Readers Corner

Book Review: "The Disciple Making Church: From Dry Bones to Spiritual Vitality"

Author: Glenn McDonald, Senior Pastor Zionsville Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Indiania

Recently in one of my email encounters I have been faced with this question: "How do I witness to my family member. I love them but they are turned off by my Christianity." This is a question that we are faced with often here at bible.org. It is not because we are insensitive to our family members nor is it because we are less than knowledgeable about the Christian salvation message. What is it then that we are missing? Thus in my quest to understand this more the answer came to me quite unexpectedly. First was an article by Dr. Larry Moyer in the DTS Kindred Magazine titled: "How to Talk to Your Relatives about Spiritual Things".  In this article which was so well written and so helpful in seeking the answers I need for those who send me notes with this question. Dr. Moyer noted these points which one can insert into a one page letter to the loved one:

Kevin DeYoung & Greg Gilbert, What is the Mission of the Church?, (Making sense of social justice, SHALOM, and the Great Commission), Crossway Publishers, 2011.

            To this reader, book covers should be tantalizing with brilliant colors, catchy phrases, quirky logos or some nifty graphic but this book lacks all of the above and is as unadorned as a brown paper bag. Thus as a pre-viewer of books it lacked a “draw me to you” cover which says “you just have to read me” look. Scanning the books in the rack, I quickly passed over it and it was not until I was asked to please read this book that I took a longer gaze. Adding to my already glazed over and rolling eyes at the chapter headings, I asked myself: why would I even be interested in this paper bag of a book on a mission of a church when everyone knows that it is to disciple others isn’t it or is it? And so began my journey into wading through the first four chapters. Indeed it was like treading water in the first four chapters of this book and it was not until chapter five that life began to erupt through the author’s words. Isn’t this like the Christian life? One must tread water until as Ecclesiastes says “the appointed time” and so that is the way of this book. What did I learn? I learned that these authors believe in the idea of not kingdom but rather king-ship which is also the theme of Darrell Bock’s blog on bible.org. Interesting idea.

TITLE: Tea with Hezbollah    AUTHORS: Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis

copyright date: 2010

Recently I checked Philip Yancey's book by this title from the Libary. I had started to read it once before but this time I waded through it to the end. I was not disappointed to have continued on this journey into forgiveness and the exhibition of God's grace in real life circumstances.