Book Review – Prayer (Philip Yancey)

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I thought it was about time I read a book by Philip Yancey, since most of his books end up as best-sellers and this one won various awards. The subject was also of interest – probably like most Christians, prayer is something I feel that I need to get much better at. Its quite a sizable book for a paperback, running to over 300 pages. You can tell why he is such a popular author. He is a good storyteller and has an easy to read style.

The way he tackles the subject is interesting. Its not really a how-to manual, although it does offer a few useful suggestions, and unlike many books on prayer, its not written to convince you that prayer unleashes power so you ought to get on with it. Instead, Yancey takes a more philosophical approach, trying to understand what the point of prayer is, and tackling some of the difficult questions we have about it.

While he believes that God does answer prayer, Yancey is painfully aware of many who have not seen their prayers answered. He tackles these problems head on, with great honesty about his own struggles to understand the subject, especially living as we do in a skeptical society. He notes that many in the Bible, including Jesus himself, prayed prayers that we might say were “unanswered”.

In a chapter asking whether prayer changes God, you can tell he is not from a Reformed persuasion, preferring to emphasise God’s concern for human free will rather than his sovereign control over all things. He does stress the importance of prayer changing us, and drawing us closer to God, getting his perspective rather than merely being about getting the things we ask for.

The main purpose of prayer is not to make life easier, nor to gain magical powers, but to know God. I need God more than anything I might get from God.

He finds the ultimate answer to the question “why pray?” simply in the fact that Jesus did it. Prayer is a means of getting God’s will done on earth, not ours. Rather than simply challenging us to have more faith and be more persistent (though he does encourage that), Yancey encourages us to reflect more deeply on why some prayers seem to go unanswered.

Sometimes, like the boy who asks his parents to solve a maths problem while he plays video games, we ask God for the things we should be doing ourselves.

I don’t think I would recommend this as the first, or only book someone should read on prayer, and yet I think its value is in his willingness to talk about the things that many who tackle prayer leave unsaid, or rush past very quickly.

Perhaps its most timely contribution may be to provide some balance on the subject of prayer for healing. While some will consider his approach to be lacking in “faith”, the reality is that even those who pray regularly and with great faith for healing do not see complete success. It is a book that doesn’t promise instant results or insist upon certain styles or techniques, but will leave you with a richer understanding of the value and mystery of prayer, and hopefully also will encourage you to grow in your own practice of prayer.

Plantational Cell Groups

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Missional Christians

The word missional seems to be rapidly working its way into the vocabulary of all Christians. While the concept seems a little odd at first, once understood, it makes a lot of sense. One way of explaining it runs as follows.

Imagine you are a “missionary”. You are living in a culture that is closed to Christianity. People don’t flock to hear you preach the gospel, you have to work hard to find opportunities to speak of your faith. What’s more, you have to get a regular job to support yourself as funding is simply not available. Your strategy in this situation would be to slowly work at building friendships and loving people, trying to understand their culture, and praying that one day you will be able to share the gospel meaningfully.

Of course, by now you should have realised that you don’t need to imagine this scenario at all. It is the context that most Christians find themselves in, as we live in an increasingly secular Western society. We are those missionaries. And that is what being missional is about – realising that our whole lives are to be devoted to participating in the mission of God. All Christians are missionaries, not just those who travel abroad. Being missional is becoming conscious of this fact.

Missional Communities

Now imagine another scenario. You are part of a church planting team. There are ten to twenty adults, some with children. You don’t have a building to meet in, you simply meet in a home, worshipping, praying, breaking bread, studying the word together. But there would also be a very strong outward focus. You would be considering how to reach out to people in the community, and build bridges. Though your resources would be small, you would look for ways in which together you could invite others to share in your community in order that you can share the love and truth of God with them.

But again, isn’t this actually the exact situation we are in? Most evangelical Christians already belong to a house group (or cell group, life group, etc). The only difference to a church plant is that we don’t feel the urgent need to reach others (the “church” can do that), and we don’t necessarily feel a strong need to form deep community amongst ourselves (because we have other friends in the “church”).

But what if we encouraged our small groups to have a “church plant mentality”? Or to coin a word that will never catch on (because its too silly), to be plantational? This would give a number of benefits:

  • Increased Faith – church plants are faith-filled places because they know they need to step outside with the gospel if they are to survive
  • Increased Prayer – church plants acutely feel their need of God. They know their limitations.
  • Deeper Community – church plants have to work through personality differences to learn to love one another – because they are all there is
  • Discipleship – church plants have to take responsibility for discipling one another because there is no official “program” to send people on
  • Evangelism – church plants simply get on with evangelism, because they know that without it they will die

Of course, if small groups started operating this way, it may actually mean that the “main church” needs to organise less events, in order to free up people to be involved in creating deep community and reaching out in their individual small groups (church plants).

