Book Reviews

Sermons That Shaped America: Reformed Preaching from 1630 to 2001 (P&R Publishing) is a collection of excellent sermons drawn from the Reformed tradition in America. You'll find familiar names like Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards, along with more...

In Preaching the Calendar (Westminster John Knox). J. Ellsworth Kalas offers brief essays on preaching related to Christian and secular holidays (from New Year's to Christmas), and provides sample sermons for each of the 16 holidays...

A related title is Worship at the Next Level (Baker), edited by Tim A. Dearborn and Scott Coll. The emphasis here is on evaluating the contemporary state of Christian worship, and essays are written by a variety of authors, including Robert Webber (who apparently...

Worship has become a topic of debate and conflict in today's church. In an effort to shed light on the issue in a helpful way, editors Paul Engle and Paul Basden have developed Exploring the Worship Spectrum (Zondervan), which surveys six popular worship styles...

A Primer for Pastors by Austin B. Tucker (Kregel) is a helpful survey for new and bi-vocational pastors covering a variety of issues, including preaching, pastoral care, dealing with conflict, and more. Tucker writes out of rich experience, offering practical guidance...

Tony Evans' newest book - Can God Be Trusted in Our Trials? (Moody Press) - provides reassurance to Christians who are in the midst of difficult challenges. The brief (64 pages) volume is very pastoral in tone and offers a number of...

Millions of people have read the bestselling The Da Vinci Code, and not a few may have struggled with the questions raised by this fictional work that purports to be based on an historical foundation. Several recent releases seek to respond to Dan Brown's novel, and one...

Ken Hemphill, one of our authors in this issue, is also the author of Empowering Kingdom Growth: The Heartbeat of God, a new book published by Broadman & Holman. Hemphill is Southern Baptists' national strategist for the Empowering Kingdom Growth initiative...

One of the major trends among American churches is the increasing use of technology. Go into a church built in the last decade and you may or may not find a pulpit, but you will almost certainly find projection screens....

What Does The Lord Require? by James L. Killen is a collection of devotion sermons/meditations on how one lives out his or her...