Growing in Christ
reviews
Book Review: Practicing Affirmation
16 months ago
Have you ever just wanted a handbook on how to be a friend? Maybe you’re like me (but probably not), friendship seems hard and difficult, messy and constantly a source of feeling like an absolute failure. Or maybe you are like me and feel that you get little encouragement from people you think are your friends. I feel both of those relational realities, and if you’re like me, then Sam Crabtree is your man. Not only is he your man, he’s your pastor.
In Practicing Affirmation, Sam Crabtree walks us through the grand reality that affirmation “is the purpose of the universe - specifically, affirmation of God” (11). The great thing about Crabtree’s work is that he orbits in a God-centered universe, and wholeheartedly avoids the psychologized relational techniques, love cups, love languages, and self-esteem paradigms of our culture. Affirmation is primarily about God, and when affirming other people, Crabtree helps us see that we are affirming the “echoes, shadows, and reality of a righteousness not intrinsic to the person being affirmed” (19). Affirmation delights in God and delights in seeing Christlike characteristics in other people. It celebrates the grace of God in those patterns and behaviors in other people.
So what is affirmation for Crabtree? “Affirmation of a recognized quality in a human hints at a real quality in God who stands behind it” (30). And why should we want to practice affirmation? First, affirmation directly relates to our posture towards God. If we rightly love and delight in God, we will seek to affirm God and wherever we see him reflected. Secondly, as it relates to people, affirmation “is like an invigorating sudsy shower after a long day of manual labor. It’s like a cool rain after a long, hot dry spell. It delivers a combination of relief, respite, hope, optimism, satisfaction, and energy. It’s life-giving. It blesses.” (41)
The great thing about this book is that it’s immediately practical. Crabtree doesn’t wait until the end to unpack his affirmation advice. No, from the first page this book seeks to give you handles on how to see affirmation as central to love, and how affirmation works itself out in our lives.
One of the great benefits of this book is that Crabtree, apart from being an endeering author, is a careful pastor. He anticipates our hang-ups and questions. He devotes a whole chapter to Q&A, and several excurses and appendixes on clarifying points. For example, maybe you’ve wondered what the difference is between encouragement and affirmation? He notes: ”Encouragement looks forward and affirmation looks backward” (100). Encouragement looks towards where people can go by God’s grace; affirmation celebrates what God has already been doing in people by his grace.
Or maybe you’re thinking that all this affirmation talks sounds a bit like Christian-manipulation. Crabtree is our pastor here and helps us see the difference:
While affirmation is a free gift with no strings attached and trusts God to bring about whatever good harvest he wishes to bring from the seed planted, flattery is a bribe, and a direct return is expected – soon.
Godly affirmation approves of Christlikeness and disapproves of anything contrary, whereas the flatterer approves anything – Christlike or not – that may achieve the desired response. (108)
Concluding thoughts
This little book has been immensely helpful for me. Crabtree not only gives us a God-centered appreciation for the value of affirmation, but an application method that is God-empowered. You cannot walk away from this book thinking you’ll make much of Jesus and the reflections of him in other people in your own strength. The Spirit is necessary for the living of this material. If you want to oil the wheels of your relationships with love and grace, if you want to have better eyes to see the activity of God in others and communicate it in compelling and loving ways, if you want to learn how to simply be a better friend, Practicing Affirmation was written for people like me and you.
If you’re interested in a few more quotes from this book, check out these two posts:
Agreeing with Atheists about god
Affirmation is the purpose of the universe
Title: Practicing Affirmation
Author: Sam Crabtree
Boards: paperback
Pages: 170
Volumes: 1
Dust jackets: n/a
Binding: sewn and glue
Topical index: yes
Scriptural index: Yes (Scripture index notations are off by 4 pages in my edition. Publisher has been alerted and subsequent printings will be corrected.)
Publisher: Crossway
Year: 2011
Price USD: $14.99 / $9.97 at WTSBooks
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2243-7
This book was provided for review by Crossway but all opinions are entirely my own.
Review: Tempted and Tried by Russell Moore
18 months ago
It seems a little odd to me to try and make a bridge between us on the subject of temptation. If the news outlets are any indicator, Senators still face the temptations of infidelity, government heads still face the temptations to oppress and abuse power, mariages are still fraught with the temptations of adultery and financial anxieties, and on the whole, people continue to live in a fallen, broken world.
When it comes to understanding the nature of the temptations we face and how to find help and hope, there’s no better person to look to than Jesus. Jesus was tempted, and was tempted by none other than Satan himself, in the flesh. It’s this passage out of Matthew 4 about the temptation of Jesus that Russell Moore opens up for us in his book, Tempted and Tried: Temptations and the Triumph of Christ.
Maybe this seems like a strange angle to you in understanding your own temptations. How can Jesus, who was sinless, relate with someone like you and me? Deep down, maybe you whisper with me, “Isn’t learning from giving in to temptations and making mistakes just what it means to be human? So how can Jesus relate with that?”
Here is where Dr. Moore is helpful. In his book he plainly opens up the temptations Jesus faced in Matthew 4 and breaks them down so we see the full weight of what was at stake in each of Jesus’ temptations. At the root of every real temptation Jesus faced was a temptation I feel so desperately allured by every day. Have you ever just wanted to be provided for, protected, and given good things? If you’ve ever faced those desires, and the sinful temptations to get them apart from God, then you have an idea of the temptations Jesus faced.
But this is how Moore’s book is helpful. Jesus didn’t just come to endure the temptations we face on a daily, hourly basis, he came to conquer them. He came to be tempted and tried so that he could vindicate his people to new life. Where our father Adam failed, Jesus came to be faithful.
