Each week, the Flourish team would like to recommend resources that will help you on your journey of Church Renewal. While we don’t endorse every single idea from every single resource we are attempting to cultivate a useful resource list for you.
Resource: Gospel Fluency, by Jeff Vanderstelt Background: Jeff Vanderstelt (too little bio here, more than bio but fascinating here) is a rare person. He is both very sharp theologically (As an acquaintance I’ve heard him call himself “the dumb Keller”; but he’s not dumb. However, he does make Keller’s gospel insights more accessible by blue collar and less educated folks.) and is a master practitioner. He walks what he teaches. And what he teaches is life-changing because he teaches people how to understand and apply the gospel to all of life.
Take-aways: One of the most important things to Flourish is to help church leaders (pastors, elders, community group leaders, staff members, etc.) “get” the gospel as it applies to the ins and outs, ups and downs of daily and weekly ministry life. Jeff helps ministry leaders and believers answer the most critical question one could ask and answer, “How does the gospel apply to this?” Gospel Fluency also helps believers learn how to give the gospel away to others, both believers and unbelievers. This is critical to church renewal; if the gospel is “working” for me in my daily life, I find it easier and more joyful to give away to you.
Bonus content: If I haven’t convinced you to pick up this book, perhaps this review by Pastor J.A. Medders on the Gospel Coalition website will motivate you. Alternately, you can hear Jeff speak to this content in the first five talks on this YouTube playlist.
