Renewal

I would have to agree with Kevin L Van Wyk from Evansdale, IA
Dan has carefully articulated valuable lessons on transitioning from Nehemiah and his own experience. He gives helpful advice on dealing with complainers who just don't get the purpose of the church. Don't let potential conflict keep you from pursuing the lost in your community. GET THIS BOOK! It will help you transition into a relevant, biblical church.

Dan has carefully articulated valuable lessons on transitioning from Nehemiah and his own experience. He gives helpful advice on dealing with complainers who just don't get the purpose of the church. Don't let potential conflict keep you from pursuing the lost in your community. GET THIS BOOK! It will help you transition into a relevant, biblical church.

When I first starter to read this book I was looking for helpful insights in Transitioning our church from "personality driven" (mine) to "purpose driven"(God's). After reading the first chapter I wasn't sure if this small book would be "meaty" enough. It seemed that it was rewording of Rick Warren's, "Purpose Driven Church" along with a healthy dose of John Maxwell's 21 leadership principles and the story of Nehemiah just to keep it Biblical.

I found that his book is well worth its price in gold!! It brought Maxwell's leadership principles from theory to practical application, not only for the Church organization but for my personal life. The author then fills in some of the, "yes, but how????" of Rick Warren's book. The Nehemiah story is not just a religious "tag on" but he masterfully weaves his account throughout this book that he seamlessly was able to encourage and help facilitate needed change.

This book's presentation is one of lists (chapters) within lists (within the chapters) and still able to have individual chapters stand on their own. This is especially helpful after you read the book and desire to review certain portions.

The author, Dan Southerland, then includes over 60 pages at the end of the book to be used as study / workbook!!! You do not have to read the other 2 books to follow along but you will definitely enhance your understanding by doing so.

This was a very good book referencing the personal experiences of the Toronto revival. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is because I felt too much of the book was devoted to defending the movement to the skeptics. The thing that really struck me was how sincerely this book was written. The author showed great humility when relating these events. I only hope that the skeptics will read it and open up to the possibility that the Lord can work how ever He chooses. If you ask for a fish He won't give you a stone. Just believe and accept the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with graciousness. The lord isn't in he business of giving us great gifts that would cause us constantly ponder whether they were actually demonic in origin. The proof is in the fruit. I am still in awe of the sincerity of this book and know that this fruit is good.

I will be going to Toronto, this book has the anointing
upon it. I don't need someone to tell me that it is
of God, becuase it is anointed by the HOly Spirit,
so now I will go to the Tonronto Church to get the
anointing.

I think this book needs to be in the hands of every Christian. 'The Father's Blessing' contains many great teachings about the love of God which everyone needs.

This book exemplifies the business of the Harvard Business School. It draws snippets from many case studies (available for purchase separately), it ties into seminars and tailored sessions sold at fancy prices to industry, and it presents one of several competing but overlapping theories of what divides successful and unsuccessful companies. It is often compared with Clayton Christensen's book "The Innovator's Dilemma" (obliquely referenced in the preface, but not appearing in the index or bibliography), and indeed both deal with the question of how established companies deal with technologies (in the loosest sense) that change markets. Of the two, I vastly prefer Christensen's book because he tells coherent stories that reach conclusions. This book introduces situations without enough detail to get a true feel for what is going on. In one extreme case ("... John Torrance at Medtek ...", p. 61), a reference is introduced that has no antecedent. The authors of books in this genre like to name drop to show you how broad and deep is their knowledge; therefore you should regard their version of gospel as more credible than their rivals. (How about a case sometime on business school professors?) There are "figures" and "tables" which I suspect are PowerPoint pastes from their lectures. Some of them are referenced (weakly) in the text -- most of them have no direct connection to the exposition. In short, the book gives the impression of being slapped together in haste. For the most part, it is well edited -- a few punctuation lapses notwithstanding. But it needed more editing for content. The table on page 13 says that the "Winchester" company fell victim to its success in disk drives, but the term "Winchester disk" refers not to a company but the code name of a very succesful product prior to its announcement. (Cf. http://www.....htm among other similar web references.) On page 163 they say that IBM lost key control to Intel and Microsoft by betting on the wrong PC design. The conclusion is true, but has nothing whatever to do with the false premise. Now these are all throwaway lines in the book, but they undermine the credibility of the main argument. As an earlier reviewer here put it, the book is about five chapters too long, again, I suspect, because it was produced in haste in order to sell to HBS program participants and in order to get on to the next piece of work. For those who haven't been exposed to the basic ideas (e.g., culture matters), it may well be invaluable, but it ain't the one, true gospel.

