Equipped to Serve - Richard Brews
Published by Christian Focus Publications

This book purports to be a practical approach to serving in the local church.

Richard Bewes uses a mixture of biblical texts, stories and personal anecdotes in order to set out and illustrate the various facets of Christian service.

In the first section he gives lots of helpful hints on how to share your personal story of becoming a Christian with other people. Bewes then proceeds to cover issues such as reading the Bible in public, leading public prayer, and how to plan a meeting. In part two he covers team building and the use and abuse of small group meetings, among other topics. Parts three and four cover evangelism and discipleship. Lastly, he looks at spiritual warfare, prayer and heaven.

Equipped to Serve felt like a series of talks loosely compiled into a book, and consequently it struggled to cohere. It also came across as somewhat dated; the illustrations reminded me of those I heard in the 1970s.

Alan Palmer is the Head of Religious Studies at Culver School.