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'Many churches need a good spring clean. Paul Beasley-Murray challenges us to look again at every facet of church life, from mundane issues like money and church magazines to major matters like prayer and church discipline. Treat this book as a treasure trove of great ideas.'
Steve Gaukroger, Minister of Gold Hill Baptist Church, Buckinghamshire

‘As a minister of a local church, I know how easy it is to become isolated. My experience very quickly becomes confined to my own church’, writes Paul Beasley-Murray. ‘In such a situation it makes such a difference to read how others “do church”, not in order to adopt ideas wholesale, but to take and adapt that which would be appropriate.’

With warmth, originality and skill, Paul Beasley-Murray shares his pastoral wisdom with the wider church family. Topics include:

•Evangelism •Pastoral care •Prayer •The need for retreats •Church discipline •Preserving unity •Hospitality •Celebrating special events

This is a book to dip into again and again. Readers will find it a trusted teacher, guide and stimulus to further thinking. Everywhere the author’s personality shines through, though Paul Beasley-Murray is at pains to point out that he is only a learner, leading a church that is still very much on a journey. Each chapter ends with Scriptures to reflect on.

‘It would be easy to dismiss these fifty short pieces as reflections on secondary matters of church leadership. But that would be a grave mistake. Each piece has been moulded by experience and fashioned by using the tools of a biblical theologian. Their value lies in that they raise the issues most books on ministry fail to address, often because they seem too ordinary. But ministry is mostly made up of the ordinary. Sometimes provocatively, always profitably, Paul Beasley-Murray points to a wise way forward.’
Derek Tidball, Principal of the London School of Theology

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