Book Reviews

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Written by: Ben Underwood

Created: 15 November 2015

Wisdom in Leadership
The How and Why of Leading the People You Serve
Craig Hamilton
Matthias Media, 2015.

Ever since I started in parish ministry I have wrestled with the question of how best to do the work. Where is the best investment of time? What of all the activities I could undertake will yield the most gospel benefit? How is the best way to go about those activities? Being in local church ministry leadership often leaves you with freedom to shape your priorities, your week, your day, but using that freedom well requires wisdom and discipline. Being in church ministry leadership requires learning quite an array of skills and developing quite a set of capacities. In this it is not unique. For example, the skill and discipline of managing yourself – observing yourself; setting priorities, planning and organising yourself; doing and then reviewing what you planned to do – is something many workers have to master. There are also the skills and disciplines of  working with others, whether as a subordinate, a colleague, a supervisor or a leader. Lately I have found it useful to read some books to help me get better at these things. Some Christian authors are processing the thinking from secular writers and trying to present the best of it for Christians generally and ministry leaders in particular. I read What’s Best Next, by Matt Perman and scoffed a little at chapter sub-headings like “Why knowing how to get things done is essential for Christian discipleship”, but by the end of the book I made significant, lasting changes to my work habits that decreased my daily anxiety about getting my stuff done. I went on to pick up some of the secular literature Perman mentioned, and listened to a few useful podcasts.

So when Craig Hamilton’s book Wisdom in Leadership came to my attention with a friend’s recommendation, I was keen to sample it, and I must say I have enjoyed immensely Hamilton’s short, punchy chapters on good topics. This substantial book (495 pages!) has 78 short chapters divided into four sections: Leading Foundations, Leading Yourself, Leading Other People and Leading the Ministry. Further to that there are subsections in sections three and four that aim to address those who lead teams of leaders. Chapter titles are maxims like ‘Character is King’ or ‘Stop Listening to Yourself’ or ‘Waiting is doing something’ that are then expounded over 2-3 pages. Often there are cross references to related chapters at the chapter’s end. The book is well designed and produced, and you could read it from front to back (there is a progression and development in its structure), or you could dip in an out according to need or interest. It is good to read a thoughtful Australian voice on topics that often come to us in an American idiom.

Hamilton (a self-described Bible and-theology guy) takes thee approach that there is a lot of wisdom to be learned about working with people in groups that will prevent frustrating and foreseeable problems arising in the work of Christian ministry. This wisdom can be learned by careful observation of the ordered world God has made (even in its fallen partial disorder). Hamilton’s basic approach to developing the material in the book reflects that conviction: he read leadership books and exercised his curiosity in careful observation when he met with people in groups. You can see both his sources and his own reflections showing through at various points.

Hamilton writes for those who want to get better at leading people, and are willing to work at it, and suggests that the book could be used in meetings with staff teams, or church councils, or any church leadership groups. I agree with this. The book is not a theological vision of church, ministry or leadership, nor a programme for building or reforming church ministry, but it is full of stimulating, instructive, varied and practical material that I can imagine would kick off worthwhile discussions for individuals and teams. It is a book about people, and about living with them, loving them and loving them in particular by leading them. You might think differently at points, and this book is not the key to ministry, but Hamilton is simply trying to help ministers avoid avoidable frustrations to make leadership, not easy, but easier. As these arts and skills are not taught in theological college (and can’t be, really – they need to be mastered on the job), and as they take time to develop in medias res, books like these are a real help to those who do want to get better at managing themselves and leading others. Hamilton has done us a service in bringing this grist to the mill.

Ben Underwood, Shenton Park, WA

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Written by: Dale Appleby

Created: 01 September 2015

The Power to Save: A History of the Gospel in China.
Bob Davey.  EP Books, 2011.
A New History of Christianity in China
Daniel H. Bays. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
A History of Christianity in Asia, Volume II 1500-1900.
Samuel Hugh Moffett. Orbis Books, 2005.

China continues to be in the news for many reasons. Not least because of the growth of the Christian church there. A growth symbolised perhaps by Amity Press which, by the time of the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury in June 2015, had printed 135,602,476 copies of the Bible.

The existence of Amity Press is a remarkable political, religious and spiritual reality. The story of The Heavenly Man is perhaps better known to modern western Christians. Some will also know of the work of Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission. And of other famous names such as Watchman Nee and Gladys Aylward. Beyond that not much is known.

