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Ministry in the Spirit According to PaulIf you’re looking for a book to give you the latest tips on how to grow a church, improve your leadership strategies or increase your church’s budget, don’t get this one. Brian Dodd’s Empowered Church Leadership: Ministry in the Spirit According to Paul (IVP, 2003) boldly takes on the current strategies of the church-world and argues forcefully for a return to the biblical model of church leadership.

Pastors need to read this book. Dodd challenges our common presuppositions by comparing our Western notions of “success” to the ministry of the apostles. Dodd walks us through Paul’s letters, encouraging us to pick up our crosses, to pay the price of following Christ, and surrender to the Holy Spirit’s power and not rely on our own inventions. A book steeped in Scripture, Empowered Church Leadership points us back to God as our source of power, not the clever marketing gimmicks of leadership gurus who have dressed up their worldly principles in Christian garb.

One word of caution, however. In his challenge for us to imitate Paul’s ministry, Dodd emphasizes reliance on the Holy Spirit for guidance, sometimes to the exclusion of Scripture. One cannot accuse Dodd for downplaying Scripture – this book is filled with Scriptural references. But when Dodd is writing of authority and apostolic leadership, he writes very little about the importance of the Word, a weakness that could be detrimental to churches without a solid biblical foundation.

Empowered Church Leadership has a message that we in the West need to hear. Dodd encourages us to follow Jesus’ and Paul’s example: the upside-down model that turns the wisdom of the world on its head in its call for radical self-sacrifice.

written by Trevin Wax. © 2007 Kingdom People Blog

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