Book Review:: William Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry

Overview: This work is likely one of the best books that I have read by a pastor or theologian from the Methodist/Wesleyan tradition in quite some time. Willimon holds a very solid and historical understanding of the person and office of the ordained pastor. Throughout, Willimon attempts to yoke modern pastors to our ancestors and forbearers in the faith by connecting pastoral work to our ancient moorings. He does this especially through his use of the book of Acts and the early ministry of the apostles. Willimon seemingly is little impressed with modern evaluations of ministry by “success” and “growth,” in deference to a higher view of ministry as the role of leading, guiding, and shepherding the baptized. Willimon’s appreciation for the church as the called-out resistance and counter-cultural movement in a world of darkness was deeply moving at points. In particular, I appreciated the Bishop’s use of quotations and historical anecdotes from the Early Fathers, and the Reformers.

Critique: Although Willimon surprised me by quoting from several of the Reformers (Calvin and Luther) as well as even the Westminster Confession of faith, some of his more liberal United Methodism showed forth in his constant references and applications to female pastors. The Bishop went well out of his way to include female ministers and priests in most discussions, but did little to justify his view of gender and ordination. For this reason, Willimon might deserve some “push back” for not defending the controversial position of open ordination. This might be surprising, since he so clearly labors to connect modern pastoral work with that of the ancients and Reformers.

Application: Willimon opened my eyes to a broader understanding of baptism as a delineating mark upon the minister’s role of leading the covenant people of God. Although he does not give a full-fledged theology of baptism as a sign and seal of faith (I’m not sure he would even use those terms), he did find occasion to draw baptism into almost every pastoral discussion on the love, labor, and responsibility of the ordained person to tend especially to those who have openly identified with Christ by the covenantal sign of water. I found his incessant references to baptism refreshing, and it reminded me to speak more often of baptism’s ongoing significance for the Christian life.

Best Quote: “The church itself forms a culture that is counter to the world’s ways of doing things. The church does not simply reach out to and speak to the dominant culture, it seeks to disrupt that culture by rescuing some from it, then to inculcate people into the new culture called the church” (p. 209). 

-Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida

The Dangers and Delights of Christian Biography

The Dangers and Delights of Reading Christian Biography

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us (Philippians 3:17).

***

Be imitators of me as I am of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).

***

Dr. John Piper chose the above text from Philippians 3:17 when he gave the first ever “Charles Haddon Spurgeon” lecture at the Nicole Institute of Baptist Studies on the campus of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. I was there to hear the lecture in person. His point was that just as Paul faithfully imitated Christ, and others likewise imitated Paul, so too we ought to continue that long chain of men and women who for generations have trailed after our glorious and Risen Lord.

For seventy minutes I sat in awe listening to one of my favorite living preachers waxing eloquent about one of my favorite dead preachers. This was pure joy to me, because for nearly twenty years I have been consumed with reading the biographies of famous Christians who have gone before me. Curiously and by some divine “coincidence,” I had just read the same biography on Spurgeon from which Piper apparently crafted his manuscript for that electric evening.

I cannot estimate how valuable to my soul these types of biographies have been over the decades, especially as a local church pastor.

During some years, I have chosen one particular man as my focal point and read as much as I possibly could both by and about him. I have especially focused on those from my own theological tradition whose perspective is often close to mine. I went through a Jonathan Edwards phase first, then a year or so in John Calvin, then a Francis Schaeffer period. Spliced in between these times I have grown close to other dead men as well: the Reformers and Puritans always foremost among them.

Strangely, these now-glorified saints have become my “friends.” Sometimes, particularly during seasons of mild depression and apparent ministry defeats, they have become closer to me than my actual friends. Perhaps some others reading these lines will share that strange trans-generational experience.

It is during these dark times that we find one of the most delightful serendipities of reading Christian biographies: we find that the exact same struggles that we have endured are not so terribly unique after all. There is no temptation—either of body or mind—that has not been experienced by another brother come before me. There is no malady of frame or soul that God has not called another believer to trudge through, long before I came along. The ability of previous generations to endure through suffering actually has the strange power of pulling me along through the midst of my own battles.