Unfortunately. The story of the gospel in China goes back to Nestorian times. Around 1625, in the west of Xi'an a three metre high marble stele was unearthed. In Chinese characters and Syriac a Christian monk named Jingjing, writing in 781, tells of the history of Nestorian Christianity in China which started back in 635.  It seems the gospel came via the Old Silk Road.

That church didn't prosper too long. Later Jesuit missions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries made significant inroads against strong opposition, led in the early days by the amazing Matteo Ricci who nurtured the Three Pillars of the Chinese church of the time, Paul Hsu, Michael Yang and Leon Li.  The story of the Jesuit mission is worth studying. It practised many of the principles that Hudson Taylor was later to adopt. It provided a kind of mission training that modern ordination programs could learn from.

The story is told well in Daniel Bays book which is a brief academic study. Moffett's larger book contains very valuable chapters on China and is in some ways more thorough. All three books cover the period from the 19th century onwards. It should be noted that there is much more to the story than the amazing CIM. Bays and Davey give pretty up to date and detailed accounts of the 20th century, bringing the story back to the Old Silk Road and the Back to Jerusalem mission.

Davey's book is written for the broader audience. Bays is more detailed with lots of end notes but very readable. Moffett's is probably more detailed and of course ranges over the whole of Asia. The good thing about all three books is that they all show a heart for the gospel. The more academic books are not dry and detached but as much taken with the wonders of the gospel as Davey's is. Moffett concludes his book with a story of an unnamed Baptist deacon in Burma. Christian Karens in the hills were starving after rats had eaten their crops. They were reduced to eating the rats. The deacon brought ten rupees (5 dollars) to the missionaries from his church for the mission among the Ka-Khyen, a tribe further north. The missionaries said, no, you must use this for your needs. You are starving. The deacon shook his head. “Yes, but we can live on rats. The Ka-Khyen cannot live without the gospel.”

Dale Appleby, Bayswater, WA

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Written by: Chris Porter

Created: 01 September 2015

Standing on Their Shoulders
Heroes of the Faith for Today
Rhys Bezzant
Acorn Press, 2015

We live in an age where many people in the church will know more about the Marvel or DC comic superheroes than the historical heroes of the Christian faith. This small book from Rhys Bezzant seeks to redress at least some of this paucity of knowledge. Standing on Their Shoulders consists of twelve brief vignettes of Christians who have greatly impacted our modern faith. These vignettes begin with the church fathers—Athanasius and Augustine—through the Reformation era of Luther, Calvin and Cranmer. Continuing with the post-Puritans: Jonathan Edwards, John Newton, William Wilberforce, and Charles Spurgeon, before finishing in the 20th century considering the impact of Pandita Ramabai, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Billy Graham. Each of the twelve vignettes provides a short and succinct overview of the hero’s life and context, along with the biblical, ecclesial and social impetus that underpinned their ministry. Helpfully, each focuses on a relatively narrow aspect of the individual’s ministry while remaining historically broad. This allows the reader an insight into each person and their context without being overwhelmed with new information. Concluding each chapter is a series of reflective questions that help the reader to draw connections from history to their life. These questions also enable the book to be used in a teaching setting. (Bezzant originally presented these vignettes to his students).

While some attempts at this form of historical reflection end up in hagiographic territory, Bezzant here helpfully gives a rounded picture of each figure. The vignettes do not shy away from seeing the failings and troubles of each character, and even for some highlights how God still used them. However, two gentle critiques may be made. Firstly, the book focuses primarily on Reformation and post-Reformation figures, with Luther being presented in chapter 3. The thousand years of history between Augustine and Luther provides a host of other characters whose various profiles would also serve to edify the church, such as Thomas Aquinas, and John Knox to name but two. This gap causes the book to feel slightly lopsided as a result. Secondly, the book focuses relatively heavily upon Anglo-Saxon males, with Pandita Ramabai being the only female and majority world figure to be profiled in the later sections of the book. However both of these points are likely a product of the original setting for these chapters: as conference training talks and studies. Hopefully the rumoured second volume of the work will expand and address these gaps.

Throughout this book Bezzant’s complementary passions for teaching church history and edifying the saints shine through. The book is written in a pleasant and emotive style that assists in the absorption and understanding of the material. Throughout it seeks to challenge, encourage and edify modern Christians as we realise we are standing on the shoulders of giants to see further. This book is highly recommended for individuals, small groups and churches—indeed the whole body of saints.

