Tag Archive - Book Review

Thursday Book Club: Family Based Ministry

October 29, 2009 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

Tuesday/Thursday Book Club:
Perspectives on Family Ministry
“Family-Based Ministry:
Separated Contexts, Shared Focus,”
chapters 7-8

It has been a while (July) since I’ve done any book club posts, but now that the book I was reviewing has actually been released, I thought I’d finish it up in two final posts. If you didn’t catch the first portions of my review, you can link to them here:

Chapters 7-8 of Perspectives on Family Ministry is dedicated to family based ministry.  The advocate for the position is Brandon Shields, who, at the time his chapter was completed, oversaw high school and collegiate ministries at Highview Baptist Church, a large multi-site church here in the metro Louisville area.  Brandon served in youth ministry for 10 years, and he has now take a position as a senior pastor in a Florida church.

It is interesting that this is my first post on family based ministry, because I resonate with it a great deal.  Two key books for the movement are Family Based Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries (Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), and Think Orange by Reggie Joiner (David C. Cook, 2009).  Both of these books are worthy of their own book club installments in the near future. Continue Reading…

Book Review: Total Church

March 26, 2009 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments

Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community (Re:Lit)Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.  Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community. Wheaton, IL: Re:Lit/Crossway, 2008.  224pp.  $15.99.

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis believe that the gospel is a word that works.  And this word works  in church community.  They state clearly in the introduction to Total Church that these two principles, gospel and community, must shape the way we “do church” (15).

Total Church‘s dual message of gospel and community addresses two major audiences.  On the one hand, there is conservative evangelicalism, which places “a proper emphasis on the gospel or on the word” (16).  On the other hand are proponents of the so-called emerging church, who “emphasize the importance of community” (16). Both groups suspect the other is weak where it is strong:

Conservatives worry that the emerging church is soft on truth, too influenced by postmodernism.  The emerging church accuses traditional churches of being too institutional, too program-oriented, often loveless and sometimes harsh (16).

Chester and Timmis are clear that there is a need for change on both sides.  They agree with the emerging church that conservatives often do not ‘do truth’ well because they neglect community: “Because people are not sharing their lives, truth is not applied and lived out” (17)  They also agree with conservatives that emerging churches “can sometimes be bad at community because they neglect the truth” (17)

The result of this dual critique is a volume dedicated to understanding how both the truth of the gospel and the life of church community intersect in all of ministry–and all of life.  Total Church has two major sections: (1) Gospel and Community in Principle, Chapters 1-2, and (2) Gospel and Community in Practice, Chapters 3-13.

Part 1, Gospel and Community in Principle.

The Gospel. For Chester and Timmis, being gospel-centered means being both word-centered, “because the gospel is a word–the gospel is news, a message,” and mission-centered, “because the gospel is a word to be proclaimed–the gospel is good news, a missionary message” (16): Continue Reading…

Book Review: Sammy and His Shepherd

January 27, 2009 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

Sammy and His ShepherdSusan Hunt.  Sammy and His Shepherd: Seeing Jesus in Psalm 23.  Illustrated by Cory Godbey.  (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2008.  56pp.  $17.00

Susan Hunt is a consultant for the Presbyterian Church in America’s Women in the Church ministry, which she formerly directed.  She has written on women’s ministry (Women’s Ministry in the Local Church with J. Ligon Duncan) and children’s ministry (Heirs of the Covenant).  She has written numerous books for children as well including Big Truths for Little Kids and My ABC Bible Verses.  Hunt is also one of the primary writers behind the Show Me Jesus! curriculum that we use for our SojournKids Sunday Bible classes.

In her newest children’s book, Hunt provides a line by line exposition of Psalm 23–told from the perspective of a sheep named Sammy.  Sammy lives happily under the care of his faithful shepherd, and by listening to his tale, we learn about what it means to trust and walk with our own Good Shepherd.

Several things are evident immediately when reading through Sammy’s story.

First, Susan Hunt has spent a great deal of time studying and living the truths of Psalm 23.  As a seasoned Bible teacher, she carefully unpacks both this Psalm and the shepherd/sheep theme throughout the Bible.  Hunt knows sheep/shepherding and she uses concrete facts about the animals to unpack the spiritual truths of this Psalm. Continue Reading…

Book Review: Family Driven Faith

October 28, 2008 in Uncategorized with 9 Comments

Voddie Baucham, Jr.  Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007).   222 pages.  $19.99.

Dr. Voddie Baucham notes a disturbing trend in the American church.  According to researchers, between 70 and 88 percent of Christian teens are leaving the church before their sophomore year in college.  Dr. Baucham encourages parents and churches to rethink both child-rearing and family ministry.  He calls for a paradigm shift away from models based on popular psychology to an approach that is built exclusively on the Scriptures:   Continue Reading…