Creative Mission Rona Orme £8.99, Barnabas for Children • ISBN: 978-1-84101-806-5


I was keen to grasp the opportunity to review Rona Orme’s book and was not disappointed as I turned its pages. It has plenty of creative ideas for working with children and families. Churches whose liturgical life follows the church calendar will be delighted to find a variety of ideas they can use. Key secular events are also found alongside various festivals.


Good ideas will be found for most ages and Rona suggests using a variety of venues. Some events will need more organising than others. Some can be put on in church while others would be better in a school or public hall, and an admission charge could be made. What they all have in common is that they are


designed mostly to be relevant for those on the fringes of the churches. While not written exclusively for rural churches this is a resource that will be valued by any country parish.


While the author’s Anglican context is evident in the layout of the ideas within the book it should prove helpful to those churches that are less liturgical or that do not follow the Christian calendar. Everything is Bible-based and three useful indexes will help anyone to navigate their way through the book. There are also useful resources listed in the appendices.


Barry Osborne


Reimagining Ministry David Heywood £19.99 SCM • ISBN 978-0-334-04367-6


If you are the kind of person who routinely skips the introduction to a book then with this book you will miss out big time! The introduction looks at the expectations of ordained clergy, how those expectations have arisen and why they are no longer (if indeed they ever were) realistic.


Having set out the problem in the introduction, the book then sets out a way forward in the following chapters. The answer lies in a reimagining of the church’s mission, something which is already happening with the increasing emphasis on mission and evangelism over recent years. The mission of the whole church, lay and ordained, is to work for the Kingdom, working in partnership with others. As the task is for the whole church, then lay people develop as ‘ordinary’ theologians – people who grapple with the issues of life from a perspective of faith.


In this context the role of the ordained changes from the unsustainable professionalism described in the introduction to working collaboratively. The book makes the point that Jesus was the only single leader in the New Testament, the rest were teams overseeing local ministry.


The book has much to offer. I would commend it to anyone contemplating ordination or other authorised ministry. Where I felt it was slightly weaker was in addressing churches whose imagination doesn’t get beyond trying to keep the show on the road as it is, or whose focus is almost entirely on a fondly imagined time 50 years ago. Perhaps a study guide for PCCs would help.


Robert Barlow Worcestershire


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