Ultimately, temptations are about identity – the call of where we’re going to find it, and who’s going to satisfy our cravings. But it’s not just about finding idenity, it’s about who that identity is in. Moore makes this brilliant insight into Jesus’ temptation, and implicitly, our own:
Satan was not just trying to temp Jesus; he was attempting to adopt Jesus. Satan, in all three temptations, is assuming the role of a father – first in provision, then in protection, and now in granting an inheritance. Satan didn’t just want to be Jesus’ lord, he wanted to be his father. (137)
At the root of temptations are the question: Who are you going to call your father? God or Satan. Bob Dylan once sand, “It might be the Devil, it might be the Lord, but your gonna have to serve somebody.” At the root of Jesus’ and our temptations are the question of who we’re going to serve and root our identity in. Moore is helps us see the real, raw, weighty nature of Jesus’ temptations, and how we are not only assailed by the same temptations, but how rooting one’s identity in Christ through repentance and faith, being a child of our Heavenly Father (rather than our satanic father) is key to walking in newness of life.
If you’re like me, this can all begin to feel a little… invasive. But that’s the point – you and me need the invasion of a Healer, one who can fix our brokenness. This is how Moore’s book is so deeply helpful. Moore is clear and articulate in opening up Scripture, and he aptly exemplifies the sympathy of Jesus for sinners like us in the pastoral, caring heart of Christ he takes in his posture towards us in how he applies Scripture. This book is profoundly practical and rich with good insights into how we live.
I think that on the spectrum of books about sin in the Christian life, Moore’s Tempted and Tried is one of the most accessible books on the subject. Obivously John Owen has written a great deal about sin and temptation, but even abridgments and updates of his work can be rough reading. Moore’s angle of engaging the Christian life through the life of Christ is immediately helpful. If you want to overcome sin with simply more of Jesus, then entering in through the temptations and triumph of Jesus is the place to begin.
In the end, my only critiques of the book is that the chapters are long and that I despise end-notes (the constant flipping to the end of the book!). But, eh… that’s small beans, and I need to get over myself.
If you want to know more about the temptations of Christ and his compassion for sinners like us, read this book. If you want to overcome sin and temptation, but know that such a goal must require Jesus to succeed, read this book. If you’re weary of being beat over the head with moralistic rules on how to overcome weaknesses, read this book. If you want a profound adoration and love for Christ to be the powerhouse in working through temptations and sin, read this book.
—–
If you’d like to read a few selections from Moore’s book, I’ve quoted him here, and Tim Challies has put two selections up here and here.
Title: Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
Author: Russell D. Moore
Boards: paperback
Pages: 196
Volumes: 1
Dust jackets: n/a
Binding: sewn and glue
Topical index: yes
Scriptural index: yes
Publisher: Crossway
Year: 2011
Price USD: $13.99 / $10.04 at WTSBooks
ISBN: 978-1-4335-1580-4
Review: Rid of My Disgrace
51 year ago
One if four women and one in six men (statistically) will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. Which means, that if there are four women and six men who read this post, 1/5 of them will have been, or will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. That’s a staggering amount of people. If you’re like me, you’re easily left having a vague notion of the horror of this sin, baffled with a broken heart for the victims of sexual assault, and wondering, “How can Jesus help these people?!” Jesus says he comes to heal the broken, surely if anybody can be described as broken, it’s the victims of sexual assault.
Justin Holcomb and Lindsey Holcomb step along side us in Rid of My Disgrace and help us see the glorious power of Christ to give hope and healing for victims of sexual assault.
I’ll be honest, I read this book backwards. I know, authors have their order of chapters for a reason, but I was far more concerned with how they ended the book then how they began it. Far too often people begin with good intentions of helping the broken, but end in shady places. The Holcomb’s never even come close to this temptation. In part three of Rid of My Disgrace, “Grace Accomplished”, they end, essentially, with a Biblical Theology of how shame and grace interact throughout the Bible and culminate in the person and work of Jesus Christ. They do this to help victims of sexual assault find their sin’s place (both sins done against them and their own sins against God) in the story of God’s accomplished redemption plan in Jesus Christ.
There are two things to note here: 1) The Holcombs do not play games with psycologizing healing for sexual assault victims. They come into the issue with the Gospel in hand to offer Jesus to victims. 2) Along these lines, the book is literally littered with Scripture. They have a very interesting footnoting/endnoting system where all passages of Scripture quoted or referenced are footnoted on every page, while works and authors are endnoted in the back. As I did a scan through the book, they hardly have a page or two without scripture quoted or referenced helpfully at the bottom. This means that those who come to this book for help will be immediately directed to God’s Book, where they will find his grace for healing and hope.
The rest of the book – you know, that part at the beginning that I circled around and read out of order – is equally as helpful as the ending. In part one, they simply open up the issues involved in understanding what sexual assault is (chapter 1) and what its effects are (chapter 2). They define sexual assault, parse the words in what they mean, and help you understand how it applies to victims.
In part two they work through case studies. Each of these stories are heartbreaking simply by their reality. They open each section of “Grace Applied” with a person’s story of being the victim of sexual assault, and then discuss the particular effect that sin had upon that person and how Jesus Christ is not only acquainted with that sin, but is the answer to its need of healing. They work through denial, distorted self-image, shame, guilt, anger, and despair. All conditions we are all aware of, but each subject in the hands of the Holcombs is skillfully met with grace.