In reality, a small group can do all the things a church plant should be doing. Worship, prayer, discipleship, preaching, Bible study breaking of bread, evangelism, social action, even baptising. Possibly the only difference would be that a small group typically would not have an “eldership”, although in the context of the early church, which met in houses, an elder’s role may not have been hugely different from a modern day house group leader.

Comments are welcome. Have I gone mad? Or am I onto something?

Sermons in Community

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One of the ideas from the book Total Church (see my review here) that I have been thinking about recently is the assertion that sermons should not be prepared in isolation but in community. Also with their emphasis on house churches, they also caution against the “sermon” being the only model for Bible teaching – the word must be studied, discussed and applied in community.

Many churches have two models for Bible teaching. First is the sermon, prepared in isolation, preached as monologue, and rarely even discussed afterwards. Second is the weekly “Bible study” in which a passage is read and questions have asked. This model can so easily degenerate into a kind of pooled ignorance, where everyone throws in whatever thoughts they have, often without any real understanding of what the passage in question means.

Personally, I enjoy studying by myself, locked away in a room with books. And even in the context of small groups I prefer there to be more teaching and less discussion, to avoid wasted time on red herrings. But Total Church did challenge me to rethink a bit.

My initial idea was that exegesis is done by the individual and hermeneutics by the community. To properly understand a text we must understand its context, pay careful attention to the meaning of words and the flow of argument. To do justice to a belief in the unity of Scripture, we must also ensure that we do not interpret a passage in a way that is contradicted by other Biblical passages. All of this requires a commitment to serious study of the Bible. Simply turning up at small group and asking, “what do you think verse four means?” will not likely achieve a deep understanding. So exegesis needs to be done in advance of the teaching session.

Having thought further, even exegesis should be understood as a community project. My use of commentaries is an admission that I need help from others to properly understand a text and see all of its implications. The model suggested in Total Church is of a group of Bible teachers getting together to prepare for what they will teach to their own small groups. This of course requires coordination of what will be taught, but I am sure the resulting sermons or Bible studies will be much richer as a result. It also would serve as a mentoring and training process for new preachers and teachers.

Hermeneutics also belongs in community. I might give some effort to thinking about how my message can apply to students, parents, housewives, lawyers, asylum seekers, retired people, etc, but actually this may be better worked out in discussion, as I simply don’t know enough about the particulars of other people’s contexts. For example, I recently taught in my cell group on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I had done some background work on the principles taught in the passage, but when it came to how we could practically help the needy, I felt my inadequacy to speak to this subject and threw it open for suggestions.

So I think it is possible, without throwing away the sermon, or serious preparation, for us to involve community in every part of the Bible teaching process.

Book Review – Total Church (Tim Chester, Steve Timmis)

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There seems to be a glut of books on new ways of doing church recently – liquid church, provocative church, deep church, messy church, intelligent church, relevant church, deliberate church, positive church, and here “total church”.

Total Church is co-written by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, who are leaders in the “Crowded House” in Sheffield. The unique thing about them is that while being very conservative doctrinally (I’m pretty sure they are Reformed and cessationist), their approach to church is quite radical.

Their contention is this – churches should be built around gospel and community. The “gospel” part of this breaks down into two aspects – they are word-based, and they are mission-focused. Both of these must be done in the context of community, so the word is taught and applied in community and mission is done in community. They note that many churches are trying to be both faithful and contemporary with their presentation of the gospel, but ultimately find that there are very few opportunities for unbelievers to actually hear that message.

They argue that churches have got so much going on that they transition from “mission” mode, to “maintenance” mode. We need to run fewer evangelistic events, youth clubs and social projects to allow more sharing of our lives with unbelievers. This means starting new congregations rather than growing existing ones.

The type of “sharing of lives” they seek to cultivate in their house churches is one in which the church itself adapts to changes in peoples lives. So when a family have a baby, for example, it is the whole churches responsibility to help them and support them in practical ways, not just that family who have to adapt themselves so they can remain part of church life. And while avoiding “heavy shepherding”, they stress the importance of people making decisions (such as moving house, changing job) with regard to the community and in discussion with them, because they are family, just as a husband would discuss with his wife and family.

