John MacArthur’s latest book, unimaginatively titled The Book on Leadership, has one of the finest-looking covers I have ever seen. With its leather-looking cover, rough-cut pages, gold lettering and marbled inside pages, it looks like a wonderful, valuable, antique book. Truth be told, I probably would not have purchased it were it not for that cover. I am not so shallow that I would purchase it based soley on the cover, but a great cover and an author I respect are too much for me to pass up.

Truth be told, I was a little disappointed with 9 Marks of a Healthy Church. The problem is not that it is a poor book but more that I had unrealistic expectations of it. I was hoping this book would be everything the church growth manuals are not; that it would be a knockout punch against church growth. It is not all of this, but that does not mean it is without value. I suppose I expected it to be a rebuttal of the seeker-friendly/church growth movement, but this is not what it is inteded to be. In retrospect, this is far better, for the book begins and ends with the Bible and the wisdom of God rather than with a rebuttal of the the wisdom of men. This book represents an interesting contrast to other books on this topic that have emerged from the Southern Baptist Convention, most notably The Purpose Driven Church. Where Warren’s book claims to be about church health it is clear that the true focus is on growth. In 9 Marks, Mark Dever is able to seperate health from growth, rules from results.

Though I have never met him, Garry Gilley has had a signficant impact on my life. He was one of two people who was most influential in my decision to begin this web site and to review books. His many book reviews were very helpful to me and made me realize that if he could review books and post them on the web, I could too. I have long wanted to read his books and just recently was given a copy of This Little Church Went to Market.

Though I am not a preacher, I decided to read Rediscovering Expository Preaching in an attempt to discover exactly what expository preaching is and compare it to the type of teaching practiced in most modern churches. That this book was written by John MacArthur and the faculty of Master's seminary is a strong endorsement of its value, for that institution is known as being one that upholds the value of expositional teaching. I hoped also that I would learn some techniques and disciplines that would enrich my personal Bible study as well as my writing. I was not disappointed.

Effective exposition of the Bible requires four steps and each of these receives careful analysis in this book. The steps are:

While much has been written about the church growth movement and Purpose Driven principles, I believe that Who's Driving The Purpose Driven Church is the first book-length treatment dealing specifically with this topic. The title is slightly deceptive, as this book deals particularly with Rick Warren's best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life which has sold nearly 20 million copies in just two years. The book purports to be a "documentary on the teachings of Rick Warren." Because of the overlap between The Purpose Driven Church (targeted at pastors and church officials) and The Purpose Driven Life (targeted at the wider church body as well as unbelievers), Who's Driving is relevant to people who have concerns about either book.

"Whatever Happened To The Gospel of Grace?" is exactly the sort of book you might expect a traditional, Reformed pastor and theologian to leave as his final message to the world, for before this book was published, James Boice, long-time pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia went to be with the Lord. This book stands as a call to the church to rediscover the principles upon which the Protestant church was built. It was Boice's conviction that much of what passes as Christianity today is anything but. The church will only be able to be an effective witness for God when it returns to the foundation of the five solas that defined the Reformation (Scripture alone, Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, glory to God alone).

I finished this book almost ten days ago and have not yet been able to write a satisfactory review of it. I began several times, but each time found I was missing some important aspect of it. I believe the source of my trouble is that I read this book only after reading many others that came after. If I had read this book when it was published (1986) I would seen it as groundbreaking. But today, when we are surrounded by books on the principles of church growth, this book does not seem to have much new to add.

One thing that is unique about this book is that it was written by a Presbyterian pastor who also taught at Westminster Theological Seminary. Though church growth and large churches are generally associated with evangelicalism, this book details the rise of a large Reformed church. Also, this book deals with outgrowing an existing church whereas many newer books that discuss church growth do so from a church-planting perspective.

Thom Rainer is president of Rainer Group Church Consulting as well as founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As such, we would expect him to have many interesting insights into church growth. He does not disappoint. In Surprising Insights From The Unchurched Rainer presents the results of a fascinating study he performed over two years. He decided that perhaps the best way of learning what principles of church growth work best would be to interview people who had only recently become Christians and begun to attend church on a regular basis. He and his team spent thousands of hours interviewing 353 of these people. And the results, as is obvious from the title of the book, are quite surprising. In the second half of the book, the focus turns to pastors of successful evangelical churches and seeks to understand what they do to bring success to their churches.

Rethinking The Church explores the nature of the church with a view to making the necessary changes that will ensure that the church remains relevant to our culture. The author proceeds from the foundation that much of what we do and see in today’s churches is derived from 17th to 19th century culture, and as such has lost much of its relevance to our postmodern society. We need to critically examine our churches to discern to the world today and what is simply tradition holding over from days gone by.

White draws heavily on the writings of Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and George Barna: so heavily, in fact, that it often seems he has little to say that is truly original. If you have read The Purpose Driven Church and are familiar with Hybels’ writings, you will find a lot of repetition in this book. Still, at only 128 pages it is an easy read and still worth your while. If you have not read books on this topic before, this makes an excellent introduction.

Before I begin a review of Charismatic Chaos it is only fair to point out that I have really come to appreciate John MacArthur Jr. I cannot think of many contemporary authors whose beliefs and theology line up so closely with my own. So having been challenged to discern what the Bible says about speaking in tongues, signs and wonders and other marks of the charismatic movement, it only made sense that I would read Charismatic Chaos. Though written over twenty years ago, this book is as relevant to the Christian world today as it was then. The edition I read is the second edition, which was updated and published in 1992.