Mary Davis (5)

Persistently Preaching Christ: Fifty years of Bible ministry in a Cambridge church is a book that lays out the profound impact two men had as they served as the pastors of a church in Cambridge, England. These two men, Mark Ruston and Mark Ashton, had long pastorates, serving the congregation of the Round Church for a combined total of 55 years. To borrow from the hymn, they touched the congregation in ways that were both deep and wide.

The book opens with an introductory chapter by Ashton outlining what he believes are the eight key convictions about the local church. Following this Ash, Davis and White tell the story of the pastors and the church through chapters that walk through different phases of the church while Ruston and Ashton served there. Each chapter concludes with one or two brief personal reflections by a member of the church at that time. At the end of the book are a larger number of personal thoughts from church members about the influence the pastors and the congregation, influence that has lasted a lifetime in many cases.

Throughout the book the unifying factor is that both preachers were committed to preaching Christ, i.e. preaching in a manner that consistently focused on Christ and his work of salvation. They did this no matter what book of the Bible they preached from and they were conscientious about preaching from the whole Bible, not following the lectionary or staying to their own personal favorite passages.

In the many personal comments by people who sat under their preaching it is evident that both pastors were used powerfully of God, not because of their own personal attributes, but because they believed in, and always pointed their listeners to, a powerful God.

Because this book is written by English authors, for what I assume they considered to be a largely English audience, there are a fair number of references and idiosyncrasies that are more readily understood by people who more naturally inhabit that culture than the American culture I live in. That was a minor distraction for me as a reader, particularly in comparison to the riches in Christ that were evident time and again on each page.… (mere)