What the Spirit Is Saying to the Churches

This book as with all his books is awsome. It is very encouraging and for the church of today. It is encouraging and helps a person realize what and where the church is to go today. It helped me to realize that God is working and he does what only he can do if we will listen and obey.He is speaking to the church and very much desiring to work and do the impossible. DC

This book was life-changing for me. It helped me realize that God is in control and is still working miracles today. Many times our faith is too small to follow where He leads us. When we follow Him - even when it makes no sense to us - He will show us his mighty power and do amazing things through those who are willing to follow.

Having been trained in "church-planting" as almost a science, like starting a business (back not many years ago when the "Church" seemed to be caught-up in applying business principles to "doing church" - and maybe still is?), I found Henry Blackaby's book refreshing...and confirming, of what the Spirit seemed to saying to my heart and mind over the years about church-planting. It is God's work, not ours! And that's very much the emphasis of the book, supported with several examples from the author's own experiences as a church-planting pastor, as well as others'. This book has become our recent church-plant-endeavor's guidebook - next to the Bible, of course (which, yes, has plenty to say about church-planting!). I learned the hard way about trying (and watching several other ministers 'trying' at the same time) to plant a church by men's ideas (and, of course, asking God's to bless us in our ideas, even our really clever ideas of how to reach people and enfold them - none of which, in the end, worked). There are true principles, even Biblically-based principles - but it still doesn't mean you can take them and run with them as you please; at least not in doing God's work in church-planting. Blackaby's book ought to be read by every wide-eyed seminarian (or young, naive pastor) getting ready to conquer the unchurched world, armed with every book on church-planting strategies. His message is an important reminder, that behind all the principles and methodologies, if you aren't truly moving in God's timing and guidance and provision - well, you're only going to get what YOU can do, not what HE will do. Unfortunately, I didn't come across Blackaby's little gem until I'd learned this the hard way, by some 16 years of doing it according to my extensive church-planting training. Not that there aren't certainly good principles and methods to learn; but you can't substitute them for abiding so closely to He Who is the Real Church-Planter, that you are truly 'led by the Spirit' in the work. Church History records so many amazing moves of God's Spirit in building His Church in such unusual ways - I guess you just can't put God in a box, or even a method. E.M.Bounds put it this way, echoing the message of Blackaby's book, "Men are looking for better methods; God is looking for better men."