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Transform Your Church: 50 Very Practical Steps

Reviewed by Alun Brookfield.

Paul Beasley-Murray will be well known to readers of Ministry Today as its chairman and also as Senior Minister of Central Baptist Church, Chelmsford. He writes always with a wealth of experience as pastor of a local church, wedded to a profound theological awareness.

This book has its origins in a year-long series of articles published in the Baptist Times, so each chapter is short and to the point, and ends with a group of “Scriptures to reflect upon”. Some chapters read rather like recycled sermons, but are none the worse for that, since Paul is a gifted communicator and his boundless energy shines through in everything he says and does.

He writes as a Baptist, but most of this book is about pastoral ministry in general and could therefore apply to leaders in any denomination.

This is a book full of sanctified common sense and well worth buying, especially if one has been in a church for some years and one is looking for fresh input. It’s not that Paul is saying anything particularly revolutionary, new or radical, but that he draws together so much of the day to day business of ministry in a single, highly readable book.

One or two chapters will, however, be controversial for some. For example, he encourages us to “marry divorcees” and to regard co-habitees as “couples on the way to marriage”. More controversial for this reviewer, however, is what he doesn’t include. There is, for example, no chapter on providing safe spaces for the vulnerable and the marginalised, such as homosexual or lesbian couples, or asylum seekers.

Buy this book, read a chapter at coffee time every day, and you’ll find yourself drawn into Paul Beasley-Murray’s world of creative thinking, where your pastoral ‘blind spots’ will be challenged and your energy renewed.