Captivating stories. Could have reduced the length of the book by 5 or so chapters to avoid repeating the same concepts.

I read many business books - from Drucker to Peters, etc., but this one is very insightful, practical, and easy to follow! One day I will own my own business and this book will be by my side!

This book was a waste of money. The layout was horrible and the information provided extremely general. You're better off using a wedding or travel magazine and a good search engine.

This book is basically 2 pages each for 135 resorts in the Caribbean & gives descriptors like locations for wedding (beach, gazebo, etc), room rates (not helpful at all since it depends on time of year & you can get group rates if you marry there), etc. . Without using this book, I booked my wedding at the Westin in St John & now that I look at the book, some of the information is inaccurate& not really helpful now that I know what the important things to know are...
I could've gotten better information about the resorts on fodors.com and definitely got better information by going to resorts' websites (which are easy to find if you can use search engines).
This would be more helpful for planning a honeymoon, as you can see all the resorts that are out there but as for planning a DW, it is really not useful...

I used this book to decide where to go for for my destination wedding and it was easy to look up the hotels (they were listed not only alphabetically but by area) so it saved me a lot of time. I had been trying to research where to have a destination wedding on my own when I found this. I was originally planning on marrying in Europe but found that it's very difficult to marry there if you're American. But this book had resorts in the Caribbean and Hawaii (and Florida in America)where it's easy to have a destination wedding. After looking at all the places in the book, we chose Couples in Negril (the book told us what we needed to know--including that weddings there were free!) and it was wonderful. It's a beautiful book with many pictures of resorts and I'm keeping it to see where we'll go for our first anniverary.

For all his talk of making the 8 track church into a CD one he gave no insights or ideas. Everything he said was unclear and general and I came away with nothing of value.

The title is most catchy....the content is only "somewhat catchy" at best. Nash's experience in theological circles (including three pastorates)well qualifies him to address a subject in which he only scratches the surface. I found myself finishing the book in a couple of hours, and wanting him to say more. His three or four or five or eight points in each chapter were helpful, useful, and thought-provoking. The issues of community wasn't as fully explored as I was anticipating or expected it to be. Maybe the author could team up with Dr. Stephen Green at Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene (California) and further examine exactly what the "modern church" must do to adequately address and minister to folk living in the throes of postmodernity. The almost comical analogies with the new WALMART Super Centers were cute at best, and lent just a tad to his discussion. Surely there are some "CD churches" in North America somewhere. The problem is only somewhat clear; now the author should help us find some biblical, meaningful and usable solutions.

I am an engineer and go to Church somewhat regularly. After reading this book, I now have a better idea of why I have been discouraged with my religious experiences at Church. Dr. Nash explains the problems that face today's church and its congregation. The points that Dr. Nash discusses, establish a starting point to experience Christianity within our world of mass information and search for a meaningful life. Dr. Nash describes what the new Church will be, and explains there are many roads to get there. It will not be easy, but rather extremely difficult. Mainly because congregations go from "group-followers" to individuals with individual responsibility and in that, lead the Church into a new open world with the ministers and pastors being coaches and supporters. As time passes, we will see who is up for the responsibility to be a Christian and who remains locked behind walls in the old world. Welcome to the new world we live in, thanks Dr. Nash.

I have twice been to Toronto to experience the "Blessing" and am glad to say that I am finally free. I have experienced a few of the "third wave" churches and now believe that this blessing is the result is cultic and systamitically destroys the lives of it's participants. Worldwide revival? HA!

