Mark Dever. What is a Healthy Church? Crossway, 2007. 128 pp.
I spoke to Mark Dever just about a year ago and asked him if there were any books in his future. At that time he mentioned that he’d soon have a book out dealing with personal evangelism but that he had nothing planned after that. It seems that his plans changed! The book on evangelism is due for release in just a few days (September 11). It has been preceded by What is a Healthy Church and will be followed by The Church and Her Challenges. What is a Healthy Church? is a shortened, introductory version of Dever’s previous book 9 Marks of a Healthy Church written primarily for people in the pews rather than the men in the pulpits. After all, church health is not the sole responsibility of a local church’s leadership.
Reviewed by Tim Challies.
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John W. Wright. Telling God’s Story: Narrative Preaching for Christian Formation. IVP, 2007. 166 pp.
The title is easily misread. The book does not deal with preaching through the narrative sections of the Word of God. The pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Mid City proposes a style of pastoral preaching and care designed to confront the church with “God’s Story” and the church’s need to become a part of that story. He believes there is much wrong with contemporary Christianity and desires to reform it by changing some of the presuppositions pastors address when preaching. He is on target with much of his evaluation, and there is much of interest and profit for the preacher who is preaching for biblical transformation. One wonders about some of his historical evaluations of preaching (especially of Puritan preaching), but those minor things add interest to the book, even for those who might disagree with his evaluation.
Reviewed by Robert Talley.
Read the entire review (SharperIron).
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Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger. Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples. B&H, 2006. 257 pp.
Simple. It’s what everybody wants these days. Just ask Google with their 20-40 word homepage, Papa John’s with their streamlined menu, or Apple with their infamous single-button I-Pod. In an increasingly overcomplicated world, simple is in high demand.
However, according to Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger the ’simple revolution’ has also found its way into churches. Congregations once over-inflated with myriad programmes have now become streamlined disciple-making centres. At the same time, churches which are failing to make the switch are tending towards stagnation or decline.
Reviewed by Colin Adams.
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David Crump. Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer. Baker, 2006. 345 pp.
With a glut of books on prayer in the Christian market, here is a scholarly addition to the mix, worthy of the serious reader’s time. The books on prayer tend to be light and devotional in nature, like Murray’s classic With Christ in the School of Prayer, or the more recent and popular The Prayer of Jabez and Secrets of the Vine. The recent popular works especially tend to promise more than they can deliver, or are products of the “Health and Wealth” television preachers.
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Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger. Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples. B&H, 2006. 257 pp.
In a day when “how to” books are being published in every area of life, it is not surprising that churches and denominations should find ways to develop their own how to books about doing and being church. Thom Rainer (president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources and author of Breakout Churches) and Eric Geiger (executive pastor of Christ Fellowship in Miami) present this answer to how churches can be church.
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