Who on Earth is the Holy Spirit?

Who on Earth is the Holy Spirit? is published today. This short book, co-written with Christopher de la Hoyde, is part of a new series from The Good Book Company called Questions Christians Ask.

Here’s the blurb: “Many people find it easy to understand about God and Jesus, but struggle to understand quite how and where the Holy Spirit fits into the picture. Who exactly is he? And how does he work in our lives? These short, simple books are designed to help Christians understand what God has said about these questions and many more in the Bible. Suitable for all Christians – especially those who are struggling with questions about who the Holy Spirit is.”

Click here for a sample.

Who on Earth Is the Holy Spirit? is available in the UK from thinkivp.com and in the US from thegoodbook.com.

 

 

Why the ascension matters

Desiring God have interviewed Jonny Woodrow, along with Gerrit Scott Dawson, on why the ascension matters.

Jonny and I have recently published The Ascension: Humanity in the Presence of God, the first in a new WEST Porterbrook series with Christian Focus. It’s available in the UK from thinkivp.com and in the US from amazon.com.

Where is Jesus?

Desiring God have a great blog post on the ascension, prompted by our new book – and the comments of a five-year-old.

The Ascension: Humanity in the Presence of God by Jonny Woodrow and myself is available in the UK (at 25% off) from thinkivp.com and in the US (from 1 May) from amazon.com.

Introducing The Ascension

Here are Jonny and I introducing our book, The Ascension: Humanity in the Presence of God …

The Ascension is available in the UK (at 25% off) from  thinkivp.com and in the US (from 1 May) from amazon.com.

Captured by a Better Vision – now available as an eBook

My book on living porn free through faith, Captured by a Better a Vision, is now available as an ebook in the US. (The hard copy is published by InterVarsity as Closing the Window.)

An eBook version has been available in the UK for a while.

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Support this site by using these links:

includes Tim Chester’s books
20% of every thinkivp purchase goes
to train Christian leaders in poorer countries

Review: Discovering the Mission of God

A review of Mike Barnett and Robin Martin (eds.), Discoveirng the Mission of God: Best Missional Practices in the 21st Century, IVP, 2012.

Guest reviewer: Amanda  Hill, Administrator for the Porterbrook Network.

Discovering the Mission of God is available here from thinkivp and amazon.com.

UPDATE: thinkivp are offering a special price of £20 if you buy through this link.

Weighing in at 600 plus pages, Discovering the Mission of God leaves no stone unturned in its quest “to take you on your journey into the mission of God” (18). The collection of 38 essays (with 16 additional essays posted online) is divided into three parts: the biblical case for God’s mission, the historical development of God’s mission, and the state of God’s mission today.

The ten essays of part one establish the missional focus of the Bible. The authors address and analyse various “missions” passages, and use Paul’s travels and letters to make a case for prioritizing mission work in places where no Christian witness is present.

Part two is an extended treatment of the history of mission, starting with the apostles and spanning the early church, the Middle ages, the monastics (a very engaging chapter by Karen O’Dell Bullock), post-Reformation missionary activity, and the modern missionary movement.

The final part, which makes up the last half of the book, is concerned with various aspects of the state of modern mission. It includes a chapter on statistics, a helpful section on culture, worldview, and contextualization, and what I suppose could be called “tips” from the experts on issues like spiritual warfare and prayer.

On the whole Discovering the Mission of God successfully carries out its stated purpose. It provides the reader with all the information he needs (including repeated reminders that the real work belongs to God) to make an informed decision about his involvement in international missionary work. The book is broad enough in its subject matter and authoritative enough in its facts to be a valuable resource for future international missionaries. As, I imagine, was at least part of the editor’s intent, it will make an excellent textbook for seminary or university-level mission courses and missionary training programs. With that said, it is also very readable, and, while scholarly, not so cerebral that it wouldn’t be useful for the general public.

Yet, while I believe this book will be instrumental in developing a new generation of missionaries in the years to come, there are one or two limitations. It is written for a specific audience. Its aim is to inform—and, through compelling information, inspire—Christians in the American suburbs to embark on a career in international missions. As a result, it all but ignores the global Christian community who, in most cases, already live on the mission field the book is trying to inspire its readers to reach.

