Mark Driscoll is pastor of Mars Hill Church. He’s a unique character – reformed evangelical theologically, pastoring a rapidly growing, culturally relevant church in Seattle. His sense of humour and strong opinions which tend to polarise his hearers as either friends or enemies pretty quickly. I would strongly recommend you check out his sermons online at www.marshillchurch.org. Despite the “hip and trendy” nature of his church, the teaching is very theological and bible based, with sermons lasting well over an hour.

The point of this book is to explain what he calls “reformission”, which he simply defines as a radical call to Christians and churches to recommit to living and speaking the gospel. He speaks about the need to remain faithful to the gospel (love the Lord), to our culture (love our neighbour) and to the church (love our brother). He goes on to show how many have opted for just two out of those three options (resulting in parachurch, liberalism or fundamentalism).

The first half of the book is about the gospel, showing how the old message can be presented in a fresh way to answer new questions. There is a fundamental commitment to the belief that the gospel connects with this life. He urges us to let non-Christians come among us and see the gospel in action, hear us talk it and live it, before they come to accept it for themselves. Essentially we must be willing for people to “belong” before they believe. He claims that the transformed lives of people in the church are both the greatest arguments for and the greatest explanation of the gospel.

If we are to do this we first need to confront and deal with our prejudices and start to be aware of our culture, which is the subject of the second half of the book. We need to immerse ourselves in our culture for education not entertainment – so we can understand the “why” and not just the “what” of our culture.

He warns us against equating culture with worldliness, but at the same time, there are many ideas in our culture that must be challenged with the truth of the gospel. So for example, our culture encourages us to see ourselves as victims where the Bible says we are sinners.

The issue of how exactly Christians relate to their culture is notoriously tricky, and he helpfully warns against four “ruts” that we can get into – separating from culture (like the Pharisees), blending into culture (the Saducees), ruling over culture (the Zealots) and ignoring culture (the Essenes).

Towards the end of the book, he deals with postmodernism, a culture as much in need of redeeming as any that have gone before it. He distances himself here from some of the ideas of the emerging church (in his usual unsubtle manner).

There are parts of the book that will be controversial for more conservative evangelicals, for example, his more permissive attitude towards subjects like alcohol. His robust complimentarianism won’t win him any friends amongst egalitarians either. Each chapter is interspersed with an interview of a Christian whose line of work raises issues of engagement with culture – a brewer, a tattooer, a band manager, a former pole dancer and so on. The book is by no means academic and dry in style – it is littered with his pithy one-liners and off the wall illustrations, making it a very easy read.

I recommend this book as a worthwhile and enjoyable read for anyone thinking about how the church can reach an increasingly “unchurched” generation. The answer isn’t to modify the gospel to make it more acceptable, or to retreat into holy huddles and wait for the rapture. As the tag-line for the book states, we need to be “reaching out without selling out”. From listening to his sermons online, I can also add that he does seem to be practising what he preaches. He proclaims a Jesus-centred message that deals seriously with sin, but presents it in a very contemporary style.

This book tells the story of Rolland & Heidi Baker’s remarkable ministry amongst the poor in Mozambique. After briefly covering the story of how they met and married, and their missionary work prior to Mozambique, the story quickly moves on to focusing on how they started reaching out to the poor with practical help and the gospel. The story covers about six years from 1995 to 2001, which includes the devastating flooding of 2000.

A number of features stood out for me in this book. First, though they are working in one of the bleakest situations in the world, the book is anything but depressing and melancholic. Even when reporting the most tragic situations, they speak of the joy of seeing what Jesus was doing in the lives of the people there.

Second, while they report many amazing miracles, there is no romanticising or glamourising of their work. They are honest about setbacks and difficulties in the midst of amazing reviving work of the Holy Spirit.

Third, the book presents a passionate call to its readers to lay their lives down to serve the poor and needy without ever resorting to guilt manipulation, emotional blackmail or condemnation. Rolland & Heidi have an incredible capacity to love the most broken and needy people, and it seems to me to stem from an equally passionate love for Jesus. They are not living for this world. The challenge comes from realising that we need our own love for the Lord to increase so that he might change our hearts to love others more, and become less attached to the passing material possessions of this life.