Chris Porter, Melbourne, Vic
 (originally posted on Euangelion.)

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Written by: Ben Underwood

Created: 01 September 2015

The Good Bishop: The Story of Mathew Hale
By Michael Gourlay
Mathew Hale Public Library, 2015

On September 2, 1847 Mathew Bladgen Hale sailed from England for Adelaide on the barque Derwent. He came to Adelaide with Bishop Augustus Short as archdeacon in the freshly minted diocese. Hale went on to become the first Bishop of Perth, and the second Bishop of Brisbane, and over the near forty year period of his public ministry in Australia this vigorous evangelical threw himself into serving Aboriginal people, establishing churches, advocating better treatment of convicts, pioneering education, recruiting and encouraging clergy and stirring up Christians to give to support new ministry in regional areas. Dr Michael Gourlay, a retired engineering academic from Brisbane, has expanded an address he gave at the Mathew Hale Public Library to mark the 200th anniversary of Hale’s birth into a brief, engaging biography of a very significant colonial ministry. Gourlay has interspersed many relevant illustrations throughout the text, and has frequently woven the words of Hale and his contemporaries into his account of events. I have many times walked past the statue of Hale with outstretched hand on St George’s Terrace in Perth, so it was wonderful to fill in my understanding of the man and his times.

Hale might have been thought a spent force in 1845, when, just short of his 34th  birthday, he resigned from the busy parish of Stroud, Gloucestershire, having suffered an emotional breakdown following the death of his first wife, Sophia. He retreated to the quiet of his family’s rural parish of Alderley. But Hale was far from spent, and, having sailed to Adelaide to minister in the newly established diocese that stretched west to include Western Australia, he became first rector of St Matthew’s Kensington, and as archdeacon travelled to Albany, the Vasse (Busselton), Bunbury and Perth. In 1848 at Fairlawn in the Vasse, Hale met and, it seems, fell promptly in love with Sabina Molloy, eldest daughter of John and Georgiana Molloy. (The late Georgiana had been, by one contemporary assessment, ‘the best informed, the most accomplished, the most elegant, the most lady-like woman who ever came to the colony’ – p20). Sabina quickly became Hale’s second wife, and their marriage lasted all his life. Sabina died in 1905 in Tasmania, having lived with Hale in England during his retirement until his death, then having returned to Australia to her son Harold. I really enjoyed all this human detail in Gourlay’s telling, it gave individuality to people who have given their names to Western Australian Anglican schools.

Hale was so concerned with the vulnerable position of Aboriginal people in the harsh new realities of colonisation, and so moved to seek to bring them the gospel, along with Western education and training, that he gave himself to this work for six full years from 1850. Inspired by a Christian village for Aboriginals being established by Wesleyans at Wanneroo, north of Perth, Hale enlisted South Australian government support and also gave his own resources to establish The Poonindie Institute, which became a kind of English village populated by Aboriginal people. Hale hit his targets of evangelising and Europeanising the Aboriginals at Poonindie in many ways. One of the motives that shaped his work seemed to be to demonstrate to his fellow colonists that Aboriginal people were in no way sub-human, nor incapable of receiving and mastering whatever the colonists might have received or mastered. Hale’s concern for Aborigines was lifelong – in 1870 he proposed to resign as Bishop of Perth to become the chaplain of an orphanage for Aboriginals which was threatened with closure after its supervisor fell ill. A deputation of over sixty gathered to persuade him to continue as bishop. Later he became the chairman of the Queensland Commission for the Protection of Aborigines.

There is, of course, much more to the book than I have indicated here, and even more to Hale himself. Gourlay focusses proportionally more upon Hale’s later Brisbane years (he was 64 when he left Perth), than upon the bulk of his Australian ministry which took place in South Australia and Western Australia, but this hardly mars the work. Gourlay says of this biography that he has ‘attempted to bring the life and work of a truly good and faithful servant of Jesus Christ and loyal member of the 19th century Anglican church in Australia to the knowledge of 21st century Christian disciples.’ (p ix), and this is an excellent aim well carried out. The book is pretty well designed and well produced, and has plenty of supplementary end matter. I read it to my profit.

Ben Underwood, Shenton Park, WA