By becoming a Christian, I belong to God and I belong to my brothers and sisters.

Having laid a theological foundation for word and mission centred community, the second part of the book moves on to look at some practical topics. The authors do not insist that you give up your existing church models and do things their way, but lay down a challenge to “make community infectious”.

Become a blessing by offering hospitality, showing practical care, dropping in on people. Create around you a group of Christians who will share their lives and encourage one another in the faith. You might start with your home group. Often home groups are little more than a meeting. Make yours a community by acting like a community.

Having laid down the principles of “gospel” and “community”, the book shows how these two strands should run through everything we do. So evangelism must be done in community, sharing our lives rather than seeking out “evangelistic opportunities” to hit people with the gospel message. The conviction is that “our love for one another, to the extent that it imitates and conforms to the cross-love of Jesus for us, is evangelistic”. Evangelism involves sharing our lives and sharing the word, and so we need to introduce people to loving a community, not just to church meetings.

There is a challenging chapter on social involvement, which warns that we tend to build churches aimed at professionals. We may not be racist, but are we truly open to those of a different social class to ourselves? The authors encourage us to move beyond “hit and run” social action, to a model where we offer the poor and needy a genuine place of welcome and community.

Church planting is strongly encouraged as the mode of church growth. “The household model is in some way defining of church. The church is the household of God. … For New Testament Christians the idea of ‘church’ was synonymous with household and home.” The authors do not however give any indication of what they consider an ideal size for such a congregation before a new one is to be started. They try not to be too dogmatic, especially concerning the relation of these households to one another. “It matters little whether these small groups are called churches, home groups or cells, as long as they are the focus for the life and mission of the church.”

Discipleship and training is also worked out in the context of community. New leaders are trained by a leader sharing their life and ministry with others. The conviction is that “truth cannot be taught effectively outside of close relationships.” Pastoral care, too, is to be handled in the context of community, not by simply passing people on to “professionals”, nor by becoming amateur “counsellors”, but by the conviction that as we live in community, applying the word in ordinary situations we will see lives transformed.

A chapter on spirituality takes a bold swipe at ideas of “solitude, contemplation and silence”, arguing that these are the luxury of the spiritual elite. Actually we are called to community, meditation on the word and prayer. The authors encourage that Bible study and prayer (and even sermon preparation) should be done in community, not in isolation. Theology too, “is also the task of the church, because the only theology that matters, and is worthy of the name, is practical theology.”

A fascinating chapter on apologetics asks whether we have mistaken the symptoms for the cause. We have assumed that people reject Christianity because of an intellectual problem, rather than because they don’t want God. Thus our attempts to prove Christianity to be rational, while helpful, may miss the mark. A relational apologetic is required. “Christian community is the ultimate apologetic.”

Equally controversial is their chapter on youth work. They argue that much effort is spent with little fruit in running large scale youth events. Rather, it would be better for Christians to invest their time in community with a smaller number of young people, effectively discipling them. Also, the youth are to be included in the church community, rather than being filtered off into “youth church”. It is certainly an idea worth some reflection, but not without some serious practicalities to be worked through.

Finally, the criteria for success is of course faithfulness rather than numbers. Success is being a gospel-centred community. “It is judged in terms of growing Christians and gospel opportunities.” Ultimately, the authors close with a reminder that “Christianity is not a strategy or a set of principles. It is a relationship of love with the triune God.”

I can wholeheartedly commend this book to anyone wanting to shake up their thinking about church. I didn’t agree with all of it, and was left in some cases wanting to know more (for example eldership was not discussed). But this book stands as a fine example of how we can have a radical ecclesiology without losing our biblical moorings.

The church, … is not something additional or optional. It is at the very heart of God’s purposes. Jesus came to create a people who would model what it means to live under his rule. It would be a glorious outpost of the kingdom of God: an embassy of heaven. This is where the world can see what it means to be truly human.

Read more quotes from this book on underlined bits

Book Review – Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire (Jim Cymbala)

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This book tells the story of Brooklyn Tabernacle, an inner city church in New York that has grown from a handful of people to several thousands. However, the real subject of the book is prayer.

Cymbala is fiercely critical of much “church growth” thinking today. Over three quarters of church growth is actually Christians transferring from one church to another. He pleads with churches not to look for novel ideas (he particularly singles out strategic level spiritual warfare) or marketing strategies to grow, but to simply devote themselves to prayer. A large church devoid of the presence of God is worthless.