Too, I find that my unquenchable passion to be in the presence of the Holy One has been shared by a unique breed of men and women in whose footprints I now walk. When I read in 1999 of Hudson Taylor’s passion for the lost souls of China, I found a man who shared—and greatly excelled—the angst I felt for those who don’t know Jesus. Like him, I felt willing to cross land and sea to share the Gospel with even one unreached individual. Hudson Taylor lived and died for the lost!  

When I visited A.W. Tozer’s grave in Akron not far from where I grew up, and just a stone’s throw from my in-law’s home, I felt that I shared the same longing to delight in God’s presence as the man whose several books I had lately enjoyed.

Who would not be moved by the accounts of Edwards’ fiery preaching in the Great Awakening, or be taken up in the Luther’s joyous fear of declaring “Here I stand!” at the Diet of Worms? How could I avoid Calvin’s tender pastoral spirit “rubbing off” on me as he wrote tearful letters to men soon to be martyred for the faith in Reformation-era France? How could I not be stirred within when I read one of Spurgeon’s echoing sermons, still just as alive today as the day his voice dominated the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London? How could I not savor my English Bible more when I learned of all that William Tyndale endured to smuggle New Testaments into England in bales of hay? I wept at 1:00am when I read of Dietrich Bonheoffer’s martyrdom just weeks before the Second World War ended in a Flossenberg prison camp.  

But here is where I find the great danger: the more I try to be like these men, hoping to see the shape of my own life in their ever-lengthening shadows, the more I know I can never measure up.

I find that my very pursuit of “imitation” can be my greatest frustration. Have you ever tried to photocopy another photocopy before? The more generations away from the original we get, the worse the quality of the print becomes. In the same way, some of the biographies that we read tend to make the error of “hagiography,” they no longer produce accurate representations of the man and instead make them into saints: halo, wings, and all.

I must become content—even pleased, if I can be so bold—with the person God has made me to be.

“Hagiography” (literally: saint writings) is the spurious genre of trying to make another man into a complete saint. In the biography of Spurgeon I mentioned above, for instance, the author studiously avoided almost any critique of the man himself. In an almost forced confession to create the veneer of “objectivity,” the author finally admitted that Spurgeon (gasp!) smoked cigars! That was the only fault he could find!

And so as a reader, I am nearly driven to despair. Reading the account of a hero whose ministry only grew—all the time—made me wonder if there wasn’t something seriously wrong with me. My own ministry wasn’t growing at all. By the time we get more than a hundred years away from an historical figure, the more perfect his biographers seem to cast him. His weaknesses are glossed over, especially those which his wife and children probably knew best.  

Yes Calvin and Luther et. al. were geniuses in their times and greatly used of God in their unique age. But if I try to replicate the extraordinary acts of these men and women, I will find myself increasingly frustrated. These men, after all, were extraordinary, not because they were miniature “christs” themselves, but because God in His mercy saw fit to use them extraordinarily.  

It is simply not fair to compare ourselves with the all-time “greats,” or to expect that the unusual outpourings of God’s Holy Spirit ought to become usual in our day.

Yes, there are times when God’s Kingdom advances in very marked ways. The wheat grows quickly after the thunderstorms, but it also grows during more temperate weather as well. Even if more slowly. God is glorified as much by the ordinary, trudging, faithful ox in the field as He is by the brilliant lightning bolts that lead the storm.

To expect to have the computer-like mind of a John Calvin or the preaching unction of a Charles Spurgeon, or the audacity of Martin Luther is simply not a fair. True, we will continue to hope and pray for God to raise up such men that can shake our own generation out of its complacency, but to expect every faithful man and woman to change the world alone is not realistic.  

More realistic (and more Biblical) is to expect God to smack the world out of its lethargy by a thousand thousands of ordinary, unknown, average believers who are sincerely pursing the glory of Christ in their own day and generation.

God grant us to be among their number. Amen. 

...

The preceding essay is from Matthew Everhard's forthcoming book, Unknown: the World-Changing Power of Ordinary Christians. Matthew is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Pray for Your Pastor (Especially on Mondays!)

