Renewal

The Reverend Stephen Glauz-Todrank has written a powerful book that points to what religion could (and should) be. I recommend this book to anyone who is unhappy with traditional practices of religion. A fine read!

Chesnut provides a wealth of 21st Century ministry suggestions through the lens of his own personal experience at Cathedral of Hope. While he is unabashed in sharing his own theological and pastoral perspectives, he is equally open about how surprising and varied have been the resources that have enabled his vision. Great resource for anyone evaluating current trends in Protestant Christianity. Descriptive of renewal in a dwindling, urban, mainline congregation, but applicable to a wide range of congregational situations and settings. I found it inspiring, pastoral via the author's own vulnerability, and filled with both practical suggestions and stimulating reflection. It is a great read!

This book shows how injustice has affected the black community. Each essay underscores the contradictions and the sad impact of racism on the urban conditions of blacks.

The book is groundbreaking. It is pivotal because many of the most important urban policies, e.g., urban renewal, the war-on-poverty, model cities, have been used in the black community. Unfortunately the policies have enjoyed only a modium of success. Moreover, the planning professional and many of the voices in the academy have continued to deny the significance of this community as well as the contributions of blacks who had an indelible impact as urban and community planners.

The essays are accessible and poignant. While they would certainly need to be discussed in urban planning schools, they should also be of real interest to the general public who would profit from the vital information and sagas described in the book. One of the best planning volumes to be published recently.

There are two things I like about this book:
The author compellingly laid out the stages of a person's life in spans of years: age "Seven to Fourteen" or "Thirty-eight to Forty-two". The former is my step-kids ages and the latter is mine - and I learned why actions and thoughts are occuring. I also liked his use of prominant people from history to show how events seem to happen at certain ages - from Marie Curry to Marilyn Monroe.
Finally, I enjoyed the poetic prose and pictures the author helped to create in my mind. The words just flowed and didn't use any tired old jargon.

This jewel of poetic prayers to the soul from Interfaith Minister Lee Ann Fagan Dzelzkalns, provides loving, gentle guidance on the path of conscious awareness. There is a beautiful, soft flow to the rhythm of this work which as I read it, enfolds me in a field of love from the angelic realm. The book begins with a Prayer of Service: "I am flowing love, light and presence, As I blend with the highest of Essence. I am open and available in this day, To God's Grace and unfolding way." As you progress through the Gateways of release and renewal of the Self, you arrive at a place of being with the Unconditional Self. Do not just read this book, meditate with it and you will find it touching you on a deep and personal level as the cleansing waters of Spirit that flow through its pages, renew and inspire you. A beautiful gift for yourself and your loved ones.

The dynamic Disciples duo of Clark Williamson and Ronald Allen (both on the faculty of my seminary) have produced another winning text in 'The Vital Church: Teaching, Worship, Community, Service.' Practical and useful, this is a guide for pastors and pastors-to-be, and is also useful for lay leaders and congregation members, to understand the varying roles of the church and the ministers in the church, to make it a more vibrant and living place.

To a certain extent, a lot of this information is not new. However, in the crush of information that comes forth, and in the manifold cries for attention that come at us every day, we often lose the ability to remember the important aspects of ministry. Laying it out in four broad categories: teaching (didache), worship (kerygma), community (koinonia), and service (diakonia), Williamson and Allen highlight some of the essential points for those of us who live in a post-established-church, primarily post-Christendom world.

What is the vocation of the church? This is something that needs to be asked, for often we take it for granted that 'we all know'. Even as congregations shrink in mainline churches, there is a sort of historical hubris that keeps the churches assuming they know what they're doing. All churches need to take stock now and again, and the authors here present some ideas for this process. Is the church remaining, as an institution and in its practice, appropriate to the gospel message it carries? Does it make this message intelligible? Does it proclaim the message with moral plausibility?

Williamson and Allen argue for various reforms in the way church is 'done' -- educationally, the church must be more serious. Becoming a neighbourhood seminary/religious school is an idea they embrace. Understanding the different cultures in each congregation and how to communicate with them (and get them to communicate with each other) goes a long way toward building fulfilling worship and effective community.

In conclusion, the authors look at various congregations and how these communities have incorporated different ideas into their practices to suit their needs. These are fictional communities whose composition derives from real life scenarios (the authors do make a mistake in assuming there was no real St. Humphrey -- indeed there was...) -- they demonstrate the struggles of inner-city parishes, suburban parishes, rural parishes, parishes of plenty and parishes of need.

The reader will gain much insight from this relatively short book. There is a spiritual strength to the text, deriving in large part from the authors' own force of spirit that carries through -- the vitality of the writing reflects the vitality they seek to instill in the larger church community.

This is a new, updated version of the book originally published by Eerdmans in 1996 (which is out of print) and now available from FaithWalk Publishing. An incredible amount of research went into this book. In easy to understand language it provides reasons for the decline in the mainline church and then gives several ways that a local church or even a denomination can address the issues causing the decline. Not only does this book deal with today's challenges, it also gives an historical context on what led to the problems in the first place. A good place to start when looking for ways to grow the church. Fascinating reading for pastors and lay people alike.

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Like an Acts 4 prayer meeting, Ortland "shakes the walls" of modern-day churchianity with a biblical assault on "we overfed, self-absorbed, navel-gazing, thumb-sucking American Christians." The author speaks from (and, in part, to) the conservative Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) known for its reformed doctrinal purity. He masterfully challenges Christian brothers and sisters to reconsider their "uninterrupted blur of busy activities" done in the name of God who "has no intention of oiling our religious treadmill." He boldly asks: "So where are the pastors, elders, deacons, and laypeople who...can see when other events on the church calendar should be canceled so that the face of God himself may be specially sought?" Ortland's observations are numerous and incisive, and carry a refreshing wallop: "Talk of God's manifest presence makes some Christians nervous.... They feel comfortable with doctrinal cognition. And doctrinal understanding is essential! We die without it. But still, some people break out in a rash at the thought of God's immediacy as a felt experience." As an elder in a PCA church (not Ortland's), I heartily recommend this book as a breath of "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire" long needed in the mainstream of conservative, traditional Christianity.

This is an amazing book full of beautiful photographs and corresponding text that captures a time in American history when everthing and anything seemed possible. Pittsburgh undertook a massive urban renewal campaign in the early 1950's and this book chronicles the events that occurred as the city was transformed from Twain's "hell with the lid off" to the modern city it is today. The book is printed on museum quality archive paper and is a quality production throughout. The cost was kept down by grants from local agencies and we reap the benefits of a high quality book at a very affordable price. The book is composed of full page sepia tone prints from a cadre of photographers who were brought to Pittsburgh specifically for this project. It strikes a balance between chronicling the construction of a "new city" with an insightful view of the social fabric of the time. It is also one of the only chronicles of the dislocation of an entire African-American urban community to make way for urban "progress". The photographic project was coordinated and created by the same individual who administered the FHA photography projects for the WPA during the depression, of which Dorthea Lange's pictures are so famous. That same feel of chronicling a unigue time and place in history is evident in this book. The text is equally enlightening and creates a unified whole with the photo's. I cannot recommend this book highy enough. I have a copy in my home and a framed print of the cover photo hanging on my wall. This book will be of interest to anyone who enjoys photography, history, social issues, or just wants a beautiful, informational book for themselves or as a gift.