Surprised By Hope Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright
Surprised By Hope attempts to “recapture the Christian answer to death and beyond and the nature of our task as we wait” (pp. XII-XIII). Said differently the book addresses two questions: “What is the ultimate Christian hope?” and, “What hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present?” (p. […]
Mission Drift, the Unspoken Crisis Facing Leaders, Charities, and Churches by Peter Greer and Chris Horst
Mission Drift describes the all too common drift from the original purpose and mission that organizations (the authors are primarily focused on Christian non-profit and churches) experience in time. Two dimensions of drift are described—personal and institutional (p. 12). The authors state their goal as: We want to name and illustrate the causes of Mission […]
Church Unique, How Mission Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement by Will Mancini
Will Mancini leads Auxano, a team of church consultants (although they prefer the word “navigators”) who are training pastors on how to “do church” in the 21st century. Church Unique lays out the ideas and goals of Auxano. In many ways Church Unique is much like many church management books written in the last 50 […]
Defense of the Truth by Michael Haykin
This is a marvelous little book (only 129 pages) which introduces the reader to some of the early Christian defenders of the faith and, at the same time, details the formal recognition of many essential doctrines we hold dear today. Some of the key characters found in Haykin’s book include those we term the “Church […]
What’s Right with the Church, A Manifesto of Hope by Elmer L. Towns (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2009), 223 pp. Hard $11.99
The church is constantly being criticized by friend and foe. This is not hard to fathom as the church is a big, slow moving, easy target that is flawed because it is made up of flawed people. Much recent criticism is deserved, some is not. Towns has grown weary of those who make it their […]
The Tangible Kingdom, Creating Incarnational Community: The Posture and Practices of Ancient Church Now by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008) 195 pp, Hard $17.99
As I progressed through The Tangible Kingdom I kept feeling that I had read this book before and, in a sense, I have. Essentially, I read the same message in 1971 in David Main’s Circle Church, in Girard’s Brethren, Hang Loose in 1972, in Snyder’s The Problem of Wine Skins in 1975, again in Tucker’s […]
Deep and Wide, by Andy Stanley (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 350 pp., Hardcover $24.99
Endorsed by everyone from Rick Warren and Bill Hybels to Dave Ramsey, Steven Furtick and Jeff Foxworthy, Deep and Wide reveals Andy Stanley’s “secret sauce” (p. 17) which he believes makes his church not only great but a model others should adopt. Stanley’s goal has been to create a church that unchurched men, women and […]
Vertical Church, What Every Heart Longs for, What Every Church Can Be, by James MacDonald (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2012), 320 pp., Hard, $22.99
James MacDonald is the well-known pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel, a megachurch near Chicago. Harvest’s church planting ministry has founded numerous Harvest Bible Chapel churches throughout the United States and Canada. MacDonald writes this book to encourage churches to return to a vertical focus on Christ and His glory which he thinks most churches have […]
Be Careful How You Listen, How to Get the Most Out of a Sermon by Jay Adams, ( Birmingham, Alabama: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2007), 160 pp., paper $11.99
This book was originally published in 1991 under the title A Consumer’s Guide to Preaching. Since there are many books dealing with how to preach but few on how to listen to preaching, Adams decided to republish the book for a new audience. Adams states, “I have written this book because of the dearth of […]
The Family at Church, Listening to Sermons and Attending Prayer Meetings,by Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), 80 pp., paper $5.40.
This book has been recommended by Ken Ramey in his book <em>Expository Listening</em> as a virtual goldmine, but I did not find it so. While there weresome helpful insights and advice, overall it was dated and far too linked to the Reformed traditions to be of significant value to those not in lock-stepwith those traditions. […]