Book Reviews: Faith Sharing and Faith Sharing Congregations

 I've been off the blog for a few weeks.  August was a little "crowded" with commitments, so I let this one go for a bit.  I hope to be back for a while.  

As you may have gathered from the blog, I'm teaching a CLM course, and reading many books becasuse of it.  I'm trying to write reviews of the books I read, but I behind, both with writing them and posting them. I try not to overwhelm the blog with Book Reviews - my goal being not to post one more often that once every other week.  But for today, I have two. They are both short, and both about the same subject.

Review #1:

Information about the book

H. Eddie Fox and George E. Morris.  Faith Sharing: Dynamic Christian Witnessing by Invitation.  Discipleship Resources, Nashville, TN, 1996.  (Cokesbury / Amazon)

Summary

The purpose of the book is to explain the why, what, who, and how of sharing the good news of Christ.  It is designed to help persons be competent and confident in witnessing. (from Amazon)

Impressions

I liked the book.  An ah-ha moment for me was the explanation of their definition of evangelism - sharing the gospel.  We don't evangelize people; we evangelize the gospel, by word, deed, and sign.  I used the book as a resource to teach the CLM class I am leading. It's focus on the individual's role in evangelism fits well with the book the class was assigned to read: Faith-Sharing Congregation.  A good pair.

The book is written in memory of Harry Denman.  The stories the authors share about Denman are great role models of how to share your faith in relationship with others. 

Posts about book

FoxMorrisSharing

Review #2

Information about the book

Roger K. Swanson and Shirley F. Clement.  Faith Sharing Congregation: Developing a Strategy for the Congregation as Evangelist. Discipleship Resources, Nashville, 2008 (Cokesbury / Amazon)

Summary

The book outlines an evangelism strategy based... on the quality of congregational life.  The resource hammers home the truth that the evangelistic task is the responsibility of the entire congregation - clergy and laity together.  The authors pay particular attention to ministries of hospitality, personal relationships, storytelling, and the domestic church of the family.... (Cokesbury)

Impressions

This was a book assigned to the CLM class to expand on the ideas of Faith Sharing in the general curriculum.  It is specifically about how congregations should be in the ministry of faith sharing and evangelism.  I especially liked its tie to the idea of the Primary task of the church - how faith sharing / evangelism is not a program of the church but is the purpose of the church.

This book works well in conjunction with Faith Sharing by Fox and Morris.  That book is more focused on helping individuals while this one is a guide for congregations.

Posts about book

SwansonFaithSharing

Note: the word under posts about the book is a tag I use to attach any post I write that references the book.  If you are interested, you can click that tag at the bottom of the post to go to more (if there are any).