Book Review Summaries

Book Review Summaries

Jerry Bridges. Transforming Grace.  (NavPress, 2008)

Here is another book dealing with a critical issue in spiritual formation. Jerry Bridges contends that most Christians understand the grace needed to come into salvation but then spend their Christians lives working for God's favor. He calls this "evangelistic legalism,." i.e., Christians do not own the fact that they are utterly, permanently spiritual bankrupt and must live out their walk with God by His grace rather than by legalistic keeping of rules in their own strength. . His book is a call back to total dependence on God's transforming grace.

Duane Elmer. Cross-Cultural Servanthood. (IVP, 2006)

In Cross-Cultural Servanthood Elmer takes direct aim at the prevailing, though often unconscious, ethnocentric attitudes of westerners in many cross-cultural contexts.  It is a humbling book for North Americans to read – written by a North American who has himself been humbled by the very propensities he describes.  In an apt analogy he says, “All Jesus followers have the choice between the towel (attitudes and actions of servanthood) and the robe (23); humility is the mandated attitude for all believers everywhere (33).  However, “one of the greatest challenges for cross-cultural ministry is to find those cultural equivalents or cultural analogies that express humility” (34). His book strives to do that.       

Alan Hirsch. The Forgotten Ways, Reactivating the Missional Church.  (Brazos Press, 2006

Alan Hirsch’s book is thoroughly in the genre of the emerging church literature of the 21^st century.  He believes the church in the West is on a “massive, long-trended decline,” and advocates a missional ecclesiology that is modeled by the first century church in Acts and the underground Chinese Church in modern times. Calling the energy behind these two movements the “Apostolic Genius,” he describes 6 components of the structure of Apostolic Genius: Jesus as Lord, disciple making, the missional-incarnational impulse, an apostolic environment, organic systems and communitas.  When these forces are unleashed, a true missional church emerges – one that “defines itself and organizes its life around its real purpose of being God’s agent of mission to the world.” (82)  That, he calls God’s mDNA – mission codes of life that reproduce themselves (81). He cites his experience with church plants in non-traditional settings.

Brad House. Community, Taking Your Small Group Off Life Support.  (Crossway, 2011)

Brad House, a pastor overseeing community groups at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, has written a book that is both visionary and practical.  He has evident passion for and ownership of transforming small groups to include community outreach as well as member care. The book is particularly helpful for large churches which are able to adapt his model.

Gretchen Janssen. Women on the Move, A Christian Perspective on Cross-Cultural Adaptation. (Intercultural Press, 1989)

Janssen’s book is written for women, specifically wives, who are moving into a cross-cultural environment. She deals with women’s issues of culture shock plus their care for the house and family and their role in a new culture.  The material is the result of her research on the needs of expatriate women.  The content of the book has been covered more extensively by more recent authors but the book is helpful for those moving into missions for the first-time.  The book is written from an overt Christian perspective with helpful, practical exercises at the end of each chapter.

Marguerite Kraft, ed. Frontline Women.  (William Carey Library, 2003)

“Research has shown that women missionaries suffer a greater degree of unaddressed needs than do their male counterparts and even more so than other female expatriates [because of factors that cause women to feel isolated, undervalued, over-looked or devoid of adequate support systems on the field].” (pg.2)  Dr. Darrell Whiteman, Dean of E. Stanley Jones School of Evangelism and Missions at Ashbury Seminary says, ‘We have needed this book for a long time – first to get these unvoiced issues on the table so we can talk about them, second to offer hope and encouragement to women in mission, and third to wake up the slumbering men in mission who are often oblivious to the difference gender makes and who then take their positions of power and authority for granted.’  That endorsement is well suited to the relevance of this book.

David Livermore. Cultural Intelligence, the new Secret to Success. (American Management Association, 2010)

As research on human nature continues to expand, there is now understanding and measurement of people’s IQ – intellectual intelligence and EQ – emotional intelligence.  Intellectual intelligence measures people’s reasoning and perception abilities; emotional intelligence measures people’s ability “to perceive, assess and manage their own emotions and the emotions of others” (32).  The new component added to this research is CQ – cultural intelligence.  “Cultural intelligence helps people work effectively with others across cultural borders.  CQ picks up where EQ leaves off.”    

Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom.  Clouds of Witnesses, Christian Voices from Africa and Asia.  (IVP, 2011)

This is the kind of book needed on the world stage today to affirm the spiritual heritage and roots of African and Asian Christians and to educate Western Christians on these pioneers of the faith.  Each chapter contains an historical account of each prominent Christian chosen.  That makes it impossible to do a concise summary of the book’s highlights.  But the book has value historically as a catalogue of the saints in the Biblical tradition of Hebrews 11.

