Review: It's Personal

I spoke to someone recently who first pastored an established church, and then became a planter. The level of spiritual attack intensified greatly when he became a church planter. It's hard to explain this, but he doesn't seem to be the only one. There are risks inherent in starting a church, and you'd better be prepared for what's coming if you go down that road.

It's Personal: Surviving and Thriving on the Journey of Church Planting is about surviving and thriving in the midst of planting a church. The authors, Brian and Amy Bloye, sound a warning: "Church planting will expose every weakness in you. It will bring every flaw to the surface and put it on public display. Check your pride at the door." Later, they repeat the warning: "Planting a church will magnify every weakness you have." Still want to plant a church?

The Bloyes write from their own experience, having planted a church. Their experience is similar in many ways to what many planters will face: lack of money, spiritual attack, and a very uncertain future in the early days of planting. Their experience is also very different from what many planters will experience. Not every planter will have served under Jerry Falwell before starting their own church, and not every church will grow as rapidly as the one described in this book.

Still, everyone can learn from the topics that the Bloyes cover: discerning whether you're called to plant a church, protecting your marriage and family, dealing with growth and change, building friendships, and maintaining authenticity and spiritual vitality. There's lots of solid and practical wisdom in this book from planters who have been there and remember what it was like.

This book offers two things to two different groups of people. First, if you're not a planter, it gives you a taste of what's involved in planting. Jesus said something about counting the cost, and this book will help you do just that. Second, if you are a church planter, this book will give you the assurance that you're not alone, and it will give you some strategies on how to survive what you've signed up to do.

Church planting is personal. To plant a church, you need to know you're called, and you need to know how it's going to affect your life, marriage, kids, and pretty much everything else. You also need to know what to do to survive. It's Personal offers a taste of what it likes, and provides valuable wisdom on surviving and even thriving as someone who is planting a church.

More from Amazon.com

Review: The Measure of Our Success

Pastors have a problem. The problem is simple, according to Shawn Lovejoy:

Somewhere along our ministry journey, things got tangled up in our hearts and heads. Our root problem is that we have exchanged God's definition of success for our own. We have begun to measure the way the world does.

Pastors, he writes, are driven by our need for affirmation, by numbers, activity, approval, and fame. We compare, copy, and condemn others. As a result, pastors are discouraged and discontent with the way their lives and ministries are turning out.

That's why Lovejoy has written The Measure of Our Success: An Impassioned Plea to Pastors. Lovejoy does three simple things in this book. First, he describes and critiques the standard way that we measure pastors. Second, he redefines success in terms of vitality, love, teamwork, and a focus on God. Finally, he offers a new set of metrics. Lovejoy writes:

We must not seek to please people. We must please God.

We must not seek to fill auditoriums. We must fill heaven.

We must not seek fame. We must make Jesus famous.

We must not seek our agenda. We must proclaim his agenda.

We must not quit if we are called. We will quit if we are not.

The minute I heard of this book, I knew I would buy it. It's been a long time since I devoured a book as quickly as I did this one. My copy is dog-eared and marked, and there are dozens of quotes begging to be tweeted. I found myself nodding in agreement many times as I read the book.

The most telling word in the subtitle is "impassioned." The thing that made this book so compelling is that it is written with so much passion. Lovejoy is a pastor, and he knows what it's like to measure ministry by the wrong standards. He reflects on a difficult period in his life and marriage: "Two years as a senior pastor and church planter, with all its unique burdens, had completely stolen my sense of joy." This is no academic treatise. It's a book that's born from the joys and struggles of ministry.

I liked this book. Lovejoy knows the idols that pastors are prone to worship, and he knows what to do with them. Don't read this book for a carefully reasoned treatise on pastoral ministry, or as a fully developed philosophy of ministry. Read it for a kick in the pants and a reminder of what truly matters in pastoral ministry.

The Measure of Our Success releases today.

More at Amazon.com

Review: You Are a Writer

Jeff Goins has earned a place in my Google Reader. He's consistently putting out good material on writing. In particular, he's really good at busting through the some of the excuses we make for not writing.

You know the deal: there are lots of us who want to write, but never get around to actually writing. The excuses are endless, but the result is the same. We going to become a writer one day, but that day is always in the future.

Goins has been there. He's been the guy who wants to write. He's been the guy who blogs in obscurity. He's been the freelancer who's been ignored by publishers. More recently, his blog has taken off, and he's now approached by publishers. He's got a book, Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams into your Comfortable Life, coming out later this year.

