The Gospel-Driven Church: Retrieving Classical Ministries for Contemporary Revivalism (Deep Church Series)

Charismatic renewal has at the core of its ideology an aspiration for revival.

This is a laudable aspiration, but in recent years, in the absence of a large-scale evangelistic impact, it has encouraged a faddist mentality among church leaders. The Gospel-Driven Church documents this development and the numerous theological and pastoral distortions that take place when genuine revival fervor transmutes into revivalism. Moreover, Stackhouse aims to show how a retrieval of some of the core practices of the church, such as preaching, sacraments, the laying on of hands, and prayer is essential at this crucial stage in the trajectory of the renewal movement in the United Kingdom. He commends to church leaders a recovery of these means of grace - including Spirit baptism - as a way of keeping the church centered on the gospel rather than mere pragmatic concerns about size and numbers.

Ian Stackhouse is pastoral leader of Guildford Baptist Church.