READY STEADY GROW
Equipping today’s gospel churches
By Ray Evans
IVP. 235 pages. £10.99
ISBN 978 1 783 591 138
I declare a lack of bias from the outset! Ray is a valued friend and I have long admired his practical and biblical work on church leadership. He is a practitioner, thus any contribution he makes to the subject of leadership and growing churches is always with an eye to helping fellow church leaders.
Written from the UK perspective and with a robust evangelical theology, this book is fresh and insightful and will help leaders, regardless of the size of church. It is also realistic about the `tough secular landscape` which the church finds herself in today.
Expansion
Ready Steady Grow simply aims to encourage churches to `do good things for God` through growing the local church both numerically and in discipleship. Early on in the book the author tackles some of the ‘glass ceilings’ to growth which leaders are often unaware of, before moving on to addressing issues such as vision and practical limits such as attendance, buildings and cash.
Yet it is the chapters on growing disciples , encouraging service and mobilising members to reach out in mission which lie not only at the heart of the book but also at the heart of the matter. These chapters in particular bear careful study. For instance, the simple device of a triangle entitled ‘Mental Map’ with its three points of Maturity, Mission and Ministry (p.100), is not only memorable but typical of the Biblical wisdom and practical, experience-born advice that pervades the book.
Good for us all
So though it’s written especially for church leaders, anyone interested in helping their church go forward, whatever size they are at present, would benefit from reading it. There are some excellent discussion questions at the end of every chapter, which means that any church leadership team could work through the book by taking a chapter at a time over the course of a year and find immense help and stimulation.
