Hey @PeteGreig. You don’t know me, but I just blubbed my way through Dirty Glory. Fanned fire from both living flames and dormant embers. Holy mess. Not sure whether to say “thank you” nicely or wryly :-/. “For the sake…
Category: Book Reviews
Reviews of randomly assorted books.
Review: Into the Silent Land – The Practice of Contemplation
I have recently been engaging with the more contemplative side of Christian spirituality. It hasn’t been a mere academic exercise. My current circumstance demands I reflect on all matter of things regarding life, and church, and the ways of the…
Review: Intentional Discipleship and Disciple-Making – An Anglican Guide for Christian Life and Formation
The word “discipleship” has become such a buzzword in recent years that when it is used, particularly in official documents or vision statements, it’s intended meaning is not always certain. I have a vested interest in pursuing discipleship in an…
Review: Prayer – Finding the Heart’s True Home
Richard Foster’s Prayer is a classic of the early ’90s but I’m glad that I have only just recently read it. I don’t think I would have truly understood it, or been impacted by it, if I had come to it before…
Tagged with: Devotion, Forsakenness, Prayer, Relinquishment, Richard Foster, Spiritual disciplines, Suffering, Worship
Review: Wasteland? – Encountering God in the Desert
I’d never really heard of Mike Pilavachi before coming to the UK. I’d vaguely heard of Soul Survivor and, to be honest, was a little sceptical, suspecting just another super-spiritual-guru-man-caricature hyping it up. Instead, I have found in my experiences over…
Review: A Church for the Poor
This book is about much more than reaching the poor. It is a handbook on mission. Missional illiteracy is high amongst our church leaders. Our structures are strictures on the strength of the gospel. This book, unassumingly, is something of…
Tagged with: Deprivation, Martin Charlesworth, Middle Class, Missiology, Mission, Missional literacy, Natalie Williams, Philip North, Poverty
Review: 5Q – Reactivating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ
Just as in family life, when it comes to church life it’s sometimes necessary to call a family meeting and have an open and honest conversation around the dinner table. Who are we? What are we about? And what do…
Review: The Land Between – Finding God in Difficult Transitions
I’m writing this seated under a large sycamore tree in an English country churchyard, surrounded by lush green fields, waving crops, and comfortable houses. In my time I have had quiet times in many places like this, under random trees,…
Review: The Day of Small Things – An Analysis of Fresh Expressions of Church…
If there was any sense in which we were once starry-eyed about the Church of England it had something to do with what we now call “fresh expressions of Church.” Gill and I were church planters once, inspired by the…
Review: Forming a Missional Church – Creating Deep Cultural Change in Congregations
We have noticed a welcome recent trend in thinking about church life. It is a movement away from a fixation on processes and programs, traditions and techniques, mechanistic deliberations about an organisation. It is towards considering the culture of the church…
Top