He tells of how Brooklyn Tabernacle started a weekly prayer meeting, and how this became the source of spiritual power and life for the church. He argues that the prayer meeting is the spiritual barometer of a church.

You can tell how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday morning. You can tell how popular the pastor or evangelist is by who comes on Sunday night. But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting.

The book is divided between amazing stories of the power of prayer and biblical teaching on prayer. Cymbala is very honest about the struggles and difficulties they faced, particularly as they sought to minister to many people struggling with drug addictions.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of prayer. Only when we are full of the Spirit do we feel the need for God everywhere we turn.

Those who have read any of Leonard Ravenhill’s books will recognize the style. Cymbala is a no nonsense, give me God or I die kind of person. He calls the members of his church to be passionate about prayer and radical about holiness.

What does it say about our churches today that God birthed the church in a prayer meeting, and prayer meetings today are almost extinct?

This provocative book deserves a hearing from anyone who desires to see their church grow. The only type of growth that is worth having is that which the Spirit of God brings, and we cannot expect such growth unless we birth it in passionate and persevering prayer. I didn’t agree with some of what he said about preaching (he downplayed its importance), but the reminder of the importance of prayer is a word in season for the modern church.

Book Review – The Legacy of Sovereign Joy (John Piper)

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This short book from John Piper contains three biographical messages based on the lives of Augustine, Luther and Calvin. Rather than attempt to tell their whole life stories, Piper focuses in on one of the main passions of each man.

He begins, however, with a chapter discussing their “flaws”. Augustine’s views on baptism and sex, Luther’s foul mouth and anti-semitism, and Calvin’s involvement in the execution of Servitus have caused many to dismiss these three men as having nothing worthwhile to teach us. Piper does not excuse their faults, but simply notes that God can and does use flawed saints.

The chapter on Augustine deals with his belief that it is sovereign joy in God that triumphs over joy in sin. There is also an interesting account of his debate with Pelagius over free will. Augustine believed that we are only free to move towards what we delight in, but we are not free to choose what we delight in.

The chapter on Luther narrows in on his diligent study of the Bible, based on his understanding that the Word of God comes to us in a book. He endured many trials and afflictions, but devoted himself to a phenomenal lifestyle of studying, teaching and writing about the Bible. Piper highlights the importance of learning the biblical languages to enable us to really wrestle with the meaning of the text.

The chapter on Calvin primarily highlights his passion for expository preaching. Everything he taught and wrote was as a systematic exposition of Scripture. He had a zeal for the glory of God to be displayed and this is what motivated his diligence in preaching verse by verse through many books of the Bible.

This book serves as a good introduction to the lives of these three influential men, and left me wanting to read more of their life stories and writings. It also serves as an inspiration and a challenge to keep persevering in studying the Bible, and making sure that the glory of God, and our delight in him are kept at a central place as we seek to understand its message.

Pride and Prayerlessness

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Most books on prayer observe that prayer functions as a declaration of our dependence on God. As we pray we acknowledge who God really is and who we really are. He is the Creator and we are the creatures. He is omnipotent and we are powerless.

Prayer therefore is an expression of humility, which set me thinking about what that says about me when I pray very little. Prayerlessness is an expression of pride and independence. When we don’t pray, we in effect say to God “I’m getting along just fine without you at the moment thanks, I’ll call you when I need you.”

The same is true for churches. A church that does not pray is a proud church. It is too comfortable with the way things are to feel the need to beseech God to intervene and change things.

“If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray…” (2 Chron 7:14)

Book Review – God’s Big Picture (Vaughan Roberts)

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  The concept of knowing the biblical “metanarrative” is one that seems to be supremely popular at the moment. Many theologians are saying that there is a desperate need for Christians to understand the big story of God’s redemptive purposes and how they fit in. I bought this book as I was planning to do a series of studies with my cell group on the “big picture”, particularly with regards to the question “what is the point of the Old Testament”.

Vaughan Roberts uses the concept of “kingdom” as the uniting theme of the whole Bible. The kingdom is God’s people living in God’s place under God’s rule and enjoying God’s blessing. This is then explored under eight headings:

  • The Pattern of the Kingdom (Creation)
  • The Perished Kingdom (the fall)
  • The Promised Kingdom (God’s promises to Abraham)
  • The Partial Kingdom (History of the nation of Israel)
  • The Prophesied Kingdom (future hope of OT prophets)
  • The Present Kingdom (life and ministry of Jesus)
  • The Proclaimed Kingdom (early church to present day)
  • The Perfected Kingdom (new heavens and new earth)

I had originally planned only to borrow ideas from this book, but I found myself being increasingly impressed with the organisation and flow of the argument. Each chapter has a short Bible study (two for the partial kingdom chapter), so the whole book could be covered in nine sessions.

