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From embers to a flame

How God can revitalize your church

Dying church?

FROM EMBERS TO A FLAME
How God can revitalize your church
By Harry L Reeder III
P&R Publishing. 218 pages. £6.00
ISBN 978-1596380714

This arrived on my doorstep unexpectedly — it was sent to all FIEC pastors as an accompaniment for the Embers to a Flame conference the FIEC is running in November in conjunction with Emmanuel and Associates Christian Ministries.

I must admit that I was sceptical — was this just another of those church growth books we have all encountered from the US in recent years? I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Harry Reeder is an experienced minister in the Presbyterian Church in America — one of USA’s largest Reformed evangelical denominations. He has been instrumental in turning round the fortunes of at least two of the denomination’s churches in his pastoral ministry. The book concerns church health more than church growth — a subject which should surely interest us all, given the number of churches and chapels which regularly close in the UK in these days.

The book is really structured around the words Remember, Repent, and Recover — the blueprint for church health which the author gleans from Revelation 2.5 (Jesus’s words to the church in Ephesus). The church in Ephesus was, according to the NT, a quite healthy church but was now failing. Reeder goes on to describe ten revitalisation strategies, based on the three concepts — which include: connect to the past (remember), a call to repentance (repent), gospel-driven and Christ-centred ministry, intercessory prayer, preaching, staying on a mission, servant leadership and a commitment to the Great Commission (recover the first things). There is an interesting appendix on the prayer of Jabez.

I would heartily recommend this book to readers — especially those in smaller churches, and their leaders and pastors. Much of the material would not be completely new to some (there are overlaps with Mark Dever’s 9 Marks of a Healthy Church and John Benton’s The Big Picture for Small Churches), but what is different here is the way and order in which material is presented, as a plan to bring new life to ailing causes. I would view the book as a compliment to the Church Restoration Working Group ministry of FIEC (which I would also commend to the churches). I am looking forward to the aforementioned conference (details available from FIEC office)!

Andrew Mumford,
UEC pastor, Rayleigh