opens by discussing the publication of The Limits of Growth and the furore that surrounded it thirty years ago and so chapter one has a decidedly pessimistic feel to it. It is clear that Taylor is fearful of the direction and destination of mankind if it remains set on ‘endless growth’.
“There is no surer way of arousing the emotions of economists than to suggest that the highly developed countries of the West should deliberately stop the growth of capital investment, slow down industry’s consumption of raw materials, and set about educating the citizens to expect a levelling-off of the standard of living.” (p2)
And in the light of the current economic crisis some of what he says remains startlingly relevant.
“Growth economy is interested in profits, not products; it seeks to reduce labour costs, not to create jobs.” (p6)
However not all he says has stood the test of time as well. For example Taylor points to China as a society whose ‘determining factor is not profit but total social welfare’ and whose methods were ‘ecologically less damaging’. History has, sadly, shown those comments to be bunk. His advocacy of population controls seem somewhat severe. I have two children and no matter how much I’m in favour of adoption, I’m not sure I would have taken kindly to being told we can’t have kids but instead must adopt them (p14) or endure ‘compulsory sterilization’ (p16). I don’t even dare think what would have happened if he’d suggested that to my wife. (more…)
The church in the western world is undergoing significant transition and it isn’t yet clear what the church of the future will look like, so says Eddie Gibbs in churchmorph: how megatrends are reshaping christian communities.
Gibbs identifies five trends of today’s western world. The transition from modernity to post-modernity; the transition from the industrial to the information age; the transition from Christendom to post-Christendom contexts; the transition from production initiatives to consumer awareness; and the transition from religious identity to spiritual exploration (p.19).
Gibbs briefly explains and introduces each of these five ‘mega-trends’ and then looks at a variety of responses from the church including missional church, the emergent church, the new reformed movement, the current impact of mega-churches, the new monastic movements, urban (as opposed to suburban) churches, expanding ‘apostolic’ networks and the alternative worship movement.
Under each of those headings brief introductions are given to major or prominent players in each of those areas. Most are brief but a few Gibbs expands a few where he has taken a particular interest.
It’s reasonably interesting as an overview and if the big picture is your thing then this is worth a read, although it really needs a following up in 10 years time to revisit and assess the impact and significance of these movements. Which withered and died, which blossomed and grew, who were the flash in the pan five-year wonders that are now fading into the gloom?
You could take some issue with the themes themselves and argue for the inclusion of others; no mention is made, for example, in the south and eastern shift of Christianity’s power base and so this book remains a resolutely western one. It is western societies issues and the western churches response and then mainly the Anglo-Saxon ones at that, that is considered.
I felt the book lost a little focus by not really asking whether some of these movements where consciously engaging with the mega-trends that Gibbs identified. Some snappy articulation of their theological response would have made it clear that the church is being proactive. As it is I was left with the distinct impression that the church is being almost unconsciously shaped by these vast forces which they little understand or recognise.
As a sociological overview it’s interesting. I recognise I’m in the missional camp with some emergent tendencies while being allied to a new apostolic network; which may mean I’ve not thought things through properly! But I’m not quite sure what the application or outcome of this book is: what do I do with this information, what use is it to me? And I’m not sure of the answer to that question.
I’d never heard of James Emery White before getting this book or the mega church he leads in America so when What they didn’t teach you in seminary: 25 Lessons for successful ministry in your church arrived in the post for review, I had no expectations one way or the other.
After having read it, I have a one big question: what do they teach prospective pastors in seminary in America? Really, if they missed out all this then there’s some room for improvement over there.
So some of the 25 topics that White covers include; emotional survival, raising money, sexual fences, family life, casting vision and other fairly basic leadership stuff. You know don’t employ someone without references and burn out is bad for your soul, stuff like that.
There were also enough stories to make me scratch my head about American Christianity and the industry that we call the church. I know that the church can often have the meanest and stupidest people on earth in them but no one seems to do that better than America if the stories you read in leadership books are even half-true.
Each chapter is short and eminently readable and it really does contain some useful leadership lessons. It’s a book I’ll keep and pass along. Others have covered in greater detail some of the material so for example the chapter on the five C’s is straight out of Bill Hybel’s Courageous Leadership and the chapter on emotional resources received a book by Wayne Cordeiro and so on. It sounds like to me that White and his church would be pretty similar to say Willow Creek, that’s where I’d pitch it, if that helps at all. In fact it’s a lot like Hybels’ Axiom book.
The book is down to earth, conversational and generally straight talking about the realities of church leadership and most of the advice offered was good, sound and solid stuff. One of the little positive that stood out for me and enjoyed as I read the book were the last sentences of each chapter, each was pithy, witty and drove home the point of the chapter. I thought most of them were really good examples of punchy writing.
There were a few areas which made me pause, some of which are no doubt shaped by White’s context (American mega-church) and which don’t travel all that well.
