The Pastor's Library

One of the things I try to do as a pastor is to carve intentional time out of my schedule for reading. I'm a firm believer that anyone who wants to seriously grow needs to be continually digesting and processing new information and seeking the wisdom of others who have studied longer, thought more deeply, and walked more closely with the Lord. Not every book I read is a slam dunk epiphany - in fact often times I'll read a book and walk away from the experience firm in my disagreement with the author, convinced that he or she has simply missed the boat on some fundamental issue, or taking umbrage with their application of a new and exciting truth. Even in those situations though I'm unable right now to think of a time when I didn't learn something valuable through the experience. To that end I want to share with you a few of the books that I have recently finished, and that I would recommend for you to consider getting your hands on a copy of for yourself.

A word of caveat though - just because I recommend a book does NOT mean I fully endorse EVERYTHING the author says, either in that book or elsewhere - but if I recommend it it does mean that I believe there is enough worthwhile material to make the exercise in reading and pondering an edifying experience for the believer. With that said here are the three books I most recently finished and would recommend:

Who Stole My Church

This is a book that tackles the issue in churches surrounding generational change in ministries and practice within an established church. The author, Gordon MacDonald, tells a fictional story of a small New England church on the brink of disaster as the pastor copes with the fall-out of a congregational meeting where what he thought was a slam-dunk proposal to modernize the sanctuary was unceremoniously shot down as the dam of resentment and misunderstanding from the established generations in the church finally broke, making a right mess of the pastor's plans.

Make no mistake - the author's main premise is that the church NEEDS to change and adapt to reach the younger generations - sometimes at great cost to the older ones so you can imagine my surprise when this book was given to me by one of the senior couples in our congregation with an encouragement to read it and learn from the message within. I was so encouraged by the maturity demonstrated by this couple in giving me a book like this that I had to bump it to the top of my reading list and see what all the fuss was about. After completing it and pondering it's message I would strongly say that this is a book that anyone who reaches an age where they start to feel marginalized in the church needs to read. It is a wonderful encouragement to both let go of things that hinder the Gospel being rooted and established in the next generation, but also to re-engage and dispel the lie that your years of ministry usefulness and fruitfulness have passed.

What makes the book wonderful though is that it is also a book for those of us in the younger generation to take seriously - because while the majority of the movement and concessions the author places on the shoulders of the senior generations - there is a strong rebuke in its pages for we 20 and 30 somethings who have failed to understand the lifetimes that have been invested by our elders in the institution of the church - and the real and significant hurts that we can inflict upon those people who we need to uphold and respect as the matriarchs and patriarchs of our fellowship. A book well worth reading.

Heresies and How to Avoid Them

I found this book through a Facebook message chain where a friend of mine was asking for advice on important books to add to his library. When I was asked I promptly added my two cents to the discussion and then did what any self-respecting pastor would do - I stuck around and stole the ideas from others to make up my own wish list. This book was recommend to him by my theology professor from my days in Bible College so I thought it would be worthwhile to pick up. I was right.

This book is not so much a cohesive treatise on heresies (false doctrines that deny the core truths of scripture) as it is a well put together collection of essays by different scholars on individual heresies that have effected the church throughout its history - as well as an account of how (and by whom) they were refuted. Not only is the book an easy to read primer on some very important theological concepts (the first four heresies covered deal with the human/divine nature of Christ - fundamental stuff) but it illustrates in a powerful way how most great heresies did not evolve out of a desire to upend the church, or overturn scriptural truth - but rather a desire to do the opposite.

The greatest warning I get out of this collection of essays is not a defense against any particular heresy, but the sober reminder that it is in our zeal to get things right that we often get them most wrong. Theology - most good theology that is - is a delicate balancing act between ideas that are often on the surface contradictory to each other (the most important example is that Christ is both fully God and fully human). When we become zealous for one of those truths to be primary rather than held in tension we lose something important and we begin the slide into heresy. The greatest heretics in church history were not vile antagonists but people who genuinely loved Jesus and loved the church and in their zeal went too far in one direction or the other (the first four chapters of this collection is literally like watching a swinging pendulum back and forth between extremes as each successive heresy tries to correct the extremes of the last). It's a dire warning to the church today in the age of internet critics, and celebrity pastors where we are apt to quickly react to theologies we find uncomfortable by running as fast  as we can in the other direction into what often is an equal, or worse distortion of the Gospel than we are reacting to.

And lastly...

Finally Feminist
John Stackhouse's treatise on the issue of the role of women in ministry and the problem of headship and authority. This small but wonderfully written volume was his attempt at presenting a better way forward in this debate that has divided churches and denominations all around the world. In the end I think his better way is far too close to the egalitarian way for many complementarian readers, it is a wonderful book for walking through the difficult texts and it presents a clear case for why the offices of the church should be equally accessible to both men and women.

A word of caution on any book covering this contentious issue - one would be wise to read an opinion that balances Stackhouse's perspective in order to fully understand the depth of this debate. I haven't finished it yet, but I am currently reading through a collection of essays entitled Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem which presents the other side of the issue in a well thought out way. I haven't finished it so I'm loathe to recommend it yet but if you feel so inclined, dive in but be warned that the language is a little more technical than in Stackhouse's book and thus takes a little more concentration to follow.

One of the best sections of this book however deals with a much more foundational issue than the gender debates - Stackhouse launches a compelling rebuke of Biblicism (the simple assertion that because the Bible says it it must be true. Case closed, debate over). His contention is that we can't be naive enough to actually believe that there is any way that we can assume objective authority on the meaning of a text to the disregarding of all other interpretations. To be sure, the Bible says "something" and so it must be true, debate over, case closed - but determining what that something is is not always as clear cut as people would like to believe. Any honest scholarship of the scriptures must begin in a position of humility, with the knowledge that men and women much wiser than we have been arguing over the meaning of some of these texts for many times longer than we have been alive and to assume that without the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit in the context of accountable Christian community - that we cannot claim any authority of interpretation. For my money, that section alone was worth the price of the book - but the rest of it is good too.

That's it for today. Hopefully some of you will take up the challenge and read some of these books yourself and then we can sit down over coffee and have a discussion about their content together.

Blessings,
Chris