This is an early book on the Toronto Blessing Revival that began on January 22, 1994 in a small church at the end of the runway of the Toronto Airport. God visited that church in a powerful way and it continues to this day. This church has had revival services every night since 1/20/94 (except Mondays) and visitors continue flock to this church from all over the world.

This book summarizes the current revival that is occurring in Toronto, Canada.

Guy Chevreau, who is a church history expert, goes back into other revivals in history and compares them to what is currently happening. Guy takes an in depth look at the "Great Awakening" revival and compares many modern day occurances with what Jonathan Edwards documented 250 years ago. There are also other examples taken from other revivals from around the world and tied into things that have occurredn in Toronto.

Guy was one of my teachers at bible school and I recommend that this book be read with his others, to give the readers a greater understanding of how God is moving in his church today. This book summarizes more of what went on in the early days at the Toronto Airport Church than what is going on these days. For a complete look, get John Arnott's "Father's Blessing" to give a full view of what's going on.

It is obvious that Brian has been doing a lot of reading over the past decade -- reading which has brought about a notable shift in his understanding of "the church." But that's just it: his vision for "doing ministry in the postmodern matrix" is an eclectic soup of strategies borrowed from almost every conceivable field of study making its way into the new century. His reading has incited a revolution in HIS mind . . . but he has failed to consult the most important source we have for truly revolutionary ideas:

THE BIBLE.

Brian never engages the Bible to see what it might say about "doing ministry." There is, therefore, no "word from God" here -- rendering the book "weightless" in terms of its ultimate trajectory. And not worth reading, really. All in all, it is another useless book which is, sadly, typical of this "emerging genre" of Christian books

The Church on the Other Side is an intelligent but compromising work which offers both keen insights and devastating suggestions.

On one hand, McLaren encourages us to view church structures and philosophies as fluid; he urges us to accept change as normal and not get obsessed with forms. He urges us to understand and adapt to the Post-modern world and emerge strongly on "The Other Side." The author is clearly quite intelligent.

He also emphasizes a call that needs to be heard, namely that Christians are not living Christian lifestyles: adultery/divorce and other behavior that shames the name of Christ is running rampant. We need to get our houses in order.

On the other hand, the type of church McLaren advocates is a church not worth surviving, in my view. He tells us we should not evangelize in Catholic areas and de-emphasizes the importance of solid doctrine (excepting the Trinity); he stands against Scientific Creationism, but advocates theistic evolution; he advocates faith, but not only Bible-oriented evangelical faith but the faith of Christendom at large; in short, he betrays the Reformation and seems to deny (by practice) the evangelical conviction that theology and methodology are best derived from "non-agenda" Bible exegesis.

McLaren's approach may help maintain the health of Christendom, but it will weaken the evangelical church and expedite further movement away from Biblical literacy. Christianity for the sake of Christianity (or for the betterment of society) can never replace a Christianity composed of obedient Christians attempting to discern the will of God from His Word.

If I had to pick just one book to recommend to a Christian leader who is finding that the "way we have always done it" just isn't working or even making sense anymore it would be this book. Absolutely revolutionary. Yes, there are things that Brian picks up that I may choose not to, but that's part of the point! We need to get back to majoring on the majors and allowing good, healthy dialogue and debate on other things. Wouldn't that be a great witness to a world that is wondering about Christianity to see us dialogue, disagree and still sit in the same pew (or row, or couch) with one another????
We have buried Jesus under a heap of trivialities, and the Church on the other side will begin to dig Him out. As regards betraying the Reformation (as one other reviewer accused McLaren)... In the words of Doug Paggit, an Emergent leader from the Mid-west, "If you want to honor the Reformers, don't say what they said- do what they did!" McLaren starts us down that hard, but very exciting road.

Did Gibbs or any of the audience he is targeting stop to think that they are trying to "save" or salvage something that longs for change. God is a God of love - period. There are many paths to love and to make another wrong is to live in the arrogance and ignorance of a belief system that the world is flat, that women are to be subsurvient, and that particular races are less refined than others. All beliefs that were KEY when the Bible was scribed. If you are willing to except the change of these things, why can't you see that what was heresy (holistic practises, herbs)hundreds of years ago is now recognized for its value today. Stop trying to "fix" people from expansion and personal growth. The experience of God is wondrously beyond definition.

