arieljvan.com

I read On the Old Testament earlier, and that was my intro to Mark Driscoll’s new series of Re:Lit “Books you’ll actually read.” Like the OT book, On Church Leadership runs about a hundred pages and can be read in about an hour.

A quick look at LibraryThing statistics revealed that, as I suspected, the Leadership book, which deals with the biblical perspective on “elders,” “deacons,” and “pastors,” as well as women leading in the church, is the most widely-owned book in the imprint to date. Makes perfect sense, since this is one of the most widely-debated issues in the church today.

I’ll come right out and say I’m a fan of the Complementarian Driscoll champions, which has strong biblical warrant. Aside from helpful clarity on the women in ministry question—”This chapter should include a wick because it is connected to a powder keg of controversial theological debates”—Driscoll also deals with stuff like elder qualifications, the roles of elders vs. deacons, leadership teams, and something you don’t see in most books on leadership: the essential role of church members as leaders in their spheres.

On Church Leadership features Mark Driscoll’s trademark directness dosed with more stand-up moments than I found in On the Old Testament. (”When the Bible tells us not to kill innocent people it does not mean that God wants us to kill innocent people, even if a “scholar” has more degrees than Fahrenheit, know Greek, and published a book explaining it based upon drawings on the wall of a cave in upper Mesopotamia.”)

I’m not someone who feels ripped off if I smile while reading a theology book, so I enjoyed this one thoroughly and definitely recommend it.

Just a quick note. I posted a review of Kitty Foth-Regner’s memoir/apologetics book on my arts & culture blog. This is a unique book, so take a look.

Finishing with grad school allowed me to get back to some of the important things of life, like sleeping and having a life of the mind. If you know me, chances are good you’re aware that I love the writing of C.S. Lewis. It’s one of those primary facts, like “Lindsay is my wife,” “I’m a Kansas Jayhawk fan,” and “My jump shot is probably better than yours.”

Is Your Lord Large Enough? is the first book on C.S. Lewis I’ve read since the ground-breaking Planet Narnia (review), and it went a long way toward refreshing my mind via the thinking of Lewis, who has kind of served as a mentor in my spiritual life.

What Peter Schakel does is a welcome variation on the usual approach to Lewis, which typically examines his life (biography) or accumulated writing (theology) or apologetics (philosophy). While Schakel is certainly an adept scholar, he deliberatly mines Lewis’ collected works to write a book with strong devotional momentum. Rather than simply clarifying what Lewis meant here and comparing it with what he said there, Schakel ransacks C.S.’s life and books for insights into lived-out theology.

To do this, Schakel poses questions like, How did Lewis pray? What advice did he offer to people struggling with prayer? What help does he extend to people who need help forgiving and loving? What did he say about Heaven, and our expectations of it?

The practical thrust of each chapter gets help from follow-up questions from Schakel that, in my opinion, were really excellent, as opposed to the lukewarm “discussion” stuff that often gets tacked on to books. All told, Is Your Lord Large Enough? was a great restorative for my tired mind and a good kick in the pants for my walk with Jesus. Lewis, a man as practical as he was imaginative, would approve. Highly recommended.

Sam Storms has been on my radar for awhile, as a guy with strong loyalties to the Bible, Jonathan Edwards, and Calvinistic theology. Storms is a prolific writer and a fan of John Piper, which in my book, is also in his favor–oh yeah, and he’s local to Kansas City too, so I could hypothetically run into him in a coffee shop. All that said, The Hope of Glory is the first Storms volume I’ve read. It’s a series of 100 “daily meditations” on Colossians, and it didn’t disappoint.

Here are the three primary reasons I’ve already bought and given away multiple copies of this book:

1. It’s devotional. In other words, it was good for my soul. Sam Storms writes in a worshipful way that pushes my thoughts toward Jesus, not just theological understanding. These really are “meditations.”
2. It’s instructive. The Hope of Glory was one source I drew from when I preached a short series of sermons on Colossians, and Storms’ blow-by-blow approach to each verse (or phrase, in some cases) doesn’t fail to enlighten. At the same time, he stays grounded in the wider context of each passage and Colossians as a whole. So in this sense the book is a commentary.
3. It’s short. More accurately, the chapters are short. The book covers the whole book of Colossians in about 350 pages, but you can read a chapter in 5-10 minutes.

Overall, I highly recommend The Hope of Glory as a study resource and for devotional reading.

After the repeated mention Spiritual Leadership got on Steve McCoy’s blog, I decided I’d better give Oswald Sanders‘ book a shot. I’m happy I did. Stuffed with references to heroic missionaries and Christian leaders of the 20^th century, the book is a shotgun approach to the topic of leadership that does a good job showing as well as telling. Originally a series of talks, Spiritual Leadership is not a systematic book, but Sanders is thorough enough in his approach that you don’t feel there are gaps in what he says.

Highlights of Spiritual Leadership include chapters on the leadership paradigms of Paul and Peter, as well as Christ, and two catch-all chapters (”Essential Qualities of Leadership”) that are surprisingly hard-hitting for a list approach. In addition, I like the way Sanders repeatedly hits the nature of Christian leadership as a counter-intuitive servant profession shaped by self-sacrifice.

At the same time, Sanders definitely avoided any tendency to come across as overly grim and dogmatic, including “Humor” in his list of essential qualities. Leaders should “control and cultivate” humor, “a great asset and invaluable lubricant” in missional living (65, 66). He scored big points with me there, as at this fairly amateur stage of my life, I’ve already met way too many Christians who at some point forgot how to laugh at themselves.

If there’s any criticism I could level at this book, it would come in the form of what’s essentially a small side note. Occasionally, Sanders will make a pronouncement that would have benefited from more nuance, like when he says, “Some workers prefer to administer; others want to love people. Only the latter are leaders” (113). In reality, the typical servant-leader needs to both love people and administer-am I right? But in a book that was transcribed from live talks, stuff like this is minor.

Originally published in 1967, Spiritual Leadership is a refreshing and challenging book that has the added benefit of being written from a mid-20^th-century perspective that doesn’t align perfectly with ours. You won’t hear many of the current buzzwords, and some of Sanders’ exhortations come across as counter-cultural, which, in my opinion, is a nice change-up.

*** Three of three stars, highly recommended.