Review: The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline

The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline by Jonathan Leeman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a student of theology that leans more toward biblical theology, no wonder I felt that I did not like this book as much as I thought I would - Leeman states he is attempting to lay out a systematic theology! So perhaps the more systematic scholars would find this a more enjoyable read.

Brevity is not one of Leeman's strength. This book makes Dever's original 9marks book look pint sized! As I read through the pages, often I would be wondering to myself, why couldn't he just write more concisely; how I wish I did not have to wade through so much murky water just to find that gem or two? This is a pity because there were plenty of nuggets of wisdom for reflection between the pages, but you'd need to get through quite a fair bit to find them.

I've yet to encounter a book that exceeded 300 pages that I found still managed to capture my attention, and this was no different (the sole book that did was Stott's The Incomparable Christ - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/324690). But alas! Leeman mercifully includes a summary of the main substantives of the book in the Appendix. Perhaps one could start from there, see which topic interests you and then dive into deep depths of the chapter.

If he, like Dever, would shrink this immense amount of research into a shorter book, that would probably make for a 5 star masterpiece (Dever shrank his 300+ page long book into a 130 page book titled "What Is a Healthy Church? - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/966587)" While the sister volumes in the 9marks series titled Church Discipline and Church Membership may fit the bill, I cannot really tell much from the amazon previews what they really are like. Ideally it would be great if they were merged into shorter one combined title given the numerous overlaps between the two topics.

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Review: Five Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them: Help for Frustrated Pastors--Including New Research from the Barna Group

Five Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them: Help for Frustrated Pastors--Including New Research from the Barna Group by Charles Austin Stone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While the thesis of this book is not one I am necessarily drawn to (I'd prefer meaty biblical theology and a macro picture of seeing how our work is all for the glory of God), I did find that I quite like this book. For the purposes of research for a paper on church growth, I sped through about 25 books, many of which grieved me so very much because they actually were written by authors who hated the church (and wanted to justify their own version of church by quoting Scripture out of context).

I felt that Stone genuinely cared for his fellow pastors but what I really appreciated was the amount of research he did in preparation for this book. Not only does he routinely refer to large surveys and studies conducted by the Barna Group and Lifeway, he repeatedly references the most salient points from veterans in the field. And boy were many of these so very really impactful - they made me feel like actually going to look up these secondary sources in future.

In a world with too many opinioned authors who are very happy to give their two cents worth on how to run God's church, Stone's masterpiece of a meta-analysis was a very welcome breath of fresh air. His passion, personal brokenness and rigour research have come together to create this encouraging read.

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Review: Becoming a Pastor Theologian: New Possibilities for Church Leadership

Becoming a Pastor Theologian: New Possibilities for Church Leadership by Todd Wilson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I requested for a review of this book because I had read "The Pastor as Public Theologian" (Eds. Vanhoozer & Strachan). As a final year seminary student, this title appealed to me, for it is something I believe in passionately.

As indicated by the title, this book is targeted at pastors who have already been convinced that being pastor-theologians is something that they want to strive toward, and the many chapters essentially provide the characteristics and the historical examples of what that looks like.

The challenge with books that are made up of compilations by various scholars is putting together a seamless flow of thought, which I'd imagine that the editors have attempted to do. I felt that because of the sake of brevity, many of the articles from the contributing theologians were so dense and rich that I had difficulty absorbing the ideas and substantives.

For me, the mark of a 5 star book would be the communication of complex ideas in a manner that the reader can easily comprehend, be inspired by, and apply. And unfortunately, I do not feel that this book meets this criteria.

I received this book from IVP Academic for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

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Review: Permission Is Granted to Do Church Differently in the 21st Century

Permission Is Granted to Do Church Differently in the 21st Century by Graham Cooke
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Most reviewers who gave this book 5 stars probably would be of the same mindset as the Cooke and Goodell- one of an uninstituitional Frank Viola type of church. This book suffers from the same fatal flaw as its cousin Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore by Thom Schultz, Joani Schultz. The latter simply seems to adopt a highly critical and proof-texting approach to support their lifetree cafe model, and the former, third day church model.

While my background of growing up in a dysfunctional, legalistic and dogmatic church should incline me to agree with Cooke, Goodell and the Schultzs, I'm not convinced by the pages after pages of criticism against the church as we know it. I did agree with some of the criticisms, but I struggled to get past the weak hermeneutics and puzzling reconstructions that were utilised to explain why we have to do church exactly the same way as in the new testament. I could only bring myself to read until page 111 on my kindle before I gave up.

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Review: Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (New Studies in Biblical Theology

Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (New Studies in Biblical Theology by Andreas J. Kostenberger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book is full of extremely "heavy" theological content and is difficult to skim through quickly. It is great for academic study and research purposes but a little too in depth for lay readers.

The last chapter (concluding synthesis) provides a "light" and easily comprehensible summary of the topic, and should possibly have been included as the first chapter. I would recommend that non-bible-scholars borrow this book from their church or public libraries and head straight for the concluding synthesis.

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Review: Posers, Fakers, and Wannabes: Unmasking the Real You

Posers, Fakers, and Wannabes: Unmasking the Real You by Brennan Manning
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Honestly I could only force myself to read until page 75. I simply could not connect with the author. I can roughly guess what he is trying to convey but I found that I had to guess what he was trying to imply. It have been quite popular to have been translated into many different languages, so maybe my brain is just wired a little differently.

Unfortunately Manning's approach did not interest me after reading other theologically rich titles on spiritual formation, by James Bryan Smith (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...) and Kenneth Boa (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) for example. These two I heartily recommend.

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Review: Givers, Takers & Other Kinds of Lovers

Givers, Takers & Other Kinds of Lovers by Josh McDowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One would assume that a book so dated would not be relevant to 2015. I was sincerely surprised to find how a book written 35 years would speak to us today? I've read Joshua Harris' best selling I've kissed dating goodbye, but it seemed to speak to a different kind of audience. McDowell and Lewis speak authentically and loving, and the postmodern Christian thinkers of today appreciate that. The how-to books of today, just simply do not cut it.

A pity it has gone out of print, but you still can use bookfinder.com to grab a second hand copy!

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