The more I read, the more I became interested in what Gibbs had to say. In fact, it wasn't until the final chapter where he tends to put it all back together again that I saw where he was going.

He aptly describes the chaos of culture by one that is wavering between modern and post-modern, a world without a center or a circumference. As he writes: "a balkanized world of warring factions." To this disjointed complexity, add five generational groups: builders, silent ones, boomers, GenX, and bemused millennials.

Previous attempts, visions, strategies, programs, traditions are inadequate in themselves to deal with such quantum change and choas. What is needed the book suggests is a whole new outlook and orientation: one that basically (in author's view) returns to first century apostolic church which was driven by small group of believers committed to Lord that replicated themselves throughout the world. Appointed and empowered by apostles, they were not influential or socially prominent, but operated on the margins and infiltrated all society and turned their world upside down with the gospel.

He offers many compelling critiques of previous church growth strategy, but never totally dismisses them as unbiblical, but primarily as pragmatically not working.

He replaces such with "a mission orientation" which is faith led, and not a paradigm per se to be copied in detail, step-by-step, but contexualizing its principles of quick striking, infiltrating and making the gospel relevant to changing cultural setting.

Much is to be challenged of this, e.g. his fine reference points for the missional church - faithful to the gospel, inspired by the hope of Christ's return, informed and enriched by heritage are softened in this reader's mind by the addition of: "relevant to its ministry setting." He does unload this by explaining it as finding ways to get the gospel across in terms and language culture will accept as relevant. The problem with this is that doctrine is separated from the practice thereof, allowing and glorifying in permiscuity doctrinally speaking. As one astute observer wrote: "It is when the church begins to accomodate theology to the culture in which it exists that the church loses its moorings and begins to drift away from the truth."

He to his credit critiques much of what is wrong with worship these days, however in some cases places too much on work of people in worhsip, rather than God's work to people.

I was torn between three and four stars, so really 3.5. Worth reading and continuing thought about what he offers. Much of analaysis that is helpful to the church, and some fine challenges to all branches. What lacks is Biblical talk about apostasy in the end times and growing tendency to not tolerate sound doctrine but seek and demand teachers who tickle their consumer, individual, rights demanding ears.

This is a masterpiece collection of concepts for church in the 21st century. If you're in ministry today or are looking to enter the world of church work you should read this book. Gibbs insight is outstanding!

This book charts the stadium and minor league baseball developments in 15 cities in the US. The author spends much of his time discussing the inter-workings with the local governments and the minor league teams. Also into consideration is the city planning and community involvement. This book is very interesting if you are interested in the business side of baseball or the inter-workings of government. The book speaks mainly about developements in the 1980s, some of which have changed over the years. An example would be Durham and their lack of a modern stadium, which changed in the mid 1990s. While some data is out-dated, it is still a good source for infomration.

When it comes to considering, funding and building minor league baseball stadiums, economic development agencies and local governments don't need to reinvent the wheel. This book outlines the experiences of other communities in relatively useful detail. Learn from their experiences and establish a workable platform from which to build your own approach to funding and building (or perhaps deciding not to build) a minor league park in your community.

This book is not written by the famous canadian author Jane Jacobs who wrote classic _The Death and Life of Great American Cities_ but instead by an identically named individual. The book is interesting but not in the same league was the Canadian Jane Jacobs.

I did not read this book, but I simply had to point out that the reviewer from Arlington, MA, tried to make a distinction between Jane Jacobs, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and Jane M. Jacobs, the author of this book, and used incorrect information. The reviewer stated that Jane Jacobs was a Canadian. While she maintains her current residence in Toronto, Canada, she was born and raised in Scranton, PA, and hence is not only an American, but a PENNSYLVANIAN.

This is a fascinating and theoretically nuanced study of the effects of colonialism and postcolonialism on cities. Jacobs looks not only at classically postcolonial cities, those in former colonies, but also at the effects of colonialism on cities at the center of the empire, such as London. The book is well written and accessible, and does an excellent job of grounding theory in the particulars of physical space.