As a pastor, I have become especially dependent on the prayers of God's people, especially those within my own congregation. Without the sustaining grace of our Lord, and the intercessory prayers of fellow believers, our pastoral labors would grow heavy indeed.

I am not sure how most pastors feel, but judging from some anecdotal conversations I have shared with other pastors recently, we are especially vulnerable to battles of the soul on Mondays.  (For what it is worth, I also tend to feel acute spiritual warfare on Saturday evenings as well).

There may be a few reasons to increase your prayers for your pastor on this day especially:

1) First, pastors are subject to intense spiritual warfare--regardless of the day--by the very nature of our work. There is nothing the enemy would like more than to discredit the Gospel by discrediting the Church. The easiest way to do that is to cause pastors to fail, quit, grow jaded, or fall lame. Church members need to know that their pastors are liable to the same--if not more intense--battles of spiritual warfare as the common Christian. The fact that we are ordained does not protect us from the trials and tribulations of the heart and soul that our people in the pews face. This can and does include depression, doubt, and anxiety.

2) Nevertheless, Mondays seem to be particularly hard because it is the day of "coming down from the mountain top." After preaching with body, heart, and soul on the Lord's Day, we must come down exhausted to the harsh realities of the "real world." School resumes for children, home repairs can no longer be ignored, cars need oil changes etc. A spouse's health concern is still there. After being in the presence of God so manifestly in sermon and sacrament, the normal grind hits again with a reverberating thud.

3) We are our own worst critics. We usually agonize over our sermons in our heads long after we preached them. Often we are harder on ourselves than even our worst detractors. Jokes that failed, points that were botched, or even a theological doctrine that was stated inarticulately can be deeply vexing. While the Word of God is infallible, the sermon is not. No one knows this better than us. Often our inability to preach better is a emotional frustration.  As one wise minister once said, however, "We surely could have preached better sermons, but we could not have preached a better Gospel!"

4) The criticisms of others ring in our ears. Since Sunday is the day that pastors are in contact with the most parishioners at one time, we tend to hear more criticisms that day also. Most are not meant to hurt us. Some are. While the Holy Spirit (and no little adrenaline!) gets us through the pastor's longest day, Mondays are left to mull over our peoples' concerns. While some critiques are very legitimate, others come across as disparaging. Either way, we tend to feel the soreness of the impact of those comments the next day.

5) The numbers come in. Attendance data and giving trends tend to make their way to our attention early in the week. Some weeks the numbers are an encouragement. As unhealthy as it may be to evaluate ourselves by numbers alone, often the only grades we receive are flat-line statistics. Giving and attendance may not be the best gauges of our church's spiritual health, but they do affect the pastor's heart.

6) Our labors of preparation start all over again. Since most pastors prepare all week long for their sermons, and deliver them on Sundays, the progress begins all over again as soon as the final 'amen' rings from the choir. Unlike other jobs where progress is demarcated by goals achieved and projects completed, the labor of preaching never ends. Sure, some sermons burst into full color like fireworks.  Other sermons fizzle on delivery. Either way, even the best sermons fade as the last echo dies in the sanctuary. On Mondays, we must begin preparations all over again with a blank sheet of paper.

7) The Lord conceals most of our fruit from us. This is for our good, lest we become prideful. I think that if God showed us how our people were growing under our ministries, we would be tempted to think we had done something wonderful. God would be robbed of His glory by human pride. Most often, pastors are not fully cognizant of the results of their labors. A sermon that really 'lands' with full force is not often readily apparent to our awareness. Like the agricultural metaphors of the parables of Scripture, most real spiritual growth is slow, imperceptible to the naked eye. And yet God is good to ensure the harvest!

So please, pray for your pastors. We need you. Especially on Mondays!

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Book Review: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Preaching and Preachers. 40th Anniversary Edition.

Preaching & Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is simply stated one of the best texts on the duty and glory of preaching the Word of God that I have ever read. I must confess right out of the gate that I was predisposed to like this text. My own mentor and dear friend, Dr. Wilfred Bellamy (the former Coordinator of the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church) was himself raised under the teaching ministry of  Lloyd-Jones. Thus, Lloyd-Jones' unusual manner of up-lifting the office of the preacher and the blood-bought ardor of declaring God's Word is "in my genes," as it were. 