White had an annoying habit of talking anonymously about all the well-known pastors he’d met with here or there. Now you can mention it once and it’s clear that you’re avoiding just naming names, do that five or six times and it sounds like you want people to know that really you could name names and that you’re in the know. It was name dropping without saying the name, so it just came across as a little boastful.
There were some more real areas of disagreement such as the value of excellence and the general assumption that big seeker sensitive church is the way to go, and possibly the only way to go that makes any sense. So there were some things there that I just couldn’t get excited about and there is very little teaching here. So it’s life lessons from an experienced pastor and not insights from the Bible into leadership.
So recommended and a book I may well pass on but it needs reading with some sense of context to filter out the stuff that just doesn’t work if you’re not in an American mega-church or even want to be in one!
In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I count some of the staff and members of Kings as friends and am part of the same family of churches as the author of this book, Steve Tibbert. It’s always a slightly tricky thing when you review a book by someone you know. Being a sycophant isn’t my thing but then I’ve not always got the balance right when making public comments about people who, after all, are on the same team. That makes it sound like I’m about to pan this book, which I’m really not at all.
Good to Grow is the story of Kings Church in south-east London since Steve’s became the leader in the early 90′s. It’s a story of a church that has grown from some 200 to well over a thousand regular attenders, now meeting across multiple sites and pushing ahead at some rate of knots. As such it’s a story to be applauded. There simply aren’t enough stories like this in the UK of churches growing consistently over the years and breaking through significant barriers in terms of numbers and diversity.
Good to Grow also contains the leadership lessons that Steve has learnt along the way and Steve is a very focused leader and there is lots of good stuff here particularly on building a diverse church, building a great marriage and the challenge of regularly retooling your leadership team to be ready for the next season of growth.
The chapters are short and the tone is conversational so you race through the pages quickly and nowhere does it get bogged down in detail. I read it in about three hours and it’s time well spent.
At times the book is a bit uneven and patchy and this is mostly when the story and the leadership lessons get mixed up and the chapter loses focus, this was more evident at the beginning of the book as the story of the early years of Steve’s tenure was recalled. The book became much sharper and found its stride from the middle onwards.
However, any quibbles I have are minor and it certainly doesn’t spoil the book. The big take home lesson for me was the importance of building a great team which undoubtedly Steve has done. So for an encouraging story of church growth, for honest assessment of how to build a diverse multi-racial team and for other useful leadership lessons Good to Grow is a worthwhile book for a leader to read.
How do you go about discussing your faith with others? Do you feel awkward when they raise objections? More likely to back down or endlessly getting into arguments that ultimately seem a bit futile? Then Tactics: A game plan for discussing your Christian convictions by Gregory Koukl could be the book for you.
In essence it’s more a book about the art of conversation than about apologetics but you it often is an art and there are lessons that need learning. In fact this is more effective because you don’t need to know all arguments against evolution to have positive and disarming conversation with someone who might appear to be an opponent.
So Koukl, who spends his life training and speaking in apologetics, begins with how to ask a well-aimed question, and ask more well aimed follow up questions that shift the burden of proof on to your conversation partner. Koukl also focuses in on the flaws in other people’s arguments, lack of logic, or inconsistency that while they don’t necessarily prove your point do cause the other person to pause about the validity of what they think. Each tactic is given a name like the Columbo or Just the Facts.
The substance of what Koukl says is very helpful and I learnt a few things about the inconsistencies say in a pro-choice position or the case made for a human morality by a humanist and so there is much to commend it. However, the manner left me a little cold. Don’t get me wrong, Koukl consistently called for gentleness, kindness and respect. Stay clear of steam-rolling over people, point scoring, name calling or getting frustrated and angry. All things I’ve been guilty of in the past. It’s more that it all seemed a bit mechanical, a bit hit and run and not chats with your actual friend, next-door neighbour or running partner.
Plus the idea of starting small groups that had the sole idea of learning how to quiz people just seemed a bit daft, I’m not sure I want a church full of Jeremy Paxman-esque inquisitors. Having said that, this is a book I’m keeping because there were some apolgetic gems in there worth referring to especially if you get involved in any kind of debate on a regular basis.
The girl who played with fire by Stieg Larsson is the second in his bestselling trilogy after The girl with the dragon tattoo. It continues the adventures of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander although this time the prominent roles are switched with Salander being the central character.
As with the first I found it a page turner and I think Larsson paces the book really well that brings the book first simmering and then to the boil. Salander begins to mature, calm down and grow up and then finds herself accused of a triple murder and her few friends come to her defense to prove her innocence.That’s essentially the story with a sub theme of exposing sex trafficking in Sweden.
TGWPWF doesn’t contain such lurching, disturbing and graphic sexual violence as the first book did, although it’s there under the surface in the past of Salander and as motives for several characters. Having said that the book is fairly crude with plenty of mostly needless swearing chucked in.