I have been deeply struck by how well the Holcombs have sought to understand the victims of sexual assault. They do not trivialize their suffering. They do not push it aside. But they also do not let it loom so large that its unanswerable or left uncared for. Through the course of the book, you see the eyes of Christ weeping for sin, and the hand of Christ offering healing for the needy.
I heartily recommend this book to all Christians in our day. I give the only slight caution of recommending it to younger readers (15-18 y/o) simply due to the content of the testimonials in part two. Parents will want to read through those sections first and judge their own children’s maturity (or walk through the chapters with them). Otherwise, this book will be an invaluable resource for the church in helping them understand how the Gospel engages this pervasive sin in our day.
To Justin and Lindsey, thank you so much for writing this book. I know it is going to be massively helpful to the people of Christ. What I most deeply appreciated about how you addressed the issue in the book is that you don’t shy away from the heart breaking horror of the suffering and evil of sexual assault, but you also don’t shy away from Jesus Christ and his Gospel. I saw a firm setting on the Gospel throughout the book that helped my soul grow tender like Christs for the people who are victims of sexual assault. Thank you for this.
This wednesday, I will be posting a follow up to this review with a question I posed to Pastor Justin about how those who are not victims of sexual assault in the church can orient themselves to care for those who are.
Title: Rid of My Disgrace: Hope and Healing for Victims of Sexual Assault
Authors: Justing S. Holcomb and Lindsey A. Holcomb
Boards: paperback
Pages: 209
Volumes: 1
Dust jackets: no
Binding: glued
Topical index: yes (subjects and names)
Scriptural index: yes
Publisher: Crossway
Year: 2011
Price USD: $15.99 / $10.55 at WTSBooks
ISBN: 978-1-4335-1598-9
Review: Think by John Piper
31 year ago
As I’m sitting down to write this review, my friend has been snagged into a conversation with the local Existentialist about the meaning of life (we were supposed to be having coffee). It’s the sort of conversation where you go from “Hello” to “Now follow this syllogism” in about thirty minutes. He’s a well meaning guy, though he’s one of those guys who’s zero’d in on one or two philosophers because they scratched an itch that he had, while not really being tested to see if his own thinking is sound. But the irony strikes me as tangible: Here I am, writing a review about a book on thinking for the glory of God, and my friend (just 10 feet away!) is being challenged to understand an oddity in our day – a man who’s passionately confused yet devoted to trying to think.
This is, of course, a poignant example of 
why John Piper’s recent book, Think, is so desperately needed today. I’m afraid that many Christians do not know how to think like Jesus. We are called to “just follow Jesus”, “be like Jesus”, and ask “What would Jesus do?”, but hardly does anybody give thought to thinking like Jesus. John Piper fills the gap.
The basic message of the book is this: Piper contends that loving God with our minds means that “our thinking is wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fulness of treasuring God above all things” (19). Piper’s means of making this point is by expositing Scripture. His main texts, as I read the book are Luke 10:21 (God has hidden these things from the wise and understanding), 1 Corinthians 1:20 (God has made foolish the wisdom of the world), 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 (God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ) and Matthew 22:35-40 (You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind).
This may be easily passed by (who actually looks up all the Scripture references in books?), but to me it is one of the enduring qualities of this book. What is so refreshing about this means of building his book is that when we close the book, we’re built up in Scripture, understanding it better, and left leaning on God and his Book, not Piper and Think. This, my friends, is a sign of a faithful ministry.
This book will, I think, strike a cord with many people on many different levels. Piper works through the place of the mind and thinking in the Christian life, and then contrasts biblical thinking to intellectualism, anti-intellectualism, and relativism. Following the teaching of Jesus, he appeals to the Christian to be firmly fixed in the Bible, thinking good hard thoughts for the sake of stoking one’s affections with the glory of God and loving their fellow man.
Personally, this book was well timed and deeply helpful. It gives me hope to see that logic “is a furnace driving the engine of love” (54), not merely a cold, sterile tool for entertainment between the ears. That is, the mind isn’t merely the information hard-drive of the body that just stores information until you want to pull it up. No, thinking is about loving. However, for ”thinking to be loving, it must be more than thinking” (84). That is, the mind was made for working and serving something other than itself. ”[W]hile it is true that the mind and heart are mutually enlivening, it is also clear that the mind is mainly the servant of the heart. That is, the mind serves to know the truth that fuels the fires fo the heart” (36).
You mean to tell me that I don’t leave my brain at the door when I come to treasure Christ, but actually take it up as my chief tool in knowing and enjoying the glory of God? This. is. staggering. It is not my mind that needs to be repented of, but my shallow, selfish, and sinful thoughts that haven’t served my heart rightly as God intended.
There are great things in store for those who read this book. I think this may be one of Piper’s easiest primary books to read. Throughout the book he’s constantly explaining Scripture and helping us to see where his own thinking is going. Piper’s pastoral wisdom and care make this book not only accessible in content, but enlivening in application. I left the book wanting my thinking to be “wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fulness of treasuring God above all things,” and I think you will too.
Title: Think
Author: John Piper
Boards: hardcover
Pages: 210
Volumes: 1
Dust jackets: yes
Binding: sewn
Topical index: yes (subjects and names)
Scriptural index: yes
Publisher: Crossway
Year: 2010
Price USD: $19.99 / $10.39 at WTS Books
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2071-6
I did receive this book free from Crossway Books for review, but the thoughts are unsolicited and completely my own.
