Café

With this brief guide, Matthias Media appears to be leaping on the success of its 2009 release, The Trellis and the Vine, by providing a practical handbook for the bread-and-butter task of "vine growing": reading the bible with another person.

Swept into the drawing room intrigues of her friends, she is encouraged to write music by another man, an awkward and handsome prince. We feel the injustice and are tempted to hope for release and glory, from father and prince both, but it's hard to forget that the subject is, after all, only Mozart's sister.

Have you ever noticed how we sometimes do a strange compartmentalisation of our Christian lives? We put certain things in the "God box" - church events, evangelism, bible studies - and everything else in a separate container. It's often referred to as the secular/sacred divide. The things in the God box are sacred; everything else - our work, community involvement, ordinary home life - is secular and by default is sometimes treated as being less important. If that's been your Christian experience Timothy Keller's "Gospel in Life" course is the perfect antidote. It's born out of a view that all of life can be sacred; that all of life can, and should be, lived to the glory of God.

One of the great strengths of this book is how empowering it is. We can sometimes think "ministry" is for the select, professional few. But the model of ministry Jesus provides undermines this. Preparing and then sharing a meal with someone while you speak about the things of God is ministry, and we can all do that. Discipleship and evangelism done over a meal "undermines the professionalisation of ministry" (p. 91).

John Dickson reasonably assumes humility is a prized virtue in western culture. Whether or not individuals widely aspire to it may be a different story and one he touches on just a little in his new book written for business managers and leaders. The foundation of his thesis however is that western people appreciate humility when they see it.