Roberts has done a great job of keeping the vocabulary simple, and showing how various prophecies are fulfilled throughout the biblical story. There are a number of breakout boxes which fill in useful information about themes of the Bible or the books of the Bible. He frequently uses diagrams to help explain the concepts.

Tricky concepts such as the “now and not yet” nature of the kingdom, and how the church can fulfil OT prophecies that appear to be exclusively to do with Israel are explained in a straightforward manner. There are probably one or two aspects to his theology I could question, but overall I found this an excellent overview. Those who have already done some reading on the subject of “biblical metanarrative” may not learn anything new, but this is a fine example of how a big theological concept can be taught simply and systematically.

Book Review – God Inside Out (Simon Ponsonby)

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All the evangelical books on the Holy Spirit I have read seem to fall into two categories. First are the books by cessationists, who focus on the Spirit’s role within the godhead, his work in creation and regeneration and his ongoing role in sanctification. The charismatics on the other hand tend to quickly skip by these aspects so they can get to the more exciting and dynamic topics of power, baptism in the Spirit and gifts of the Spirit. I have been waiting for some time to find a book that adequately covers both sides of the story.

So I was quite excited to discover Simon Ponsonby’s God Inside Out book, which is subtitled, “An In-Depth Study of the Holy Spirit”. It is 332 pages long, which is long enough to cover a broad range of topics, but not so long that it effectively becomes a reference book. It had its genesis as a 15 week “school of theology” course he ran, and the continuity can be seen throughout the book.

Part One – The Holy Spirit and God

In the first section, he introduces the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, arguing for his divinity and showing the different biblical titles and pictures of the Spirit. One of the strengths of the book is the interest he has in church history, and there are lots of quotes from various church fathers and theologians. He has a good way of explaining complex debates in simple terms, and is willing to both learn from and critically evaluate the insights of previous generations.

In speaking of the person of the Spirit, Ponsonby portrays him as the “God we experience, the God who encounters us”. So while the discussion is theological and even academic, his passion that we would encounter God the Holy Spirit rather than merely understand him shines through.

We must not attempt to domesticate this wild wind of God – rather we must inhale deep draughts of this vivifying divine life, setting the sail to be carried wherever he wills.

In a chapter on Jesus and the Holy Spirit, he follows Pinnock in arguing that “The Son’s self-emptying meant that Jesus was compelled to rely on the Spirit … the Son decided not to make use of divine attributes independently but experience what it would mean to be truly human.” I think this understanding of Jesus’ operating as a man under the power of the Spirit is vital to our own understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. However, he cautions us that the parallel is perhaps better drawn between Jesus and the church – together as the body of Christ we walk in his example as a people filled with the Spirit.

Part Two – The Holy Spirit and the World

This section deals with some tricky subjects, including the Spirit’s role in Creation, and asks questions of what ways in which the Spirit is active in the world outside of the church & believer. Ponsonby interacts with various liberal theologians who see the Spirit at work in secular movements for political justice as well as in works of art.

The Spirit-led ministry of Christ was to the whole of man, not just the soul. … We are not saved on the basis of our ministry to the needy, but proof that we are saved is found in our ministry to the needy.

Part Three – The Holy Spirit and the Christian

This section deals quite brilliantly with regeneration, and moves on to consider the Spirit’s role in sanctification, and our sonship. One interesting theme he develops is that our salvation does more than restore us to our pre-fallen state – we are raised to a higher place than Adam was, seated with God in the heavenly places, and co-heirs with Christ. He also laments that sanctification is being neglected in the church at present.

Regrettably in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, sanctification as a theological foundational doctrine, and holiness as a personal and communal imperative, do not seem to be high on the agenda. Holiness has become a dirty word, as the Church has become rather dirty.

The chapter on satisfaction seems to be a condensed version of his book “More: how you can have more of the Spirit when you already have everything in Christ“. I was struck by his observation that the “works of the flesh” list in Gal 5 can be seen as “human attempts to find the satisfaction which the Spirit alone brings.” He presents the satisfaction the Spirit brings as being “love unfathomable, joy unspeakable, peace unshakable and a stream unstoppable”.

