My favourite American

I am often accused of being anti American but that isn't true. I'm a big fan of some Americans:  Don Carson, David Wells, Tim Challies to name just 3.  My favourite American of the moment is Steve Smallman. Steve has written a terrific little booklet on What is Discipleship?. It's aimed at church leaders in getting us to think through issues of whether our congregations are making mature disciples.

 
It is a truly terrifying thing when you realise just how little people who have sat under good preaching for decades actually take in. I detest programmes and IPC is in sanctified chaos but, in obeying Jesus' commands to make disicples, that surely means there must be some deliberate thought put into how we go about that. Steve's book is a great help in this.
 
We've started a Westminster Confession class on Sunday mornings before the service and I've been amazed how the punters love it. We're going throgh the Heidelberg Catechism on Sunday mornings and evenings as a confession of faith and I get far more emails about that than I do about my sermons (when I say far more I mean I get maybe one email about the catechism and none about the sermon!). It's made me think in the UK we're doctrine shy and if we don't teach people doctrine we'll never make disciples.
 

Steve has also written a book called ''The Walk - steps for new and renewed followers of Jesus'' which is a guide through Mark's gospel. It is supposed to be excellent but I've not read it yet!