Overall Analysis
As a general summary, this 340-page work features all of the main subject headings with which a preacher must come to terms. Lloyd-Jones has very candid and often practical advice on virtually every aspect of the sermon: from preparation in the study, to the written manuscript, to the delivery of the sermon with voice and body, to the preacher's living relationship with the congregation. But far and away, the strength of this book is the unusually high role of preaching that DMLJ assigns to the God-ordained ordinance of Gospel preaching.

He says famously, "To me the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called" (p. 17).  From cover to cover, DMLJ does not back down from the statement. Those who labor in the study and pulpit as their life's work will find their strivings constantly affirmed as they seek to proclaim the glory of the Gospel to a dying world. In that sense, those who take their work of preaching with eternal regard will find their hearts strengthened to persevere in their labors.

Lloyd-Jones disdained the idea that a pastor has "more important" things to do than preach. The CEO leadership  model, the professional counselor model, and the entertainment-based story teller model must all die a hard death according to Lloyd-Jones. And he slays them relentlessly throughout. The true power of Christian ministry, according to The Dr. is in the pulpit of a man with Bible open who has been ordained of God to announce the Gospel with authority. "It is preaching alone that can convey the Truth to people, and bring them to the realization of their need, and to the only satisfaction for their need" (p. 50).

If anyone has heard Lloyd-Jones preach (thank goodness 4,000 of his messages have been recorded and are now available on digital formatting; see p. 343) he will quickly realize that The Dr. himself held a pulpit ministry based seriously and zealously on proclaiming Biblical doctrine. Long can a listener wait for a joke or personal illustration in his own sermons. They will not come. Lloyd-Jones approached the sacred desk several times weekly during his pastorate at Westminster Chapel ready to declare the revealed will of God without compromise and with death-knell seriousness.

Controversial Statements
I don't think many readers today will make it through this text without disagreeing with DMLJ somewhere. More still will close the book with broken toes! Among the many practices that Lloyd-Jones would like to see piled on the trash heap of history are: the praise band (he saw entertainment-oriented worship coming a mile away), "worship leaders" which he viewed to be taking up too much of the preacher's time, lay preachers (because they are not ordained to do the work but instead are hobbyists), personal testimonies, recorded or videotaped sermons (ironic since thousands are blessed by his sermons still today), and even homiletics classes where preachers learn "techniques" to improve their delivery. The latter, he regarded as a "prostitution" of the calling and "an abomination" (p. 130). Obviously, there is much room to disagree!

Spoiler Alert: If you are Hawaiian shirt-wearing, stool-sitting, coffee-sipping preacher who weekly walks onto the platform to have a "conversation" or "dialogue" with the congregation, you will find yourself kicking against the goads in every chapter. After only a few pages, one gets the idea that Lloyd-Jones would disdain most of today's practices of video introductions, power-point presentations, movie-clips, and the endless barrage of personal anecdotes. At one point, Lloyd-Jones even tells preachers to leave their endearing stories about their children at home!

Unction
Perhaps the last chapter of the book is the best. Here, The Dr. discusses one of his hallmark doctrines, the unction (or anointing) of the preacher. Lloyd-Jones has a doctrine of the filling of the Holy Spirit that is slightly unusual for a Calvinist. He views the filling of the Spirit not as a general spirit-led life of fruit-bearing, but rather a dramatic anointing of the Holy Ghost especially available to preachers as they declare the Law and Gospel of Christ. In my reading of this work, he does not seem to strongly distinguish the "baptism" of the Spirit from the "filling" of the Spirit.

To defend this position, Lloyd-Jones does a careful study of the New Testament usage of the phrase "filled with the Spirit" and demonstrates that it does not appear to describe the daily walk of a faithful Christian (as most would have it), but rather the unusual moments of Holy Ghost fire that fall upon a man while testifying to Christ crucified and raised again. 

Here, he pleads with preachers to plead for themselves in asking the Holy Spirit to endow their ministries with power. "Do you always look for and seek this unction, this anointing before preaching? Has this been your greatest concern? There is no more thorough and revealing a test to apply to a preacher" (p. 322).  And again he writes, "I maintain that all of us who are preachers should be seeking this power every time we preach" (p. 339).