The same reservations about the characters remain, Larsson seems to be at pains to point out that the main characters while appearing immoral are actually deeply moral but just according to their code and not that of a wider group. So Blomkvist and Berger can be loyal to one another while Berger carries on with her infidelity to her husband. All the characters hop in and out of bed with various others. Sex appears to be of great consequence and no consequence all at the same time and their sex lives are just one example of the skewed morals of the characters.
There are a number of other weaknesses of this second book, it’s a bit too full of product placement as if Larsson had a Hollywood film in mind. IKEA for starters must be delighted by this book. Salander is becoming a bit of a graphic book heroine with a growing list of super abilities. In the first book she was a brilliant hacker with a photographic memory and now we add mathematical genius, boxing and weapons expert who can’t be killed.
Larsson also seems to write himself into a corner, one of the bad guys is a massive muscle-bound man who feels no pain and can’t be beaten. Fortunately despite being a hardened criminal he’s a bit scared of the dark and runs away from Salander at a crucial moment. It gets a bit silly. Larsson writes, ‘She [Salander] could not grasp how she could still be on her feet.’ Well, precisely.
The ending is such that if you’ve any interest in the story at all then you’ll buy the third book as too many questions remain unanswered and unresolved. Overall this is a decent pulp fiction story and it’s easy to see how it captured the imagination, but there are better writers telling better stories.
Count Zinzendorf is probably a name you’re not overly familiar with, although if you’ve ever read anything about John Wesley his name may ring a bell. In Phil Anderson’s The Lord of the Ring: A Journey in search of Count Zinzendorf we learn of how Zinzendorf was a contemporary of Wesley and Zinzendorf’s Moravian movement had a profound impact on him, the meetings at Fetter Lane where Wesley’s ‘heart was strangely warmed’ had been started by Moravians.
Zinzendorf’s Order of the Mustard Seed and the Herrnhut community he founded and led and the missionary impact throughout the world is quite staggering. The Moravians had an impact on Wesley and Whitefield, William Carey and scores of missionary societies. William Wilberforce turned to the Moravians for advice in his battle against the slave trade and scores of missionaries were sent throughout the world to share the Gospel to unreached people groups.
Zinzendorf was an aristocrat and used his position to network in the highest reaches of society, his order of the mustard seed counted kings, governors and archbishops as members and it functioned almost as a secret society but it’s aims were laudable; to be true to Christ, to be kind to all people and to send the gospel to the world.
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Young people don’t always get good PR and sometimes for good reasons. Gang violence, teenage pregnancies, anti-social behaviour, lack of education, employment and general delinquency can all add up to ruining lives young. These issues can be especially entrenched in some of the poorer estates of our nation.
What is often less reported or remembered are the reasons for the issues – neglect, abuse, lack of role models, poverty, addiction, drug related crime and violence in their homes and communities, racism & prejudice which leads to chronic lack of self-esteem, self-worth and an absence of belief and hope.
In Conspiracy of the Insignificant the churches response is led by Patrick Regan and his team of schools and youth workers for XLP. It’s the straightforward story of how one young person can make a huge difference if they follow Christ, persevere and keep learning. This book gives encouragement as to the value of good schools work, the value of young people and the leadership they can bring.
Conspiracy of the Insignificant is a slightly over dramatic title but then I guess ‘challenging tales from a schools worker’ is unlikely to set the prospective buyer’s pulse racing. This isn’t a complicated book and it doesn’t offer models or how to’s, it’s simply Patrick Regan’s story of how he and his team got involved. It’s most likely aimed at young people (16-24ish) and would hopefully be motivating to them to get stuck in and not wimp out when a need presents itself, sticking with it and not giving up or cashing in, and that trusting God in all of this leads to greater rewards and greater adventure.
This is a decent book and going into the hands of a local schools worker I know!
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Face down is the appropriate response to a revelation of who God is, arguably the most appropriate. It combines fear, respect, adoration, humility and in this short book by Matt Redman (just 116 pages in pocket size format) shows why.
Full of insight and truth, this exploration of worship and more importantly who we worship and why face down is an appropriate action stirs the heart and reminds you of the great mystery of Christian worship. Redman looks at who God is, what Christ has done, how creation responds, how we respond in our lives (mission) and how we respond in worship and each short chapter gives pause for thought and prayer.
Although at times I think descriptions of worship meetings step over into hyperbole or are likely to fall under the weight of their own significance (something that can often be said about conferences and extra church gatherings), on the whole this is just simple reflections on the wonder, majesty and genuinely awesome nature of God. As Matt writes, ‘when we face up to the glory of God, we soon find ourselves face down in worship.’
This book is easy to recommend to anyone, young and old, in the worship team or in the pew, to use as material, study, conversation or devotion.
I could go on but rather than do that, read the same experiences from Gary McMurray who expresses it well
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I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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