Journal: Masters Seminary Journal
Volume: TMSJ 04:1 (Spring 1993)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

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MSJ 4:1 (Spr 93) p. 95

Book Reviews

Joe Aldrich. Prayer Summits. Seeking God’s Agenda for Your Community. Portland: Multnomah, 1992. 218 pp. $9.99 (paper). Reviewed by James E. Rosscup, Professor of Bible Exposition.

This book is provocative in many ways, especially in its examples of Christian leaders with doctrinal convictions who work humbly together in an overall unity with Christians of other denominations.

Aldrich, president at Multnomah School of the Bible, Portland, writes about approximately sixty leaders in the state of Washington at a “Prayer Summit” in 1990. They came from churches of Baptist, Church of Christ, and Episcopalian denominations. They prayed, confessed sins, and interceded for each other, while gaining victories over lusts, marital strains, and the sinful judgment of others. They agreed to weekly and monthly area-meetings for purposes of prayer, seeking revival, and drawing their wives into the same experience.

Chapter 2 tells how churches can hinder their corporate Christian impact by fostering disunity. Aldrich decries the practice of non-charismatics bad-mouthing the ministries of charismatics and of independents looking down on mainline churches. He furnishes some explanation of how to foster cooperation, but some readers will wish he were more definitive. His solution is in an analogy: Nehemiah wept, fasted, prayed, confessed Israel’s sins, and sought to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall (Neh 1:4–6; 2:17). Likewise, God’s people need to seek unity. Aldrich needs to grapple more with how to balance contending for doctrinal purity and maintaining Christian love by clarifying specific challenges encountered in seeking this balance. How, for instance, can unity flourish in an environment where faulty exegesis of God’s Word prevails, circulating concepts that can wound the church?

The author regards Hezekiah’s call to Jerusalem as a prototype for revival (2 Chronicles 29–30). Zeal for holiness led to house cleaning, humbling, confessing, and unifying around God. “Lectures wouldn’t have produced this unity,” but worship did (52). Proclaiming God’s Word rightly, though, can be itself a true expression of worship. Aldrich probably did not mean for this “either/or” to apply in every case, but some may get the impression he does. Other passages are explicit that preaching and teaching are crucial aspects in a worship that

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expresses and stimulates unity. Aldrich spells out good principles drawn from Hezekiah’s “prayer summit” (54–57).

To the author, unity is not unanim...

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