Essays
This 40th anniversary edition of Preaching & Preachers comes newly supplemented with six essays from some of today's most well-known preachers. Among them are Kevin DeYoung (editor), John Piper, and Ligon Duncan. These are short 3-page essays, mostly laudatory, which generally showed an appreciation for Lloyd-Jones' legacy. The contribution of the inclusion of these essays was minimal in my view, other than to give the reader a mental break from The Dr's relentless attack on wimpy preachers!

Some Minor Criticisms
Personally, this reviewer finds little fault with this work and generally appreciates the tenor and tone of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' up-building of the work of the anointed pulpiteer, as well as his excoriation of the  "professional."

The only concern that I had with this book is that Lloyd-Jones found very little room to compliment or affirm hardly one of his own contemporaries. Although he shares a number of interesting anecdotes related to his observations of preachers (many of these quite amusing) I did notice that most of his positive examples were of his own ministry. I found the tendency to use his own ministry as the north-star example of good preaching a bit tiring. On the other hand, he did compliment many ministers such as Whitefield and Spurgeon--it is just that all whom he seemed to appreciate are long dead!

Any time Lloyd-Jones begins an anecdote, "One time I heard a preacher..." you can be sure a counter-example is forthcoming. To listen to Lloyd-Jones discuss his contemporaries, one gets the idea that no one else was doing what he was doing in his own day and age.

Legacy
All told, this reader (himself an ordained man of the Book) found this work to be one of the most affirming works on the nature and worth of expository preaching. Preaching is "logic on fire....preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire!" he shouts. "What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence" (p. 110).

The average preacher who often wonders if he is making any difference in this world--a question that we all struggle with from time to time--will find himself greatly affirmed by hearing the now-gone voice of a man who believed Gospel preaching is the most important work in the world.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Please consider following on Twitter @matt_everhard

How "Pro-Life" Are You? Radical Enough for Nursery Duty?

Our church is pro-life. Period.

The sanctity of human life is part of our official theology as a Reformed, Bible-believing evangelical church. We unabashedly preach the sanctity of human life from passages like Genesis 1:27, Psalm 139, and Jeremiah 1:5. I typically get hearty "amens" when I do.

Every year in January we set aside a special Sunday to honor the work of life-ministry near the anniversary of Roe Vs. Wade in our prayers. We pray for life-ministries, and ask the Lord to forgive us for our spiritual lethargy in not advancing the cause more ardently.

We are proud to have launched a city ministry from our home church that regularly works towards the cause. A New Generation was founded by one of our members and her husband, an elder. A New Generation gives free  away free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, life-coaching, and provides whole-family ministry to those in crisis.

Our church is pro-life. Period. 

And yet I continue to marvel at how we struggle to staff our nursery on Sunday Mornings and Wednesday nights.

This prompts me to wonder just how pro-life the people in the pews really are. Pro-life enough to vote on matters of conscience in crucial elections? Absolutely! And oh how emotively we discuss the candidates and their positions on life!  I can't name one person in our church that wouldn't list a candidate's views on abortion as a top priority.

Pro-life enough to give funding to our annual Life Banquet each October? Definitely! Give me a few  moments to cite some current statistics on abortion rates, and I can probably hand you several check right now.

Pro-life enough to take a turn in the nursery once a month to serve those that we love so passionately (in theory)? That seems to be another story.

Haven't we been arguing all along that life inside the womb is qualitatively equal to life outside the womb? That the imago dei in human beings before birth is as real and present as it is post-birth?  Indeed. Why then the baffling loss of passion once those beautiful children don diapers, bring their runny noses, and enter our church nursery? I'm at a loss to explain it.

It seems to me that a pro-life church ought to have no problems staffing a nursery.

I can tell you about the family who raised a child they rescued from poverty in Russia. I can tell you a heart-warmer about another family who adopted a child from Eastern Europe. Or still another about the child rescued from a drug and violence filled home. These are just anecdotes from my own church, and there are several others.

