Top Books from March 2021
Here’s a few of the top books I finished last month.
How should our ecclesiology inform our doxology? Or, in Matt Merker's words, "how does our understanding of the church shape how we seek to fulfill the biblical elements of congregational worship?" (28). That's the question this book aims to answer.
Corporate Worship is unique in its ecclesiologically-driven look at corporate worship. Merker is careful to define the church, explain why the gathering matters, what the gathering is, and what should be done when the church gathers.
Merker is careful, clear, and concise. Highly recommend this to any pastor or church member who wants a simple introduction to the doctrine of the church and how that should (indeed, must) affect what we do when we gather.
Our family walked through this book and its discussion questions every night as part of our family worship time. The illustrations are beautiful, and the adaptation of Pilgrim's Progress is artfully and carefully done. Highly recommend this to any family desiring to introduce their children to Bunyan's masterpiece in a way they can understand and will appreciate.
I was inspired to read this book after re-reading Dane Ortlund's Gentle and Lowly. Specifically his chapter on Christ as our advocate. What Ortlund introduces in seven pages, Bunyan thoroughly explains in over 120 pages. And what a glorious explanation it is! Bunyan dives deep into the doctrine of Christ's advocacy for His people.
Nearly 400 years ago Bunyan lamented that this doctrine was little understood among God's people. I believe the same problem persists today. Your heart will be blessed by meditating on this doctrine. Consider these words from Bunyan's conclusion:
“Christ gave for us the price of blood; but that is not all; Christ as a Captain has conquered death and the grave for us, but that is not all: Christ as a Priest intercedes for us in heaven; but that is not all. Sin is still in us, and with us, and mixes itself with whatever we do, whether what we do be religious or civil; for not only our prayers and our sermons, our hearings and preaching, and so; but our houses, our shops, our trades, and our beds, are all polluted with sin. Nor do[es] the devil, our night and day adversary, [cease] to tell our bad deeds to our Father, urging that we might for ever be disinherited for this. But what should we now do, if we had not an Advocate; . . . if we had not one that could prevail, and that would faithfully execute that office for us? Why, we must die" (116).
Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age by Jay Kim
I imagine that Analog Church author Jay Kim and I would disagree on a number of issues. But we would agree on the major premise of his book: “in the digital age, one of the most upside down things the church can offer is the invitation to be analog, to come out of hiding from behind our digital walls, to bridge our technological divides, and to be human with one another in the truest sense—gathered together to be changed and transformed in real time, in real space, in real ways” (12).
Written before the Covid-19 pandemic thrusted many churches headlong into the “digital church” movement, Kim wrestles with his own church’s temptations to lean to heavily into the digital. In a digital age, the church needs to fight to remain analog. We need real gatherings with real people in real places. Although I sometimes wished Kim would be more biblical and less pragmatic in his arguments against “online church,” I found myself over and over again agreeing with his conclusions.
I recommend this book for pastors and ministry leaders, especially as they wrestle with how to think through their digital presence in a post-Covid world.