I remember the first time I became aware of the impact of feminism. My grandmother, a tiny, sweet, woman, told me about working in an office environment. She mentioned how it used to be that when she approached a door, especially if there were lots of people around, someone would always open and hold the door for her. It was just common courtesy. But by the time she was near retirement, this was no longer the case. Men were intimidated by women and had long since given up acts of chivalry. In fact, the only person she could think of who had held a door for her recently was a young, studded punk rocker with a huge pink mohawk. She blamed this on feminism.

Famine in the Land opens with a quote from the great preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones. “The most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and most urgent need in the Church, it is the greatest need of the world also.” Author Steven Lawson continues, “If the doctor’s diagnosis is correct, and this writer believes it is, then a return to preaching - true preaching, biblical preaching, expository preaching - is the greatest need in this critical hour. If a reformation is to come to the church, it must be preceded by a reformation of the pulpit. As the pulpit goes, so goes the church” (page 17). What follows is four chapters which are, appropriately, expository in nature and which examine the priority, power, pattern and passion of expository preaching.

Have you ever noticed that when someone says, “Don’t look at that!” you immediately look at it? I remember as a kid I used to delight in finding something gross and rotten and disgusting and showing it off to my friends, seeing who would flinch first as we dug around with sticks inside some rotten carcass. Perhaps I was a disturbed child but I don’t think my experiences were unusual. After all, there are any number of web sites that specialize in showing off the disturbing images of war, violence and stupidity. People have a fascination with spectacle. How else do we account for so-called reality television?

I did not know what to expect from Stealing Sheep. The book was recommended to me and I purchased it sight-unseen. All I knew of its content was the subtitle: “The Church’s Hidden Problems with Transfer Growth.” I assumed this was a book written by an author opposed to the church growth movement who would be offering one more proof as to why this movement was unbiblical.

Dining With the Devil is an interesting read, especially in light of the fact that the author, Os Guinness, is describing the very difficulties the church is facing today, even though this book was written over twelve years ago. It is difficult to know if his voice was prophetic or if very little has changed since the early nineties. I suspect both are true.

Reformed Christians are increasingly divided over how they ought to worship God. For many Reformed believers, this is an issue of great urgency. D.G. Hart and John R. Muether wrote With Reverence And Awe (Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship) to address this topic. They call the book a primer on worship, “a brief overview of how Reformed theology informs the way we think about, put together, and participate in the worship service. Our aim is to help church officers and members gather corporately for worship and do so in ways appropriate to the God who has revealed himself in Christ Jesus” (page 13). The authors believe that good theology must produce good worship, while poor theology necessarily produces poor worship. This is something the church has understood in the past, but has lost sight of in recent years. Reformed worship, because of its distinctiveness, will worship God in ways that are distinct from other theological traditions.

There is little reason to describe the author’s purpose in writing Testing The Claims of Church Growth, for the title makes it self-evident. My initial interest in this book was based on the description which says, “For 13 years prior to entering the ministry, Rev. Rodney E. Zwonitzer was a high-level corporate marketing executive for Westinghouse, Storage Technology, and United Technologies Mostek. Now he lays bare the real basis for Church Growth, finding that it is not in the Bible but in business.” I assumed this book would examine the claims of church growth through the eyes of one who is adept at studying and evaluating marketing.

The book began in a promising fashion with the author providing a primer in marketing; defining it, explaining how it works, and describing his role in it when he was working with large corporations. The most notable information in this initial section is the paradigm shift companies undergo from having the product as the dominant force to the customer being supreme. There were clear reflections of the Church Growth movement in his analysis.

Josh Harris is all grown up. The man who brought us I Kissed Dating Goodbye when he was just twenty-one, and who is best known for bringing courtship to a whole new generation, is now senior pastor of a large and growing church and no longer speaks at conferences. Stop Dating The Church is his first book targetted at an audience wider than merely teens and parents of teens.

Harris believes that many, and perhaps even the majority of Christians, have a fear of committment to the church. Rather than committing to a local body of believers, most Christians “date the church,” refusing to commit to a long-term relationship. He says, “This is my third book on relationships, but it’s unlike any of my previous books…this book is about how you should relate to the family of God” (page 12). In Failing to commit to the church, we cheat ourselves, we cheat our church community and we cheat the world.

Deceived On Purpose is probably the most important contribution in the ongoing discussion about Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life and all things Purpose Driven. It is one of only a couple of book-length treatments of the subject and the one that brings the most to the table. The author, Warren Smith, is a former New Ager who, after being saved, researched and has written extensively on the topic of spiritual deception. Having been immersed in the New Age movement for many years, he is sensitive to the inroads of New Age beliefs into Christianity. He says “Because of my New Age background, I have written this book Deceived on Purpose to specifically address some of the New Age implications of these purposes [for the church].” His discussion of the New Age implications of The Purpose Driven Life merits consideration by all concerned believers.

If The Purpose Driven Church is the “what” and “why” of the church growth movement and all things Purpose Driven, Transitioning represents the “how.” “If the thought of switching from a traditional church to a purpose-driven church leaves you with mingled feelings of excitement and fear, good! It means that, as a pastor, you know the incalculable worth of aligning your church with God’s vision…Transitioning is written for you.” (From the back cover). We also learn from the cover that the book will help a pastor and congregation navigate change and attain rewards that far exceed the risk. Essentially, this book is a how-to guide for changing an existing church from program-driven to purpose-driven. It is written by Dan Southerland, but endorsed by Rick Warren who says that Southerland’s church is “one of the most exciting and encouraging examples of transitioning from being program driven to purpose driven.” (From the foreward)