Review: The Secret of Communion with God
2I think some times the Puritans get a bad wrap. Yea, they’re hard to read, and everybody thinks of witch burning when they think of them… But that’s kind of like associating the State of Alabama with The University of Alabama: Don’t lump all the good people in with the bad. (That’s right, in this case, Alabama is bad, very bad.)
In The Secret of Communion with God by Matthew Henry,
readers will see just how helpful, caring, and pastoral the Puritans are. Henry’s tone through the whole book is like a warm grandfather, eager to help his grandchild learn how to do the basic, important things in life (like count, or hit a ball). The subject of the book is prayer – an area that every Christian feels is weak in their lives. Henry, in biblical fashion, is not eager to condemn or damn people lacking much motion in their prayer lives. He follows the pattern of the Bible and holds up a picture of who God is, God’s mercy to us to enjoy him, and encourages us towards the discipline of prayer with excitement about the grace we’ll receive.
Summary
Matthew Henry starts his book on communion with God by defining prayer for us:
Prayer is lifting up the soul to God, and pouring out the heart before him; yet, as far as the expressing of the devout affections of the heart by words may be of use to fix the thoughts, and to excite and quicken the desires, it is good to draw near to God, not only with a pure heart, but with a humble voice; so we must “render the calves of our lips.” (13)
That is, prayer is lifting up the soul to God, using words to fix our attention and thoughts on God, while also using words to instruct our emotions and affections to enjoy God. Ultimately, prayer is good because we draw near to God. Through the book, Henry applies this to our souls through the course of the day.
The book consists of three simple parts: How to begin your day with God, How to keep your day with God, and How to end your day with God. Henry discusses the three parts of the day in simply applying a Psalm to our lives. For beginning the day he applies Psalm 5:3 – “O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.” Here he opens up how to begin the day in one’s attitude towards God and expectations in reading his Word. The Christian has much to be grateful for in beginning their day, and much to ask God for grace in as they look towards the day ahead. If you’re needing help in seeing why you should begin your day in prayer, and how you should be praying to God, this section will be helpful for you.
In the middle of the day, Henry applies Psalm 25:5, “for you I wait all the day long.” Henry goes through here and applies “waiting on the Lord” in how to spend the day with God. He helps us to ask what we are boasting in through the day. Am I boasting in God in my attitude and approach to the day’s activities? Or am I boasting in myself? The Christian’s life is bound up in dependence on Jesus Christ, and Henry beckons the soul to rest in Jesus.
Finally, Henry closes the book by applying Psalm 4:8 to how we end our days, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Here we see how to think about the day behind us. To be repentant of the sins we’ve committed, thankful for the mercies we’ve received. The grace of God to give us peace in Christ through the Gospel is applied to our souls to help us join with David in knowing real peace as we lie down. Henry closes by drawing our attention to think on that final peace we will know in death, to draw sobriety from that, as well as joy for that day when we will see our Lord Jesus.
Reasons to like the book
As I read through the book, I felt instructed on how to think about daily prayer and how to make a discipline of the normal events of the day into moments where I express simply faith in Christ. Many books on prayer want to address specific issues about prayer – how to pray for certain things, how to understand theological issues in prayer, etc. Other books want to give only practical guides for prayer – how to’s and when’s – without giving any instruction. Henry’s little work gives you a whole vision of why you should pray during the day. The book feels like a parent helping their child see consolations in the heavens; Henry points to regular moments of our lives, stands us in them, and points us up to see how the glory of God relates to them.
One of the ways I want to use this book from here is to go through and make little short lists of his guidance of the types of things to be praying about for mental joggers. For example, when waking, Henry reminds us that we are dependent upon God, and lists out several areas that we see this: Our happiness depends on God; our guilt makes us dependent on mercy; our souls depend on God for life; our safety from enemies depends on God; our impending death makes us dependent upon God for every moment of life; we depend on Christ being members of his body, the Church; we depend on God for strength and wisdom in all of our relationships. That’s a helpful list to keep in mind when thinking about the day’s business ahead.
Personally, the most helpful chapter in the book – and I think the most needed for Western Christians – is his section on waiting upon God. American’s are not patient. The call and application to wait in prayer upon God is very helpful.
Favorite quotes
Here are my favorite (small) quotes from the book to wet your appetite.
We read of preaching the word out of season, but we do not read of praying out of season, for that is never out of seas: the throne of grace is always open, and humble supplicants are always welcome, and cannot come unseasonably. (11)
Wherever God finds a praying heart, he will be found a prayer-hearing God. (12)
What a shame is this to us, that God is more willing to be prayed to, and more ready to hear prayer, than we are to pray. (14)
If you love God, you cannot be to seek for something to say to him, something for your hearts to pour out before him, which his grace has already put there. (16)
Though we cannot by our prayers give him any information, yet we must by our prayers give him honour. It is true, nothing we can say can have any influence upon him, or move him to show us mercy, but it may have an influence upon ourselves, and help to put us into a frame fit to receive mercy. (19)
God’s word must be the guide of your desires, and the ground of your expectations in prayer; nor can you expect he should give a gracious ear to what you say to him, if you turn a deaf ear to what he saith to you. (20)
Prayer is heart’s-ease to a good Chrisitan. (26)
Whatever you do, begin with God. (27)
Aurora musis amica – “The morning is a friend to the muses” and if the morning be a friend to the muses, I am sure it is no less so to the graces. (28)
It is not enough to say your prayers, but you must pray your prayers (38-39)
When you have prayed, look upon yourselves as thereby engaged and encouraged, both to serve God and to trust in him; that the comfort and benefit of your morning devotions may not be as the morning cloud which passeth away, but as the morning light which shines more and more. (39)
To wait on God, is to live a life of desire toward him, delight in him, dependence on him, and devotedness to him. (44)
Desire is love in motion… delight is love at rest. (45)
Something or other the soul has that it values itself by, something or other that it reposes itself in; and what is it? God or the world? What is it that we pride ourselves in ? Which we make the matter of our boasting? (45)
To wait on God is to make his will our rule. (47)
And then it intimates this, that those, and those only, can expect to be taught of God, who are ready and willing to do as they are taught. (48)
Did we think more of death, we would converse more with God. (71)
O that, when I awake, I may be still with God, that the parenthesis of sleep, though long, may not break off the thread of my communion with God, but that as soon as I awake 1 may resume it. (99)
Conclusion
Ultimately, I think this is a really helpful book on prayer. I highly recommend it to anybody looking for a little puritan book to guide them in thinking about prayer, and stir their affection to be with God.