That's why Goins is the guy to write the book You Are a Writer. The book explodes our excuses for not writing. It encourages us to write for the love of writing, to realize that "writing is mostly a mind game." It gives practical advice on building a platform, establishing a brand, opening channels of communication, and writing a book.

According to Goins, the act of writing comes out of your identity as a writer. You don't become a writer; you declare yourself one and live out of that identity.

This is a quick read. If you read a lot of Seth Godin or Steven Pressfield, then what Goins writes will be familiar. But if you want to write and you're stuck, then this book may be just what you need.

Gordon MacDonald once wrote about the sadness of a book never read. There's also some sadness in a book, article, or post never written. You Are a Writer may help you get past the sadness of only intending to write, and get you actually writing.

More from Amazon.com | YouAreAWriter.com

Review: Evangellyfish

There were moments in reading Evangellyfish that I felt guilty. For one thing, it's a book with violence (one pastor punches another) and sex -- not graphic sex, but sex nonetheless. I also felt guilty because I laughed. It's a satirical book, and I suppose we're supposed to laugh, but I still felt guilty. But then I'm really laughing at things that deserve to be derided. Nobody gets off lightly in the end.

Evangellyfish is the story of Chad Lester, head pastor of Chad Lester, pastor of Camel Creek Community Church. He's 38 years old, founder of TrueLife Ministries, popular author and conference speaker. Not even a divorce slows him down; he just writes a bestselling book called Walking With Christ Through Divorce. I just tried to link to this book on Amazon; you'd almost believe that Chad Lester exists, and that he's really written this book.

Chad Lester is also a sexual predator, which is more or less fine until it begins to interfere with the offerings.

John Mitchell is the pastor of Grace Reformed, a small Reformed Baptist church in the same city with Camel Creek. He gets dragged into the mess, and ends up having to minister to Lester, but only after he punches Lester and gives him a black eye.

It's not hard to laugh at the absurdities in this book: out-of-control leaders, over-the-top ministries, and other evangelical absurdities. What's troubling in this book is that it also exposes the smugness of people like Pastor John Mitchell as well -- people just like the Pharisees, people like me.

It's hard to write satire, because the truth is bad enough. Evangellyfish feels truthy. It's fun, insightful, and more than a little convicting. Add it to your reading pile, but consider yourself warned: it packs a punch.

More from Amazon.com

Review: Church in the Making

"How did church planting become such a spiritual crapshoot?" asks Ben Arment, author of Church in the Making: What Makes or Breaks a New Church Before it Starts. According to Arment, church plants tend to fail, not in the early years, when they're still receiving lots of support and attention, but in years four or five when they're out of the incubator. They disappear, and hardly anyone notices.

Church in the Making attempts to uncover the mystery of church planting. It "doesn't have to be as difficult as we make it out to be," he writes. "Church planting, it turns out, is remarkably organic."

Three things are necessary for a strong church plant:

• Good ground - A church needs to begin in fertile soil. If the soil isn't fertile, you need to cultivate it before you plant.
• Rolling rocks - You need momentum on your side. Church planting is not only a spiritual phenomenon; it is also sociological. A planter must identify where God is already bringing people, funds, and other resources together for his purposes.
• Deep roots - A vision isn't imported; it's birthed in the community. Effective church planters have a strong connection to their communities, and are committed to planting the church that the community needs, in community with others.

This all sounds so pragmatic. I'm convinced, though, that Arment is doing us all a favor. He is not opposed to planters who want to move into areas that have tough soil rather than good ground. He just wants us to have our eyes open. "What I’m saying is to be aware of the soil conditions in which you are planting," he writes. "Knowing this could save you from the discouragement and depression that so many planters experience."

I really appreciated the strong doses of realism in this book. It's helped me identify some of the challenges I have ahead of me that I'd otherwise have missed. I didn't always enjoy the realism, but it's better for me to learn now through a book than later through hard experience. Even if you don't agree with everything, any planter would benefit from reading this book.

I especially enjoyed the chapters on shaping vision and systems. It helped develop some of my thinking on how to shape a church beyond the passions and personalities of the individuals who are at the heart of a church plant.

It must be frustrating to watch church plants die needlessly. If we're wise, we'll learn all that we can so that we don't make potentially fatal mistakes. Church in the Making reminds us that "successful church planting is not random. And it doesn’t have to be mysterious." Cultivate good ground in the community; develop the social network around you; and plant deep roots in a local community. It's not a formula, but it will give you a much better shot at seeing a church start that will thrive and bear much fruit.

More at Amazon.com