It’s great when a reviewer correctly identifies what you were trying to do in a book. Here’s the opening of the review by Jean Williams of You Can Change in September 2009’s edition of The Briefing.

Picking up Tim Chester’s You Can Change, you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a self-help book. It has all the trappings – a title promising transformation, testimonies of change, an invitation to choose a personal “change project”, ten chapters with titles like “What would you like to change?” and questions for self-reflection. You Can Change is designed to communicate to a society obsessed with personal change, but it turns the self-help genre on its head.

That’s exactly what I was trying to do: write an anti-self-help book in the style of a self-help book. The next paragraph summarises the m,essage of the book better than I can!

It quickly becomes apparent that the only change Tim Chester is interested in is transformation into the likeness of Christ. The power for change is not inner strength or willpower, but the grace of God through the death of his Son, applied by his Spirit. The method for change is not rules and programs, but faith and repentance. The context for change is not the counsellor’s office of a solitary retreat, but the community of God’s people speaking the truth in love. The goal of change is not to find yourself, but to forget yourself in love and service. The message is not so much that you can change as that God can change you.

You Can Change is available in the UK from IVP and is being published Crossway in the US in March 2010.

Robert L. Hubbard Jr., Joshua, NIV Application Commentary, Zondervan, 2009.

I was excited to get this book for two reasons. First, the NIV Application Commentary series is fast becoming one of my favourites. I was sceptical of its three sections for each passage: ‘original meaning’, ‘bridging contexts’ and ‘contemporary significance’. But I’ve been completely won over. Some contributors pull it off better than others, but generally it produces commentaries that take seriously the original text in its biblical theological context while also offering lots of help in applying the text today. Second, for all the sometimes excessive output of commentaries that we have these days, we are ill-served with commentaries on Joshua for preachers.

I was not disappointed. Robert Hubbard’s commentary on Joshua is excellent and my best buy recommendation for Joshua.

The ‘original meaning’ sections are great. Too often commentaries are full of dry technical material on philology, geography and history that add little to the text. But, despite the thorough the nature of this section, Hubbard seems to manage to make it all count. I found it full of suggestive comments that would inform any sermon.

Hubbard believes the book was compiled by the Deuteronomistic historian from earlier (and early) sources. He contrasts the portrayal of the conquest of a short, wholly successful campaign (Joshua 6-11) and the portrayal of a protracted struggle for control conducted at a tribal level (Joshua 15-17, Judges 1). Hubbard therefore believes Joshua ‘offers a repetitive, stereotyped account marked by occasional hyperbole’ while affirming ‘its historical value’. ‘The presence of such traditional devices should caution readers against an overly literal interpretation of texts in Joshua.’ (39) He ‘accepts both the valuable contribution of Joshua to historical reconstruction and the limits of the book’s information (e.g. its selective contents, its highly-structured narratives).’ Personally I prefer to see the campaigns in Joshua 6-11 as the decisive battles that broke Canaanite resistance making Israel the dominant power in the land. This left the tribes with a mopping up campaign in which, according to Judges 1, they were only partially successful. On the violence of the book, Hubbard says: ‘I do not see myself ever feeling completely comfortable with what transpires in Joshua.’ I would have liked some acknowledgement that the violence of Joshua is the challenge of hell writ small.

My main complaint with the commentary is that does not really address how the promise of the land plays out for new covenant believers. At one point Hubbard reminds us that Christians have an inheritance in heaven (445), but there is little on tracing the theme of the land through to the renewal of creation in a new heaven and a new earth. There is no recognition of the way Jesus and Paul extend the promise of the land to the promised of a new earth (compare, for example, Psalm 37:4 and Matthew 5:5). The result is that the contemporary signifiance sections often have a somewhat moralistic tone with the opportunity to place the injunctions in the redemptive story lost somewhat.

In conclusion, a great commentary, but read it alongside a good biblical theology.

I have an article on ‘The Good News of the Trinity‘ published at the excellent theologynetwork.org. Here’s how it begins …

In our culture Friends have become a television programme and Neighbours are experienced vicariously through Australian soap operas. We’re living in an increasingly fragmented and isolated society. It’s not just community that’s fragmented, but truth itself. Truth is now a matter of individual choice. We’re left with little shared basis for community life or social cohesion … In this context the doctrine of the Trinity is good news.

