REFORMING CHURCH:
How God is at work in Revitalisation
Ministry
By George Crowder
Church Society. 142 pages. £2.99
ISBN 978 1 739 516 017
Reforming Church by George Crowder enters an uncluttered market. As he notes, ‘there were no books about revitalisation in an Anglican setting’. I am not an Anglican, but I am in a revitalisation setting. For independents like me, there is John James’s excellent Renewal.
Crowder blends exposition, experience and church history to make an argument for revitalisation and to equip ministers for revitalisation. I benefitted particularly from Crowder’s Biblical expositions from a number of passages that gave me real hope for revitalisation. He starts the book in Jeremiah 32 reminding us of hope in the midst of doom – an antidote for the dying churches around our country. Unsurprisingly, as an independent minister I didn’t align with Crowder on all his church theology, but nonetheless there was much encouragement for me and I hope I can better serve my Anglican brothers and sisters because of it.