——
I was given this book for free by the publisher for reviewing.
Review and Giveaway: Church Planter
1 year ago
At the end of this post there will be instructions on how to enter the book giveaway. Now that you’ve skipped ahead and already entered your name, I hope you enjoy the book review!
The church planting varsity league of the 21st century, Acts 29, has finally released their first book on church planting: Church Planter by Darrin Patrick. In particular, Patrick’s work is about raising the bar for ban’s (boy+man=ban) to stop merely being humans with male plumbing, but men who are defined by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The subtitle of the book gives away its three sections: The Man, The Message, The Mission. Under “The Man” Patrick spends a chapter on each the seven characteristics of what a man should be: Rescued, Called, Qualified, Dependent, Skilled, Shepherding, Determined. Under “The Message” he says that a man’s message should be The Historical, Salvation-Accomplishing, Christ-Centered, Sin-Exposing, Idol-Shattering Message, with a chapter on each aspect. In section three, he talks about how the heart of a man’s mission is compassion, the house of the mission is the church, the how of his mission is contextualization, the hands of his mission are care, and the hope of his mission is city transformation. Needless to say, Patrick covers a wide range of material in this book that lands at a mere 238 pages.
Main Review
At the center of this book beats a heat
centered on Jesus Christ and him crucified. This got me excited about the book. At no point does Patrick slip into the all to easy vein of moralistic guilting. Darrin Patrick is a pastor, a pastor who loves Jesus, and you get the sense through the book that Patrick wants us to know the power of King Jesus as it relates to the call of some to plant churches. He wants what God wants, what the Bible clearly calls men to (if they should so choose to let the Bible speak for itself): men who know the power of Christ to rescue them from sin and call them into a life with God. He makes appeals to men being men of God simply because they are fundamentally rescued men.
Eric Simmons has noted that page 25 of the book where he talks about “What does it mean to be rescued?” is worth the entire price of the book. I couldn’t agree more. But let me add a couple more places that the book is worth its weight in gold. In chapter three, Patrick gives a fresh and helpful exposition of 1 Timothy 3’s qualifications of a pastor. Seriously rich and illuminating stuff here. Further, on page 124 in chapter 9 on “Salvation-Accomplishing” I have a huge star for personal reference where Patrick goes through and gives an extensive Scripture listing of “The blessings that Christ has procured or us through his death and resurrection [that are] immeasurable”. I know I will be continually referring back to this helpful listing (along with a section a few pages over on the imputed righteousness of Christ).
A further helpful aspect of the book that I would note is Patrick’s pastoral care for us through the material. He likes to ask you lots of questions to help you think through things. These tend to be at the end of chapters. He also wants to keep you from going off on bad roads from various things he presents. So very often he presents biblical truth, applies it to your life, and then gives observations (typically two or three) on how people can avoid this truth, supress it, take it the wrong way, etc. His wise insight will be helpful in guiding many men on a godly path of pursuing a church planting calling.
These two things, I think, make the book unique in the literature being published these days that is aimed at church planters and church planting. Many books strike a completely pragmatic approach where they describe techniques of leadership and church models. Here, Patrick exemplifies that which is greatly needed and for which Acts 29 is to be deeply thanked: He sticks to the Gospel and let’s the power of Jesus Christ be the engine by which church planting runs. In this respect, I think this book will prove to be invaluable to any church planter.
In some ways I feel this book is mistitled. It should be something along the lines of “Being A Christian”. The book centers around what the Gospel of God (the message) does to a person rescued by Jesus (the man) and what it sends them to do (the mission). Certainly the book is applied to those called to be pastors and church planters, but the sense I kept getting through the book was simply that, as all commentators have noted, the call of godliness on the pastor is the call of every Christian. Very little of this book is relegated to only church planters.
Critique
The strength of the book lies primarily in the first two sections: The Man and The Message. Certainly the third section has it’s strengths, but I think along the lines of Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy 3 and 1 Corinthians 15, Patrick’s instructions about who the man is, and what he’s about are primary.
The two concerns I would have about the content of the book have already been noted by others (ironically one was Mark Dever’s recommendation printed in the book!). I’d simply say that I think Patrick should have given more discussion to the qualification of a man’s love and care for his wife, especially given the fairly stark picture he paints of the modern man in his preface.
Secondly, I am not sure I fully agree with some of the applications Patrick makes for mission of church planting in section three. Patrick opens the last chapter in presenting the statistics of modern population grouping to show that a vast majority of people live in the city today. He then proceeds in two steps to make the case that we should aim to plant in cities and then aim to see the transformation of those cities by the power of the Gospel.
