Quite a few readers were interested in my series of posts on Total Church, a book about gospel-centered community written by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis in the U.K. Total Church has been picked up by ReLIT, a publishing branch of Crossway Books and will be released in the U.S. in September. See info here. (By the way, someone has my copy, if you have it would you let me know?!)
Author: Jonathan Dodson
Witherington Whips "Pagan Christianity"
Read Ben Witherington’s review of Viola and Barna’s Pagan Christianity.
HT: SM: BH
Resources on Pastoral Ministry
A friend recently asked me for a list of books on Pastoring. Honestly, I have found very few that are worth our time. Here is are the few I have found:
Darrin Patrick on Eldering and Pastoring
The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter
Pastoral Trilogy by Eugene Peterson (Angles, Stones, Plant)
On Church Leadership, Driscoll
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, Piper
The Art of Pastoring, Hansen
Rolling Stone Rips on Osteen
I used the following quote from an article on McCain in the recent issue of Rolling Stone is my recent sermon Lord of the Story. Rolling Stone editor, Mark Taibbi rips into Joel Osteen while preserving the notion that there are more palatable forms of Christianity. In other words, he doesn’t throw out the Christian baby with the dirty health and wealth water.
Of all the vile, fake, lying-ass, money-grubbing, shyster scumbags on the face of this planet, there is perhaps none more loathsome than Osteen, a human haircut with plastic baseball-size teeth who has made a fortune selling the appalling only-in-America idea that terrestrial greed is actually a form of Christian devotion.
This quote was sparked by McCain listing Osteen as his most inspirational author, pretty sad. If Osteen is what inspires McCain, I’ve got some serious reservations about his presidential groundedness.