MattCleaver.com

Reimagining Youth Ministry

  • Home
  • Youth Ministry has Failed
  • Best Youth Ministry Books
  • Church Websites
  • Contact Me

Bookshelf Anomalies #4: The Soul of Ministry & The Purpose Driven Church

Last Updated August 15, 2008 by Matt 1 Comment

The Soul of Ministry: Forming Leaders for God's PeopleThe Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message & Mission

  • Bookshelf Anomalies #1
  • Bookshelf Anomalies #2
  • Bookshelf Anomalies #3

Two more books that take different approaches to a similar topic sitting next to one another on my bookshelf:

  • The Soul of Ministry by Ray S. Anderson. Anderson is a former pastor who is currently a theologian at Fuller Theological Seminary. He reminds me of a theologically edgier version of Eugene Peterson. In the book Anderson urges church leaders to keep theology in the forefront of their ministry and offers a practical theology for ministry rooted in, among other things, scripture, theological motifs, and the ministry of Jesus.
  • The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren, on the other hand, is very “biblically” based but fairly void theologically (as if that is possible… I guess it is). Warren’s book is a step-by-step guide for church leaders to grow their church according to the same methods of Warren, pastor of one of the largest churches in America like defining your purpose, who you will target, designing a worship service, and programs for discipleship. In the book the primary way to grow a church is to tailor your Sunday morning worship service to “seekers.” Believe it or not, I liked particular parts of the book when I read it about 5-6 years ago and still find some things to agree with.

However, the books present two very different approaches to church ministry.

Filed Under: Books

About Matt

Matt Cleaver has written since 2004 on youth ministry, theology, and the church. His blog was ranked by Youth Specialties as a Top 20 Youth Ministry Blog. Click here for Matt's list of the Best Youth Ministry Books.

Comments

  1. Jake Belder says

    August 15, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    Interesting, Matt. This is a neat little series you are doing. I’m curious, do you have your books cataloged a specific way, or does this just happen to be the way they sit on the shelf?

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Best Youth Ministry Books

These are the books that will completely change the way you think about youth ministry, for the better. Links are to my reviews of each book.

Teen 2.0 by Robert Epstein

A psychologist makes you question every assumption you have about adolescence.

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry by Andrew Root

Why build relationships? Root’s answer will surprise you.

Best Youth Ministry Books: Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostreicher

Yesterday I finally read Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostreicher, and since I’m one of the latecomers to the conversation I won’t summarize the book too much. Marko has linked to tons of reviews on his blog if you are interested in more in-depth summaries. If you are fairly in-tune with a lot of the […]

Best Youth Ministry Books: Postmodern Youth Ministry

Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones is the book I would recommend to youth ministers if they could just read one youth ministry book. I first read the book in my Foundations and Practices of Youth Ministry class at John Brown University. After the preface to the book there is a page titled, “The Day […]

You can find my new blog on philosophy and teaching at MattCleaver.com

Search

Archives

Categories

  • Best Youth Ministry Books (4)
  • Blogging (42)
  • Blogroll (1)
  • Book Reviews (17)
  • Books (32)
  • Christianity (50)
  • Ecclesiology (52)
  • emerging church (13)
  • Featured (8)
  • Links (27)
  • Ministry (4)
  • Neo-Youth Ministry (8)
  • News (25)
  • Personal (69)
  • Podcast (4)
  • Quotes (14)
  • Random (43)
  • Seminary (16)
  • Theology (48)
  • Uncategorized (50)
  • Websites (15)
  • WordPress (1)
  • Youth Ministry (149)

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in