Review for Ministers-at-Work by Rob Fox January 2005

It is refreshing to find a book where the title says exactly what the contents set out to do. If you would like a pigeonhole, this is essentially a work of ecclesiology, and, like any good gold mine, the nugget at the end is well worth finding. The model of church developed here is pure MSE – it is one of dynamic not of structure – and it is refreshing that such a discovery has been made from the charismatic, house-church constituency from which this book both comes and is addressed to. Those who recall the 1999 CHRISM Conference at Queens College, Birmingham, will find a great deal of resonance between what Mike Williams expounded then and what David and James do here. The core message is that no matter what a church does, unless its members can make the connection between what they do ‘in church’ and their daily lives, the church has failed.

Having said that, as with gold mines there is a great deal of mining to be done. This is not an easy book to read. Unusually for a co-authored book we are helpfully told which wrote each chapter, not that it is difficult to spot. David Oliver is senior partner of Insight Marketing and has many years experience of that industry internationally. James Thwaites has been in ‘pastoral ministry’ for over twenty years and written previously about looking out beyond the congregation.

As with his previous book, “Work – Prison or Place of Destiny”, Review two editions ago, David has a didactic, stream of consciousness, style that, while often easy to read, can leave one feeling bludgeoned. He does however work towards critique of the weaknesses on the recent charismatic church movements in a way I think is both proper and overdue. To venture an answer to one, in part rhetorical, question David poses, in a chapter titled ‘Where has the river gone?’ (a reference to the 1994 Toronto outpouring), how is it that so much blessing has been poured out but so little resulted? The river is beautiful and contains much of wonder, but why do you still look into the river and not to whom it flows from?

James concentrates on the construction, developing a model of church designed to equip members to live out their faith in daily life, especially in their places of work. I didn’t find his style easy, often re-reading sections to make sure I’d understood, and the diagrammatic illustrations of the model didn’t work for me. There are also elements that grate, no least attributing most of the historical faults of Christianity to Plato and those influenced by him (most of the ideas given are Plotinus or Aristotle) – anyone with decent knowledge of church history or philosophy will wince. I’ve also heard the same Corrie ten Boom story (the washing up one) several times – she must have said the same thing to many young men she came across.

Nonetheless, if you want to keep abreast of thinking in this constituency, warm to a model of church that MSEs will recognise and be challenged (though not necessarily by the bits the writers intended), go out and read this one.