My concern here is that quiet simply the people who are moving to the city are young, 20-30 somethings, who have the ability to up and move, which means that the unintended effect of setting to minister in cities is that we end up aiming to plant to people who are like us, 20-30 somethings. Additionally, the people who live in rural or suburban areas might not be the targets in mind with this “plant in the cities” approach and largely (though unintentionally) be over looked. I think this application and appeal for church planting to the cities is helpful, but I merely sit back and wonder how helpful it is. Will people, in say, rural Michigan be the targets of church planters inspired by this book? I’m not a wise man, nor a wise cookie, so take my concern for what it’s worth.
Overall
I think all Christians who want a simple, packed, and “go to” manual in getting clarity and insight into who they are as a Christian, what they’re called to, what their message is, and where they should be thinking about going will benefit from this book. If I were on a church planting team (or by some absolutely bazaar twist of providence leading a team) I would want every person with me to have a copy of this book. The strength of the book lies its ease of accessibility and helpful insight. While I have my disagreements, they’re relatively small on the scale of the vast stores of Gospel glory that this book brings to the table. I’m certain that this book will become a standard in the years to come for men thinking about or in the process of church planting.
May God be so kind as to use this book to raise up more men to be church planters that the Gospel of Jesus Christ would go to the ends of the earth.
You can purchase the book at WTS Books.
Book Giveaway
The folks at Crossway have graciously provided a free book for a giveaway. Thanks guys! Here are the rules for the giveaway:
- How to enter: Leave a comment on this post.
- Include one reason why you want the book!
- You can only enter once.
- The giveaway will end on Wednesday, September 152010 at 10pm Eastern Standard Time with the winner being announced Thursday, September 16, 2010.
- I cannot be bought off, but I do like candy corn.
Seven thoughts on AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church
21 year ago
I have to confess up front that I am not the target audience of this book. I’m not a church planter. I’ve never been a church planter. I have friends who are church planters. I only wear my church planting pants in the spring, when it’s nice and cool. However, as every other “take the world for Jesus” 20-something, coffee drinking, beer downing, Apple using, ESV reading, “I heart Piper/Carson/Grudem/Calvin/Owen/Mahaney/Spurgeon,” Reformed dude, minus the beard, I do think about church planting. So, along these lines I was excited to get a free copy of AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay kindly distributed by Zondervan to read.
AND consists of Halter and Smay looking at how and why a local church should be oriented. They enter into discussion on things I have largely little contact with – Should the church be attraction based? Should the church be service based? They want to get past this and say, “Yes!” to both, or rather, move past the model all together. The church needs to feel in its fiber the desire to reach out and be within a community. In fact, Halter and Smay define the Church as, “[what] happens when a group of people decide to go on mission with God together” (46). They want the church to be an “incarnational community” where missional people “intentionally integrate into the lives of the unchurched” (66). The majority of the book is giving examples of how they’ve done this, issues they worked through, and ideas on how to start this vision in your local church.
Given that there have been many reviews posted around the blogosphere, I felt that my contribution to reviewing the book would be better given to pointing out some general thoughts on the book. If you’re looking for a chapter by chapter break down, I’d recommend Larry Baxter’s review; and if you’re interested in more quotes from the book, Paul Steinbrueck’s review has several to chew on.
Here are seven thoughts I had from the book.
- These guys have a deep heart for the lost and are wired by God to be out-ward focused guys. They love Jesus and they love people who don’t know Jesus coming to know him. This is a general point, but you see this worked through in this book. They don’t just love willy-nilly, they think through how to love the lost. This point shouldn’t be disregarded. It’s one thing for a church to design an evangelism program, it’s another thing for a church to build its structure to have an outward focus. Even if one disagrees or has concerns about their approach, their thoughts shouldn’t be quickly disregarded.
- Stemming from this, these guys genuinely love their community. One way this book really served me was to see an “in the flesh” (incarnational?) example of how a local church can live in it’s local context in love for each other and for those around them. I think this sort of thing can only be done with Jesus, and they really set a compelling example.
- In response to the sins of the Western church, these guys have a strong zeal against consumerism. They’ve seen how it effects their church, and they’ve seen how it effect how their people think about church. You might feel a wee bit uncomfortable at times in how they analyze and target many models that are common practice in America (i.e. child care during “big people” church). Here, I think, they do over reach a bit and pull in things as being consumerism that I think are unfounded, namely preaching. They state, “our priority for pulpit-centered Christianity may actually be one of the most consumer-oriented aspects of evangelicalism today” (184). I think they are here responding to one type of “pulpit-centered Christianity” while brushing past a Biblical pulpit centered Christianity”. Nonetheless, I think this is a flawed step on their part.
- For a book on the mission of the church, there is a pronounced absence of a theology of the Gospel that fuels this vision of AND. They do engage with the Scriptures, which I am deeply grateful for. However, I never got a functional flavor of how the Gospel feeds this vision. Here, I think is where some of my concern comes in on how Halter and Smay define “Church” (“[what] happens when a group of people decide to go on mission with God together”). If we start with an understanding of the church as primarily about action, and not centrally about the cross of Christ, I fear an undertow will happen at some point and draw us away from primarily resting in the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ as the defining mark of “The Church”. I don’t think Halter and Smay intentionally undermine the centrality of the Gospel in their thoughts on the gathered and scattered church (they even admit that in some ways it’s assumed), but I think their book would be better if they made it of “first importance (1 Cor. 15:1) in their presentation.
