The Pastor’s Soul – The Call and Care of an Undershepherd by Brian Croft and Jim Savastio, published by Evangelical Press (2018).

Conrad Mbewe suggests that this book should be read by pastors at least once a year as a spiritual health check. I agree. Especially Part One where Paul’s command to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:16) is considered in four ways: ‘Take heed…’ to yourself, to your doctrine, to your flock, because it matters. This is a pithy and powerful section which caused a lot of reflection, a good deal of confession, and left me feeling not so much lifted up as sobered down. And this is testimony to the spiritual quality of the book. It is searching, even searingly honest about a pastor’s inner life. It challenges the danger of professionalism, and stresses the need to feed first on God’s words in order to feed others also. To be worshippers leading the worship.

Another danger is drift: doctrinal, but also more subtly, personal. Have I lost my way, my zeal, my vision? Become too comfortable, presumptuous, self satisfied? These are important considerations, and the book is valuable for raising them because they certainly won’t be provoked by the world, the flesh and the devil!

One minor gripe is the structure of the material overall in the book. It seems a bit stitched together rather than a smooth logical progression. However it is all there and worth getting at. If it stirs up a fresh sense of the need of the Holy Spirit’s anointing upon a ministry, a burden of prayer for it, then this book may be a real means of ministerial revival. God grant it to be so!

Jeremy