The final chapter in this section is on power. He interprets Acts 1:8 as not promising power (i.e. boldness) for witness, but promising power (i.e. for attesting signs and wonders) that would accompany their witness. He argues that “God never withdrew the power of the Spirit to work signs and wonders”, drawing on Stanley Burgess’ research.

Part Found – The Holy Spirit and the Church

The final section is on the Spirit and the church. He starts off with an examination of the ever-controversial “baptism in the Spirit”, which he sees as being for joining to the church and equipping for ministry. It is this concept of being joined to the church that causes him to take up a “third wave” position, in seeing this as being another term for regeneration.

His arguments against a subsequence viewpoint are the main ones found elsewhere – it makes out that two-millennia of Christians are “second-class”, and sees 1 Cor 12:13 as insisting that Spirit baptism is a universal Christian experience. He claims that Luke uses “saved” and “granted repentance” interchangeably with “baptism in the Spirit”, but I did not find this convincing. He is also convinced that Acts 19 refers to unbelievers. I was disappointed to find that he had not interacted with Pawson’s view, which seems to have been ignored by every third wave theologian I have read.

Having said all this, the chapter takes a surprising turn as he considers the position of the Church Fathers who taught a post-conversion reception of the Spirit through the imposition of the laying-on of hands. He develops this theme to talk about a “divine equipping for service” or “transmission”, which “may come suddenly like a violent wind, or gradually like the rising of the sun.”

The chapter on gifts of the Spirit does not go into great depth, but gives broad definitions of many of the gifts listed in Scripture. They are not to be understood as natural giftings, but all are given supernaturally by the Spirit. The section on cessationism is very helpful as he tracks the gifts throughout history and considers why their use has been lacking for much of the time.

There are some other great chapters in this section. One on the Spirit and the Word considers how the Spirit speaks through Scripture, but also outside of Scripture. He suggests that the Puritans understood this better than the Reformers.

The book closes appropriately with the Spirit’s role in mission, from which it gets its title. The Spirit is “God inside out to bring those outside in”. The Spirit is not given simply for our personal benefit, or even for our church to be blessed, but that the world might be reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a well-rounded theology of the Spirit that will engage your mind and heart, look no further. I have underlined quotes on almost every page. Its a much more stimulating way to learn about the Spirit than simply reading the relevant chapters in a systematic theology. Read it and get a bigger picture of who God the Holy Spirit really is.

Preaching Jesus

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I was listening to a Mark Driscoll sermon I downloaded recently and it was his first sermon back after he had been on holiday. He asked his congregation if the elders who had been preaching in his absence had remembered to tell them about Jesus. Of course the congregation replied that they had, to which Mark said “good, that means no one has to get fired”.

It sounded like another of his great one-liners, but on reflection, I think he really meant it. In fact, in another talk I recently listened to he made a guarantee that whatever Sunday you come to his church you will hear Jesus preached.

Now I can understand why Mark Driscoll annoys people. He calls things as he sees them, and doesn’t waste time qualifying his controversial statements. But the thing I like most about him is the Christ-centredness of all his preaching (my second favourite thing is that he preaches for over an hour in an age where our attention span is reckoned to be almost non-existent). I’ve listened to him preach through Ruth, 1 Corinthians, Nehemiah, and while discussing all kinds of diverse topics and applications, he always makes sure that there is an obvious christological focus. No one is left in any doubt of the importance of loving Jesus, knowing Jesus, trusting Jesus, following Jesus.

I know a lot of preachers like to listen to Mark Driscoll. He has a great way of putting theological truth across in a very contemporary way, that is accessible to outsiders, and puts a fresh perspective on things for those who have been in the church for a long time. He also has the courage to speak about those awkward topics that most would rather not mention. Many of these preachers are borrowing his vocabulary and his mannerisms to spice up their own messages. But the thing I hope most of all that people will copy is the passion that every time someone comes to church, they will hear about Jesus.

It grieves me that many evangelical or charismatic churches could preach whole sermon series with barely a reference to Jesus. He doesn’t get mentioned because “everyone knows all that”, or “we need to move on beyond the basics”, or “we already did a series on Jesus”. The church needs a lot more Mark Driscolls – the attitude is optional, but the message is fundamental.  We need preachers who will unapologetically proclaim the King and his Kingdom, instead of simply “the Church Leader and his Congregation”, or “the believer and his personal life”.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Cor 2:2)