Steve Ogne & Tim Roehl. TransforMissional Coaching.  (B&H Books, 2008)

Ogne and Roehl’s book is based on years of experience as coaches, experience they have now tailored to fit the expectations, needs and ethos of the postmodern generation.  It is relevant and helpful.  Their own rationale for the book explains: “Great coaches come alongside leaders so that leaders can be transformed into the image of Christ and join Him in His redemptive mission here…We suggest transformissional coaching as a new paradigm to empower leaders in this postmodern generation…The new equipping for transformissional leaders will not be in seminary or Bible college, nor in short seminars from a church; it will take place in ministry in that context and reality. This model takes into account postmodern young people who seek relationships of integrity, context, involvement in mission, community and leaders who sojourn alongside” (3,7,13,19). 

Craig Ott and Gene Wilson. Global Church Planting, Biblical Principles and Best Practices. ( Baker Books, 2011)

This 2011 book on global church planting is likely to become a textbook for cross-cultural church planters for many years to come.  Ott and Wilson masterfully combine research, case studies, Biblical principles and practical insights in this treasure-trove of a book.  At the same time, they challenge both conventional missionary practices of church planting and church planting techniques from their western context.  The first 100 pages (of this 400+ page book) lay out the scope of the book and summarize the major tenets of their philosophy.  There are few if any unnecessary words or paragraphs. Instead, they have a depth of coverage that is globally balanced.  While the book is an academic jewel, in the best sense of the word it is also a handbook for the lay practitioner. There is solid Biblical exegesis of church planting models and extended rationale for church planting in its many forms. 

           

James Plueddemann. Leading Across Cultures.  ( IVP, 2009)

The globalization of missions in the 21^st century (where missionaries are sent out “from everywhere to everywhere” (25)) has put the mission community worldwide on the fast track to learn how to work in multicultural teams and work with national leaders from very different cultures.  Jim Plueddemann’s book addresses these issues.  He speaks from experience as a former missionary to Nigeria, former Director of Theological Education for ECWA (Evangelical Churches of West Africa) and former Executive Director of the international mission agency SIM.  From that background he provides many practical examples of how people from various cultures and nationalities worked together successfully or unsuccessfully. 

Gordon T. Smith. Courage and Calling, Embracing Your God-given Potential.  (IVP, 1999)

Courage and Calling covers a topic germane to all cross-cultural missionaries.  Smith’s writing style tends to be  pedantic and belabored with redundancy.  However,  he does have important insights for the believer who longs to make a difference in the world and who seeks to live out the God-given calling unique to him or her. 

Kimberly Smith. Passport Through Darkness.  (David C. Cook, 2011)

Kimberly Smith’s book is a graphic retelling of suffering, particularly in Sudan, of the atrocities committed against women and children.  It also clearly describes the cost to those who enter into people’s suffering for Jesus’ sake.  Kimberly writes an extraordinarily poignant story of missional living in the context of impossible odds; yet the purposes and character of God shine through to provide glimpses of Easter hope in places engulfed in Good Friday-like horrors.

James Spradley. Participant Observation.  (Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1980)

Spradley’s book is a classic in the field of ethnography.  Although more recent publications have dealt with this subject, for the missionary seeking to do practical cross-cultural ministry this readable, lay oriented work provides the necessary tools for cultural understanding without the academic language of the more scholarly works.  Spradley makes the science of ethnography easily accessible. 

Bruce Tulgan. Generation Y, Not Everyone Gets a Trophy.,  (Jossey-Bass, 2009)

Generation Y encompasses people born between 1978 and 1990 (5).  This book was written to help managers and supervisors know how to work effectively with this cohort and debunk various myths that have become part of their stereotype        .

James Wilhoit. Spiritual Formation As If the Church Mattered.  (Baker Academic 2008)

Wilhoit’s community emphasis provides an important perspective in the spiritual formation movement.  It’s a significant corrective for the individualistic, consumer-oriented understanding of Christian growth in the West.  He emphasizes the need for Christians to have ‘optimistic brokenness’ – i.e., seeing the full extent of our brokenness while also receiving from God the grace for restorative transformation essential to our formation into Christ-like character and service of others.  Wilhoit argues that this process takes place best in community.  He says: “Our understanding of the cross is too small because we don’t see the extent of our bankruptcy” (109); “God invites us to grow, not merely shape up” by our own efforts (68). That growth means we “become pipes to carry God’s grace to others and not buckets content to hoard it” (147).  His critiques of western spirituality are underlined in this review.