Planting, watering, growing, Edt Hyde & Lems

At the start of 2011 I set out to read as many church planting books as I could. This has definitely been the best. It was the sub title that caught my attention: Planting confessionally reformed churches in the 21st century. The book is a collection of papers, twenty one in all covering every aspect of church planting. There are four main parts to this book: The foundation of church planting; The methods of church planting; The work of church planting and The context of church planting. Michael Horton is the best known of the contributors. Any one interested in church planting needs to read this book. It is scholarly enough to be part of a college course and readable enough for benefit to all. A good book to study with a fellow church planter. Fuel for the fire.

Publisher: Reformation heritage books. £14.00

Planting New Churches, Ed Stetzer

This is supposed to be the A-Z on church planting from one of the leading church planting gurus. It is a substantial volume of over 30 chapters with a mountain of references. Stetzer has obviously done quite a bit of research for this volume but sadly his field of planters seems rather limited with not a hint of a confessional or presbyterian planters in view . While there was much that was interesting in this volume I had some major criticisms. The writer's comment that the reformation church was not a mission church is simply not true. That got under my skin early on in the volume. I did find his section on what makes a church planter and the section on understanding the culture helpful. However the lists of nuts and bolts on planting was rather tedious and a tad American. I am glad that I persevered to the end and found some helpful points to reflect on. Generally a useful read.