- Their thoughts on Sunday worship and preaching concern me. In the book they describe how they wanted to fight a consumeristic mind-set in their congregation, and so decided to meet together every two weeks, and on the “off weeks” meet together in their local communities. My concern here is largely from the simple observation that the Bible upholds regular, weekly meetings of God’s people to enjoy fellowship, singing, and preaching as the norm. Moreover, drawing from my previous concern, one of the primary reasons for gathering together weekly is to hear the Gospel and have it applied weekly to our hearts. As the old story of Luther goes: When asked why he, a brilliant biblical scholar preached the Gospel week after week, Luther replied, “Well beloved, because week after week you forget it.” To me, the vision that these faithful brothers uphold is only achieved by faithful, regular preaching where the full scope of God’s revelation is put forth, and Christ himself addresses the congregation through the preaching. Here, I fear their approach undercuts the very source of life to what they seek to accomplish.
- A final thought is with regards to the use of the word “Incarnational.” This is a major word for them, which largely goes ill-defined. To the extent that I do understand it, I do not think it applies. The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God says that he took on human nature along with his divine nature (the hypostatic union) on his own free choice. I think what Halter and Smay hold up as “incarnation” the Bible would simply call faithfulness, love, hope, and sacrificial living. I understand the analogy that’s intended here, but I think it’s best to stick with Biblical words on the subject, especially when the analogy isn’t parallel to the intended use.
- The last chapter of the book is devoted to thinking about what you’ll leave behind when you die. I think this is a tremendously wise move by the authors. How often do church planters have a 50-100 year vision for their church? The best way to bring sobriety to our thoughts and sharpen our thinking is to think about death. This is one of the many things that I really appreciated about the book. There were many times in reading this chapter where I simply wrote “YES!” in the margin. If you want to be sold out for Christ and faithful in your present work, think about when you won’t have any more time to work. For an age devoted to immediate gratification and the minimizing of death, this is an important point to put in front of church planters (and all Christians for that matter).
All in all, I appreciate the book. I have felt it’s impact on my own soul even as I think about how I relate to the people around me, and seek to intentionally live for the kingdom of Jesus Christ and his Gospel in my little apartment complex. There aren’t that many books out there on this subject, so while I have reservations and concerns about the book, I still commend it to your reading.
Book Review: Wired for Intimacy
1If you’re interested, my review of Wired for Intimacy by William Struthers is over at the BibleDude.net.
Recommendation: What Is The Gospel?
02 years ago
I read Greg Gilbert’s recent publication
What Is The Gospel? this weekend. Gilbert walks us through a basic structure showing us from the Bible: God, man, Jesus, response, and life. All in relation to the centrality of Gospel. Each of the eight chapters is short, filled with Scripture, and guided by keen insight to let the glory of the Gospel – Jesus Christ dying in the place of sinners to reconcile them to God – glisten and shine. I found myself saying several times while reading, “Man, he’s really really going to the heart of the matter. No side trails!” But this isn’t a fault. In going right at the Gospel, Gilbert shows us the mangificent display of God that God himself paints for us in his Word.
In this book, Gilbert gently, but firmly clarifies what the Gospel isn’t in contrast to a few modern aberrations at the end of the book. When he does this, it’s merely to serve his audience in drawing them into a better understanding of the Gospel, not a better Gospel. I deeply appreciate this book for being simple, clear, and focused on presenting the Biblical Gospel with a pastoral heart to help us enjoy God as God intended us to.
With the book being a mere 128 pages, if you’re looking for some small fodder to your quiet times in the morning, or something short and powerful to read quickly before going to bed, this book fits the bill. Get it, enjoy it, and enjoy it again.
Review: Different Eyes
12 years ago
There are problems with the world, big problems. 
How do we address them? How do we think about them? How do we then live? In Different Eyes: The Art of Living Beautifully by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann
God came into human history through Jesus. The way God turned our bad story into his Redeeming story is through the cross of Christ where he defeated death. In this story of God, he then sends out the church to live out his victory over death. Christ’s message, according to Chalke and Mann, is to invite people into this changed community, to be a people characterized by following His’ teaching. What sort of teaching is this? It’s not a to-do list, nor a pragmatic list, but a list with a vision in mind: conformity to Christ. Here, they introduce what they call “Virtue Ethics” which “emphasizes the person or community involved in the decision making and concentrates on the development of their moral character as the key element in the ethical choices they make and the way that they choose to live” (39).
Virtue Ethics, aimed at making people into Christ-like people, “is only made possible through a living relationship with his Spirit, who develops in us a moral character based on virtues that are at the heart of who God is, expressed in the life of Jesus” (61). This beautifying of the person to reflect the character of God to become pictures of God to the world finds its most potent meaning and expression in the Last Supper:
“Perhaps then, when Jesus said, ‘Do this in remembrance of me’, what he really meant was, just like him, his followers are to be a sacrament – a visible sign of an invisible reality –for a watching world” (129).
God’s people are then making redemptive decisions over death and living lives filled with habits beautifying to the world around them as an evidence of God’s presence and His desire to redeem the world.
On the whole, the Chalke and Mann are wanting to push people to think with theological reasons for how they should live. This is commendable, especially in a day when “doing good” is largely governed by “feeling good” about it. At the exclusion of feeling good, many see no need for doing good. This being said, the book has serious theological failings, and therefore has dangerous implications for why people live the way they live in light of those truths.