But when it comes to getting volunteers (especially men) to move from the pews to the nursery department once a month to take care of the children we've rescued, it's not exactly as easy as "taking candy from a baby."

Just saying...


Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. He is also the author of Abortion: The Evangelical Perspective, a great book with a really ugly cover.

Book Review. J. Oswald Sanders: Spiritual Leadership

J. Oswald Sanders' book Spiritual Leadership is one of the best leadership books now available. Originally written in 1967, the later versions have been updated and thoroughly annotated by Moody Press.

In the past couple of weeks, I have been reading as much on Christian leadership as I can and I have continually found this work to be a deep well of fresh cool water.

Sanders, the former director of Overseas Missionary Fellowship, has plenty of experience from his own life to share to a new generation of pastors and leaders, but it is the way the author defers to the experiences of literally dozens of other historic personages that continually intrigued me.

As a history lover, my heart thrills with the anecdotal mini-stories of men like Luther, Spurgeon, Carey, Tyndale, Mueller, Whitefield, McCheyne and more. Reading this work was like taking a walk down the corridors of time and having multiple generations whisper timeless truths into our modern ears.

Relentlessly biblical, Sanders does not spill much ink on the frivolities that transfix most modern leadership books. Readers scanning for the cheap content of entertainment-focused, seat-filling gimmicks will be deeply disappointed. Instead the author drives the book like a spear straight for the leader's heart. In a word, the book is what the title claims to be "spiritual."

Sanders, I have come to believe, is utterly unconcerned with how many numerical followers one might accumulate. Instead, he is deeply concerned what kind of men his readers might become.

Although the work is at times a bit pithy, and the anecdotes could be filled out a bit with more description of the men he quotes and their historical settings, Sanders cannot be deterred from his goal of helping to produce men and women in leadership who are conformed more and more to the likeness of Christ.

Chapter headings include: prayer, time management, reading, improving one's skill set, and delegation. Personally, however, I found the chapters on "the cost of leadership" and "the perils of leadership" to be most profound.

Readers from every sphere of Christian leadership--the pastorate, mission field, administrator's desk, or Sunday School classroom--will all benefit from this devotional work.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Book Review: Leaders Who Last. By Dave Kraft.

Leaders Who Last by Dave Kraft is a short, helpful book on leadership skills and strategies in a ministry context.

The author serves on the staff of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, under lead pastor Mark Driscoll. According to the foreword, Dave Kraft was able to help Driscoll significantly at certain points of his ministry, serving as his personal "ministry coach." Accordingly, I think his book will also help others who lead in ministry, although probably to a limited extent.

Regardless of what you think of the controversial Mark Driscoll (I happen to admire his ministry) the fact that Kraft served as one of his mentors is impressive: Mars Hill is an world-class behemoth of multi-site church campuses, outreach, mission, church planting, and contemporary strategy.

I approached this book thinking, "If Kraft could help Driscoll during a near burn-out phase, I am sure that he will be able to help me in my small 380-member congregation." He did. To a marginal degree.

While it will probably not become one of the enduring textbooks on leadership any time soon, Leaders Who Last does bring several of the primary facets of leadership to the fore: i.e. power, purpose, passion, priorities, and pacing. In this first major section, Kraft focuses on one's relationship with the Lord, time management (a constant challenge to all in leadership positions)and workday planning. Nothing completely original here, though.

Some of Kraft's guide-points in the latter half of the work are more valuable. For instance, his section on spending time developing future leaders and core staff rather than "draining people" (chapter 11) was helpful to me. Too, Kraft has a wise section on the importance of the pastor communicating his vision for the church (chapter 10) although Kraft does not at any point define what a "vision for the future" might look like, or provide an example of what he means by the term.

The book is filled with helpful nuggets and quotations throughout ("I have never heard of a statue in a park dedicated to a committee," p. 122. "It has been said that if you don't plan your life, someone will plan it for you," p. 136). But somehow I ended the book thinking I would rather have spent time with Dave Kraft the man, rather than Dave Kraft the author.

I am sure his wisdom would have a more profound effect on my own ministry context if I was able take the discussion out of generalities, and into more specifics!

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Fl.