Gospel-Centred Life, a workbook by Steve Timmis and myself, is now available in the US from The Good Book Company.

Here and here are links to two previous posts introducing the workbook. Gospel-Centred Life is a follow-up to Gospel-Centred Church.

In a recent blog post Ed Stetzer asks, “Why are so many missional Christians uninvolved in God’s global mission? As the missional conversation continues and deepens, what has occurred that has led to our blindness to the lost world around us?” (HT: JT)

Stetzer’s answers are worth reading. But I have to say that the phenomenon he identifies has not been my experience over here in the UK. In my admittedly limited experience, I’ve found missional churches in the UK very involved in global mission.

I wonder if this reflects our different contexts. The UK is deeply secular and for the most part post-Christian. So missional church is the UK is largely a response to our missional context. It is driven by mission (and also, for me, by biblical theology – see my talks at Lead09). The US is far more religious and the church is much larger. But the church in the US is often perceived (rightly or wrongly) to be entrenched, disengaged, formal. So missional church in the US is largely a response to its ecclesial context. It’s a reaction against traditional church. The danger with this cna be that the focus falls on ‘doing church’ without a focus on ‘doing mission’.

You can now book online for the UK Total Church Conference in Sheffield, 19-20 February 2010. Here’s the blurb …

Ever wondered if there was more to church than holding committee meetings, writing budgets and overseeing programmes?

Are you starting to think that perhaps church is more about the people than the building, the staff team and even the weekly event?

Are you in a church with the desire to change but not really sure where or how to start?

You’ve read the book and like the ideas. You share a passion for the gospel, the local church and the glory of God. You buy into the vision of Total Church but the fact is you are not sure how your local church would go about turning the vision into a reality. Perhaps you’re wondering how your church can become a community in mission rather than a weekly meeting. This conference aims to offer practical advice and support for those wanting to make this transition.

The book Total Church has generated a number of conferences in different parts of the world, and this is the second UK-based conference arising out of Total Church, co-authored by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis. Both these authors will be speaking at the conference.

The two days will consist of plenary sessions and breakout sessions addressing subjects such as:
How do you turn the ideal into reality?
Now what?
Church planting?
Gospel communities?
Nuts and bolts of change?

Lunch and refreshments will be provided

Unfortunately, there are no facilities for children.

The closing date for booking onto the conference is Friday 12th February.

Waged: £60

Unwaged: £40

We’ve been finding it helpful to think about what I call ‘the four points of intersection’ between people’s stories and the gospel story. Everyone has their own version of creation, fall, redeption and restoration. Listening out for these enables us to find points of connection in ordinary conversation with the gospel story.

Now Jeff Vanderstelt from Soma has created a great summary and exercise that explains the framework so much more concisely and helpfully than I’ve been doing!

Here’s the video of Jonathan Dodson’s session at Lead09 arguing we need three conversions – to Jesus as Lord, to the church and to mission plus the audio of his breakout sessions on leading missional communities and ‘fight clubs’.

Leading Missional Communities

Fight Clubs: Gospel-Centred Leadership

I’m currently in the Balkans with Brian Jose of Radstock. I’m here with three of our younger leaders, learning from Albanian church planters.

It’s a strange experience to stand outside a mosque, praying for a city with a population of over 80,000 people with no Christians and no missionaries.

Today we’re with a church planting team in another city with no Christians.

This is Macedonia where there are 650,000 ethnic Albanians among whom there are only five Christians.

Please pray for the Balkans. Twice yesterday two seperate Albanian church planters cited Matthew 9:36 as a key verse in their decision to leave their nation to reach the lost: “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

If you know of anyone who would be interested in working with local Christians to reach the Balkans then please get in touch with Brian Jose. His email address is brian@radstock.org.

I’ll perhaps share more reflections and lessons in future posts.

Here’s the video of my talk at Lead09 on ‘mission as lifestyle’.

All the video and audio from Lead09 is available online here.