God
Chalke and Mann’s approach is to emphasize the narrative of the Bible, the development of the story and theme’s (what might be called a form of Biblical Theology). What is drastically unfortunate here is that in bringing out Redemptive History themes, they trump propositional truth claims. This is most clearly seen in their brief discussion about the relationship between God, the Bible, and history:
“Yahweh’s association with the vengeance and violence of the Old Testatment era wasn’t a true expression of who he was so much as the result of his determination to be involved with his people. This unwillingness to distance himself from the people of Israel and their actions meant that at times he seems to be implicated in their excessive acts of violence. From the very beginning, Yahweh’s dealings with Israel were motivated by his desire to demonstrate his love. But for a people saturated in a worldview dominated by gods of power and violence, it was inevitably going to be a slow uphill struggle to understand his true character and nature” (42).
There are a few things to note about this picture of God:
- It undermines the clear teaching of Scripture. There is clear teaching all through the Bible that God commands war on sin and rebellion. Certainly there are unique dispensations of how this is done, but let us not forget that the God of the Bible commanded the death of Achan and his entire family (Judges 7), slew Ananias and Supphira (Acts 5), has a robe drenched in the blood of his enemies with a tattoo on his leg (Revelation 19:11-16). This God is Jesus Christ, who “saved a people out of the land of Egypt, [and] afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (Jude 5). This is a God of war, righteous war, when his glory is defamed. He has a right to be angry and vengeful. And yet – here is the Gospel – God is gracious, and full of love, desiring peace with his enemies, having mercy for our condition that we might know him tenderly. To say the judgment stuff was God playing along with cultural expectations is to undermine the glory of God and the severity of sin. Ultimately, their assertions gut the Bible of any authority because it is clear (according to them) that much of it (that is, all that judgment stuff in the OT) doesn’t really present us with the “true character and nature” of God. If anything, the OT serves as a worn-out old hag of a history showing what God wasn’t able to fix. (And, as everyone knows, the history of the Christian Church isn’t marked by a stellar track record either.) With the Scripture being largely undermined in its ability to present us with the true character of God throughout, they in effect gag God of being able to speak to us clearly in our words on his own terms. Further:
- It undermines our ability to actually trust this God. Why should we trust a God who went along with things he didn’t condone (according to Chalke and Mann)? Why should I trust this God to be for my good (in all things! – Romans 8 ) when it’s clear that he can only act with permission? Do I want to love this God? The sense of the book is that Chalke and Mann understand Christ’s Gospel message to be an invitation into his reign, but only an invitation. There is no power to raise the dead soul to life (and one gets the impression in the book that there’s really no such thing as a truly dead man, simply one that needs to get a handle on real mercy and love and follow Jesus). In a book on supposedly Christian ethics, one inherently must deal with conversion and sanctification. The lack of material on this leads to my third observation on this:
- It makes God impotent, pitiful, and sad. We all can’t help but feel a little sorry for God here. How terribly sad it is that God, the creator and author of the universe, has trouble clearly communicating himself to his people. I guess he’ll have to sluff along with the crowd’s desires. But hey, God loves his people, so he’ll act like the mob for a while to push them towards some powerful redemption in a few thousand years. God, according to Chalke and Mann, thus really has no say in changing people, he just provides opportunities. But feel confidence in this God, because it’s a slow uphill struggle, and gosh darn it, God’s a little engine that just doesn’t give up. I feel trust, awe, and confidence in this God already!
The Gospel
The nature of the Gospel for Chalke and Mann seems to be this: Jesus died to kill death so that we might join in God’s story of redemption, so that you can have the ability to see the world with the love and mercy that God sees it with. You see, Jesus didn’t do any vertical work, he did horizontal work – killing death by the blood of his cross so that our story could crescendo. Jesus “came to set us free, to give us the resources to live beautifully” (147). We are invited into God’s story, and God is speaking something about us.
“God’s story tells us that our lives are of value. The gospel is not just about God’s act of forgiveness, it is also about his invitation to partnership. Filled with the Spirit of God, we are called to work to bring in the Kingdom. The Church is a revolutionary community with the goal of making disciples – disciples who transform the society they live in” (102).
In brief, Chalke and Mann miss the point of the message of Christ and the Gospel. Without any sense that man has been reconciled to God by God’s own initiative to deal with man’s rebellion towards him, “blessed are the peacemakers” makes absolutely no sense. That is, when you see that God sends his Son to die in the place of what God’s enemies deserve, then you get a real glimpse into what it means to be a peacemaker. Chalke and Mann present the picture that we should love our enemies like God, who went along with violent people because he didn’t have any ability to change them or communicate himself clearly to them. Moreover, Chalke and Mann’s picture gives no foundation for the peace desired other than that Jesus has killed death on the cross. Did he kill sin? How are people forgiven when they have offended God’s glory? Does God brush the punishment their sins deserve under a cosmic rug? Contrary to Chalke and Mann’s presentation, we can be peacemakers because God is the ultimate peacemaker, not simply in destroying the great enemy – Death! – but in restoring us to himself through his Sons’ own radical mission of taking the place of our sin before God and absorbing the wrath that we deserve. Being a peace maker, according to the Bible, costs. There is little cost in the Gospel of Chalke and Mann.
Conclusion
Chalke and Mann’s depiction of the Gospel in helping people live beautifully is inadequate to the task. I admire their language in discussing the call on Christians to be Christ-like as living beautifully, but when they present an impotent God who takes sin lightly with a Gospel of minimal importance, there is little to be excited about in being involved in his story. They present a picture of the Christian life as one of pragmatic choices of character building. As Luther helped us remember, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “Repent,” he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.” Ultimately, I do not recommend the book for any Christian to read for spiritual benefit.
* As a disclaimer, I did receive this book for free from Zondervan for review.*
