Monday, February 3, 2020

Highlight from The Worship Pastor

Zac Hicks proposes the use of the term "church lover" instead of "churchman" to describe a faithful person who stays on a church despites the many painful experiences in between. He goes on to list a few characteristics of such a person; one of which struck right in my heart and is quoted below. It is helpful to remember not to take such attacks personally but to ask for God's love to minister to these wounding people...

From The Worship Pastor: A Call to Ministry for Worship Leaders and Teams

A church lover willingly enters into their church's wounded and wounding nature. As worship leaders [ministers also], we are ever tempted to wander into the temporary comforts of bitterness to cope with the perpetual pain the church inflicts on us. The criticisms are endless-from sound levels to song selection, from intolerable theology to inappropriate outfits. Our church is always wounding us. Many a wise counsellor has said, "Hurt people hurt people." ...The wounds that the church inflicts on you can become the very vehicle for your ministry to her woundedness. A pastorally oriented worship leader embraces this counterintuitive dynamic out of raw, Spirit-borne, gospel-rooted love for the church.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Review: God Is Stranger: Finding God in Unexpected Places

God Is Stranger: Finding God in Unexpected Places God Is Stranger: Finding God in Unexpected Places by Krish Kandiah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Krish's strength is his ability to contextualize obscure biblical motifs with modern-day metaphors that would ring the light bulb in every reader's mind; biblical theologians will appreciate (and possibly pick up) how he simply presents and illustrates complicated theological terms. I also really loved how he would compare similar scenarios that multiple biblical characters face, and how his careful exposition of Scripture was highly accessible to novice theologians.

Reading the bio on the book's rear cover, I wondered if he would proof-text Scripture with hermeneutical lenses of justice and mercy, and I am glad to discover that he did not force it especially in the first few chapters of the book. Towards the end of the book, the passages he chose to expound on increasingly covered the theme of loving the poor, the stranger and one's neighbour.

While I recognise that this book is excellent in many ways, it does not qualify a spot on my bookshelf of truly exceptional 6-star books. I felt that the editor could use a stronger hand and make the book a 250 or even a 200 page book, because of the many times I got lost in certain long-winded and off-tangent sections. Although I struggled to retain interest, I soldiered onto the end because I was determined to write this review, and I suspect that many other readers would have given up. Thankfully these problems were observed in only a few chapters that could have done with better brevity and clarity; the rest of the book was flawless.

View all my reviews