Second, because the authors’ desired outcome seems to be the evolution of a new generation of international missionaries, the book only addresses the Ends-of-the-Earth aspect of Acts 1:8. It even goes so far on a few occasions (see pages 23 and 135, and chapter 36) to warn readers that a focus on the mission opportunities in their local context may be an act of disobedience. I doubt this lop-sided approach is the result of bad theology. It is simply what happens when we take a big truth—in this case, the truth that God’s mission is that all the peoples of the earth might be blessed—and squeeze the message into a specific mould, directing it at specific people.

I think this book is an invaluable resource for learning the basics of international missions. It is most definitely worth a read for anyone who is seriously considering doing mission work in a context outside his home country. However, if you live in a place where the nations are on your doorstep, in a place where your neighbours have no cultural context for engaging with the gospel, you’re going to need more than these 600 plus pages to discover your role in the mission of God.

Discovering the Mission of God is available here from thinkivp and amazon.com.

SPONSORS
Support this site by using these links:

includes Tim Chester’s books
20% of every thinkivp purchase goes
to train Christian leaders in poorer countries

Living with cancer

Gervase Markham, a member of The Crowded House Sheffield, shares his story of living with terminal cancer as a Christian …

25% off The Ascension

The good folk at thinkivp are offering 25% off The Ascension: Humanity in the Presence of God through this blog. This is my latest book, co-written with Jonny Woodrow, the European Director of the Porterbrook Network.

To get the discount you need to use this link.

Sadly this offer is not available in the US where the book is not out until 1 May although you can pre-order it at amazon.com.

Trinitarian Life day conference – half price

The early booking discount for The Trinitarian Life day conference at which Mike Reeves and I runs out at the end of this week. It’s just £5 until the end of March. After that it jumps to the outrageous price of £10! Click here for more details and online booking.

Competing to be cool – social media and teengers

Here’s a telling extract from James K. A. Smith (via Trevin Wax) on the impact of social media on teenagers. It echoes some of my own reflections in Will You Be My Facebook Friend?

I do not envy our four teenagers in the least: far from carefree, their adolescence is a tangled web of angst that is, I think, qualitatively different from that of past generations. The difference, I suggest, stems from a unique constellation of cultural habits that has exacerbated their self-consciousness to an almost-paralyzing degree.

Granted, self-consciousness is part of the rite of passage that is adolescence. The hormonal effects on teenaged bodies make them realize they are bodies in ways that surprise them. They inhabit their bodies as foreign guests, constantly imagining that all eyes are upon them as they go to sharpen their pencil or climb the stairs at a football game. Such self-consciousness has always bred its own warped ontology in which the teenager is the centre of the universe, praying both that no one will notice and that everyone would.

The advent of social media has amplified this exponentially. In the past, there would have been spaces where adolescents could escape from these games, most notably in the home. Whatever teenagers might have thought of their parents, they certainly didn’t have to put on a show for them. The home was a space to let down your guard, freed from the perpetual gaze of your peers. You could almost forget yourself. You could at least forget how gawky and pimpled and weird you were, freed from the competition that characterizes teenagedom.

No longer. The space of the home has been punctured by the intrusion of social media such that the competitive world of self-display and self-consciousness is always with us. The universe of social media is a ubiquitous panopticon.

The teenager at home does not escape the game of self-consciousness; instead, she is constantly aware of being on display – and she is regularly aware of the exhibitions of others. Her Twitter feed incessantly updates her about all of the exciting, hip things she is not doing with the “popular” girls; her Facebook pings non-stop with photos that highlight how boring her homebound existence is. And so she is compelled to constantly be “on,” to be “updating” and “checking in.” The competition for coolness never stops. She is constantly aware of herself – and thus unable to lose herself in the pleasures of solitude: burrowing into a novel, pouring herself out in a journal, playing with fanciful forms in a sketch pad. More pointedly, she loses any orientation to a project. Self-consciousness is the end of teleology…

With the expansion of social media, every space is a space of “mutual self-display.” As a result, every space is a kind of visual echo chamber. We are no longer seen doing something; we’re doing something to be seen.

From James K. A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Cultural Liturgies), Baker, 145-146.

Will You Be My Facebook Friend? is available here from thinkivp.com and amazon.com.