Dancing in the Dark: The Privilege of Participating in the Ministry of Christ
This is the last book on the bibliography list for one of my current college subjects, and the one I’ve chosen to write a 1500 word book review on. It’s also the book that I’ve enjoyed least.
Buxton has a lot of different ideas: perhaps his main one is to relax and enjoy life, and your relationship with God. He warns pastors not to fall into the “church growth” trap of following different strategies, but to trust God to work in his church.
It’s not that I disagree with what he’s saying (although the words of prophecy and visions that he cites on occasion I found somewhat jarring), but I found the way that he’d put his book together to be quite hard to read. He oscillates between academic language (does anyone know what perichoresis is without looking it up?) and more accessible prose, and he devotes a lot more time to developing his ideas than to applying them, which I found frustrating after reading so many practical books.
My recommendation is to flick through the book’s many references, and read a couple of his cited authors that you find yourself unfamiliar with: I’m unable to recommend this book itself.