Fourth, though both Rolland & Heidi are highly qualified in theology, it is clear that they devoted to simply presenting the gospel. This is not a book trying to prove that God is blessing them because they have got all the fine details of eschatology and eccleisolgy worked out. Their humility in this regard is striking. The book starts with Rolland saying that he wanted to believe and live the Sermon on the Mount – if Jesus says we can trust him without worrying about tomorrow then we can. You can see this worked out practically in the rest of the story, as they preach the gospel of trusting Jesus to these people who are poor financially and poor in Spirit.

If the book has a weakness, it is that the story is not always filled in in as much detail as I would have liked. Some chapters are written by Rolland and some by Heidi, and they include diary entries. There are lots of little details that fill in interesting aspects to life in Mozambique, but in some places I felt there were gaps in the story.

In one chapter, they tell of a vision one of the children had. It was of Jesus saying that he was coming again, sooner than they expected. But he also said that feast was prepared but the church was not ready. They needed to wake up. The poor had not yet been invited to the feast. This is the heart-cry of this book. The poor must be invited to the feast. Heidi says, “we should stop every single time for each person”. I can recommend this book as one that will inspire you, encourage you, and call you back to a first love for Jesus and a love for the lost.

The Tide is Turning, is Terry Virgo’s latest book, and is billed as a book on seeing the tide turning against secularism as we build strong churches that bring in the kingdom of God. Essentially the title can be thought of as a prophecy that the decline of the church is slowing and that a new wave of growth of vibrant biblical Christianity is coming. The book reads as a series of expository teaching on the lives of Joseph, Gideon and Nehemiah. From the lives of these Biblical characters, he draws out lessons for the church, but also touches on many topics directly related to individual life.

I actually think this approach is a very profitable one. It means that the book is not topically organised, but actually I think that it results in a book that covers a broad range of subjects, and will have something for pretty much every reader. It is not pitched at scholars or intellectuals, but written in a very readable style, with no footnotes. As will all of Terry’s books I have read, you can almost hear him speaking, which makes me wonder whether this was originally a sermon series.

So the first section is on the life of Joseph, and there are many lessons to be learned about godly character. The need for patience and personal integrity, avoiding cynicism. Terry Virgo often speaks directly to those who came out of more traditional churches to join the house church movement, and addresses some of the criticisms they faced. Its interesting stuff, but possibly an out of date issue, as the new churches are increasingly populated with people who have been born or saved into such churches. The focus must shift from our differences with the old, to ensuring that what we have truly represents the values that we left for.

Thankfully, Terry addresses this very point, when drawing on how Joseph had remained true to the vision God had given him, so the churches with a vision of “restoring the church” must ensure that they do not give up on their dreams. Just as Joseph was able to change a nation for the better, and as a church, we have the principles to do the same.

The next character is Gideon, who demonstrates that God can use the insignificant and the insecure, if they have a hunger to see him move. Again there is some very down-to-earth teaching here as we are encouraged to deal with the idols of our day – money, sex and worldly wisdom. For the church, Terry Virgo draws out principles of not digging in, but going forward in faith and unity. He warns against the destructive power of gossip and rumours in church life.

Finally Nehemiah is dealt with, who is of course a restorationist favourite. The parallel is drawn between Nehemiah rebuilding Zion and us seeking to restore the church. Virgo speaks about needing to pray based on the promises of God, and that we will face opposition in all forms – mockery, disloyalty, slander and disunity. He devotes a chapter to a reminding us that the word of God is central to restoration in the church and our lives. He also calls us to be more aware of church history, that we are not the first generation of Christians that God has used.

He doesn’t ignore the fact that Nehemiah does not have a hollywood happy ending, but that Nehemiah had to deal with sin amongst God’s people. He deals with the subjects of tithing and the Sabbath, arguing for generous giving to support the work of and that though Sabbath observance is no longer binding on Christians, we are called to live differently to the world.

Overall I would recommend the book as good summer holiday reading, particularly for those from church backgrounds such as newfrontiers. You can take each of the three sections one at a time, each requiring only a few hours to read. It will cause faith to rise in you that in our day, despite the bleak outlook in many ways for Christians and the church, God is able to bring something out of nothing.