Michael Mather Eerdmans, 160 pages It’s hard to imagine any pastor in their right mind closing down a basketball program that brings in 250 inner-city youth from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday-Friday, but Mike Mather did. Why? While patting himself on the back from the media coverage Mather received as a young associate pastor presiding over 250 “impoverished” souls, nine young men in a four-block radius around Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis died from violence in nine months. His church was “helping a few people beat the odds,” but not “changing the odds for everyone.” And he was determined to do the latter. Later, as a solo pastor in South Bend, Indiana, on Pentecost Sunday, he read aloud Joel’s prophecy: “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.” But after church a congregant called his bluff: “If what God said is true, why don’t we treat people like that? … At the food pantry, we ask people how poor they are rather than how rich they are. Peter is saying all people … [Read more...]

Arden F. Mahlberg and Craig L. Nessan Cascade Books, 236 pages Reviewed by John Wimberly Airplane pilots are taught to ignore their “gut instincts.” Instead, for each and every problem that may occur while they are flying, they are trained to disregard their initial reactions and use well-defined protocols developed over decades. Why? Because, in the air, instincts may be fatally misleading while protocols walk pilots methodically through crises. In their book on boundaries, Arden Mahlberg and Craig Nessan argue that the same is true in ministry. Good decision-makers understand that decision-making is more about process than outcomes, even when the process involves intuition. Research reveals that our instincts advise us to “give more weight to events that we have experienced personally rather than those experienced by others” and “if a bad thing has not happened to us, we tend to make decisions as if it never will.” Such are the revelatory insights offered in a book definitely … [Read more...]

Ashley Hales IVP Books, 192 pages Reviewed by KJ Ramsey Hales offers a compelling invitation to live with purpose and meaning in the middle of the manicured lawns of the suburbs — not by pining after some amorphous ideal we wish we could achieve, but by attending to the reality that Jesus has already changed the world by offering us his presence. This month my husband and I relocated from the West to the gently curved, confusing streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, and after five years of finding my way by noticing the mountains to the west, I feel displaced. And though I have never lived in a suburb and have moved to yet another city, Hales’ book offered me grace to see my new surroundings as a place to find more than my own satisfaction. She writes, “I can never answer the needs of my neighborhood when I’m telling a story that has me at the center instead of us, and when home is a product of what I buy, and when worth is measured in square footage.” Whether you find yourself … [Read more...]

Stephen R. Haynes Eerdmans 213 pages Stephen Haynes is the author of “Bonhoeffer for Armchair Theologians” and theologian-in-residence at Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis. He is also a scholar-on-a-mission to correct the record about the famous Lutheran pastor-theologian who bravely resisted the Nazi regime.  One might wonder why this is necessary. Isn’t Bonhoeffer well known for his courageous call to discipleship against all cheap grace? Unfortunately, the answer is much more complicated and Haynes points out why, in the age of Donald Trump, Bonhoeffer is being used for purposes he would never recognize much less approve. He describes how the evangelical world adopted Bonhoeffer with some appreciation for his courageous witness but not as much for his theology. After surveying Bonhoeffer in the Bush and Obama years, Haynes turns his attention to the current appropriation. He takes aim particularly at Eric Metaxas’ award-winning biography as a distortion of Bonhoeffer and a … [Read more...]