ENCOURAGEMENT:
Adrenaline for the soul
By Mark Chanski
Reformation Heritage Books. 175 pages.
£13.50
ISBN 978 1 601 786 623
en readers who are culturally British in outlook should beware of dismissing this book as inspired by American pragmatism or pop psychology. The author, sensitive to the dangers of ‘ego-stroking motivational speak’ and ‘moralistic therapeutic deism’, is driven by the conviction that it is the Bible that ‘is teeming with revelation that calls us to love one another by mutual encouragement’.
Mark Chanski’s aim is to see ‘the rank-and-file reader … constrained in soul’ to be a Barnabas-like encourager. Drawing widely from Scripture, he earths his compelling exhortations in numerous illustrations and anecdotes, and reinforces them with quotations from other authors. He is careful to distinguish between giving encouragement and giving flattery, and between receiving encouragement and becoming puffed up. He is also clear on the importance of ‘loving criticism’, ‘the healthy companion of loving encouragement’.
